PS
68:19-20 MT text and pointing
.μyhOila‘
Hy: ˆKov]li μyrrI“/s 5a'w “ μd:a;B; t/nT;m' T;j]q'l; ybiV, t;ybiv;
μ/rM;l' t;yli[;
19
You
went up to the high place; You took captivity captive; You took gifts in Adam
Indeed,
corrupt ones … to dwell … Yah God.
.hl;s, Wnte[;Wvy“ laeh; Wnl;Asm;[}y" μ/y
μ/y yn:doa} ËWrB; 20
Blessed
be the Lord daily; the God of our
salvation will bear the burden for us.
Ps
67:19, LXX text
19 ανεβης εις υψος ηχμαωτευσας αιχμαλωσιαν,
ελαβες δοματα εν ανθρωπω,
και γαρ απειθουντες του κατασκηνωσαι.
Κυριος ο θεος ευλογητος,
20 ευλογητος Κυριος ημεραν καθ' ημεραν,
κατευοδωσει ημιν ο θεος των σωτηριων ημων. Διαψαλμα.
19 ανεβης εις υψος ηχμαωτευσας αιχμαλωσιαν,
ελαβες δοματα εν ανθρωπω,
και γαρ απειθουντες του κατασκηνωσαι.
Κυριος ο θεος ευλογητος,
20 ευλογητος Κυριος ημεραν καθ' ημεραν,
κατευοδωσει ημιν ο θεος των σωτηριων ημων. Διαψαλμα.
19 You
went up to a high place … you took captivity captive … you took gifts in man
And indeed, rebellious ones among the living (ao
inf).
Blessed is the Lord God
20 Blessed
is the Lord day by day … The God of our salvation will cause us to prosper.
Eph
4:8 citation of Ps 68:19
When
He went to a high place, He took captivity captive
He
gave gifts to the people
Evaluation
Virtually
every translation one may look at, both ancient and modern, provides a
different reading for this passage, indicating the difficulty in determining,
or at least in rendering, its intended meaning.
Clearly, the second half of verse 19 consists of just words without any
syntactical relation to one another.
This has led the editors of Biblia
Hebraica to assert that the text is corrupt even though there is no
evidence of textual corruption within the Masoretic tradition. In my opinion, the Hebrew text is not
corrupt, but it is not possible to produce a smooth translation of it into any
other language. There are two reasons
for this:
·
This is a song that was intended to be
sung. The lyrics of a song do not always
follow the strict syntax of prose either in ancient Hebrew or in any other
language.
· Classical Hebrew poetry did not use
rhyme. Rather, it used rhythm,
alliteration, and parallelism as dominant features. When part of the grammatical structure in a
song or poem was left out of a particular clause or phrase, parallel elements
of the same verse, or near context provided the missing elements.
If
the immediate context and parallelism are used as the basis for interpretation,
the following observations result:
1. Verse
18b introduces Sinai as the immediate context, so Exodus 19 and 20 provide the
historical context for verse 19.
2. You
went up to the high place. (Refers to
the visual appearance of God on the top of Sinai)
3. You
took captivity captive. (There is no
place where God either took or commanded the taking of captives. But in the context of Exodus 20, God had just
previously ended the captivity of Israel at the hands of the Egyptians.)
4. You
took gifts in Adam. (The verb j3q3l has a wide range of
meanings, including ‘take, choose a wife.’
It can also be used for ‘receive,’ but God ‘received’ no offerings at
Sinai. He did formally take Israel as His
special people (His bride) from among the human family.
As a suggestion, this may be one of Paul’s sources for his teaching
about ‘in Adam’ found in Romans 5.)
5. And
indeed, rebellious ones… (The Children
of Israel whom He chose for Himself were characterized by repeated
rebelliousness up to the meeting at Sinai and thereafter.)
6. To
dwell… (The purpose of His choice of a people was for them to dwell with Him
and for Him to dwell among them.) See
Exodus 15:17, among others.
7. Yah-God
(Exclamation!!!)
8. The Septuagint
translation is a fairly literal rendering of the Hebrew text, except the translator
attached the text for μyhOila‘ Hy: to the next
verse.
9. Paul’s
citation of verse 18 makes three changes in the Greek text:
·
The finite verb forms are changed from second
person to third person.
·
Changes ελαβες (you took) to εδωκεν (he gave).
·
Changes εν ανθρωπω (dative signular) to τοις ανθρωποις (dative plural).
10. God
took a people for Himself from those in Adam.
This was a gift from the Father to the Son (cf., John 17:6-8). The purpose of this gift was ‘to dwell’ – for
them to dwell with Him and for Him to dwell among them. For this to happen, the ‘rebellious ones’ had
to be changed. This is the basis for
God’s gift to men.
No comments:
Post a Comment