THE
BOOK OF PSALMS
A NEW TRANSLATION
WITH
INTRODUCTIONS AND
NOTES
EXPLANATORY AND
CRITICAL
By
J.
J. STEWART PEROWNE,
Canon
Residentiary of Llandaff
Hulsean Professor of
Divinity at
Hon. Chaplain
to the Queen
Late Praelector in Theology and
Fellow of
VOL. I
PSALMS 1-72
George Bell and Sons in 1878, 4th
edition.
Digitized by Ted
Hildebrandt: Gordon College 2006
with the help of Kim Spaulding, Apurva
Thanju, and Brianne Records
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
ALTHOUGH the Fourth Edition of this
work does not differ
very materially from those that
have preceded it, either in
the translation or in the
notes, yet in one respect it will
I hope, be found much more
complete and accurate. In
preparing it, I have had the
advantage of consulting
many original authorities in
Talmudical and Rabbinical
literature which before were
not within my reach, and I
have consequently been able to
correct several errors of
quotation from these sources,
some of which have found
their way into many commentaries,
one writer having often
merely copied and repeated the
blunders of another. And,
further, I have had throughout
the valuable assistance of
Dr. Schiller-Szinessy, the
learned Reader in Talmudical and
Rabbinical Literature in this
University, who is a master
of Jewish lore, and who has
most kindly spared no labour
in verifying and correcting my
references. Their greater
accuracy is, in a large
measure, due to the conscientious
care which he has bestowed upon
them, and of which
I am the more sensible, because
I know that it has been
viii PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
bestowed notwithstanding the
pressure of other numerous
and heavy engagements. It is a
pleasure to me to take
this opportunity of expressing
my obligations to him, and
my sense of the ready kindness
with which his learning is
always placed at the disposal
of others.
March
7, 1878.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
IN preparing a Third Edition of this work for the press,
I have availed myself of the
following critical aids and
authorities:--
I. Baer's critical text of the Psalter. His preface on
the
Metrical Accentuation of the
Poetical Books deserves notice.
2. Field's admirable Edition of Origen's Hexapla. I have
corrected by reference to it
many quotations which were
given in my former editions on
the authority of Montfaucon.
3. Moll's Commentary in Lange's Bibelwerk.
4. The 2nd Edition of Delitzsch's Psalter.
5. The 3rd Edition of Ewald's work on the Psalms.
6. The 2nd Edition of Hitzig's Commentary.
7. Dr. Kay's Psalms with Notes.
8. Professor Conant's Translation.
9. The 2nd Edition of Dr. Phillip's Commentary.
My special thanks are due to R.
L. Bensly, Esq., Fellow of
Gonville and
revise the sheets of the work
as it passed through the press;
to his knowledge and accuracy I
am greatly indebted.
April 22, 1873.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE
Second Edition of this work will not be found to differ
very
materially from the First. I have made a few additions,
more
particularly to the Critical Notes in some of the earlier
Psalms;
and I have corrected errors wherever I have dis-
covered
them, or where they have been pointed out to me
by
friends. All the references have been carefully revised.
Many
of the apparent mistakes in the references of the First
Edition
were due to my having used the Hebrew Bible,
without
taking due care to mark where the Hebrew divisions
of
chapters or verses varied from the English. Where these
differ,
it will now be found, I hope, that both references are
given,
those to the Hebrew text being enclosed in square
brackets.
If, however, the double reference has still been
omitted
in some cases, it may be borne in mind that in all
Psalms
which have an inscription, the inscription is reckoned
as
a verse (occasionally as two verses) in the Hebrew text,
whereas
this is not the case in the English. Consequently
the
first verse in the English may be the second or even the
third
in the Hebrew, and so on all through. In the Critical
Notes
the references are always to the Hebrew text.
xii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In revising my translation I have
approached in several
instances
more nearly to the Authorized Version, and I have
more
frequently than before left the literal rendering of a
clause
for the note, giving the freer and more idiomatic in the
text.
In doing this, I have listened to the suggestions of my
critics,
some of whom, not agreeing in other respects, have
agreed
in censuring my trnaslation. And now as there is at
last
some reasonable hope that a revision of our Authorized
Version
will be undertaken by competent scholars, this ques-
tion
of translation possesses far more than a merely personal
or
temporary interest. Even a translator who has failed, if
he
has done his work honestly and conscientiously, may be a
beacon,
if he cannot be a guide, to those who come after him.
I
shal therefore be pardoned perhaps, if I discuss more fully
than
I should otherwise have done, some of the points that
have
been raised.
The objections that have been
brought against me are of
this
kind. One of my reviewers observes that, after having
said
that I had not “needlessly departed” from our Authorized
Version,
I have “judged if needful often enough to give an
entirely
new air to my translation.” Another
writes: “The
gain
which is acquired by the greater accurarcy of the version
by
no means compensates for the loss of harmony and
rhythm
and sweetness, both of sound and of association.
An
English reader could undrestand the Psalms no
better,
and
he could not enjoy them half so well.”
I have been
charged
with going directly against “existing standards of
public
tastes and feeling,” in following the Hebrew order of
the
words, where such order is not the most natural in
English.
This is “to undo the work of such men as
Wordsworth
and Tennyson.” Again, “In the original, the
paronomasia
or alliteration” [to preserve which the structure
of
the sentence in English has been made to accomodate
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xiii
itself
to the structure in Hebrew] “amounts only to a delicate
hint,
which may pass unnoticed except to an observant eye;
in
the translation it obtrudes itself as a prominent feature of
the
style.” And both critics concur in thinking that I have
myself
fallen into the very errors in point of taste which
I
have condemned in other translations.
Now I may at once say that to some
extent, if not to the
whole
extent alleged by the reviewers, I plead guilty to the
indictment.
I have carried minute and punctilious accuracy
too
far. I have sometimes adhered too closely, without any
adequate
and compensating result, to the order of the words
in
the Hebrew. It will be an evidence of the sincerity of my
reprentance
on this head, that in the present edition I have in
many
instnaces corrected both the one fault and the other.
But
I cannot concede all that the critics demand of me.
I. In the first place, I did not
say, in the preface to my
first
edition, that I had not “needlessly departed from our
Authorized
Version,” but that I had “not needlessly departed
from
the sound English of our Authorized
Version;” and
my
meaning was evident, because I immediately gave as
instances
of departure the use of the verb “to seize” and
of
the noun “sympathy.”*
2. In the next place, I feel quite
sure that those who lay
so
much stress upon “harmony and rhythm and sweetness,”
are
thinking more of the Prayer-Book Version of the Psalms,
than
of that of King James’s translators. The former is far
more
musical, more balanced, and also more paraphrastic
than
the latter; and from constantly hearing it read in the
Church
Services, we have become so thoroughly habituated
to
it that almost any departure from its well-known cadences
* So it ought to have stood: the
verb “to sypmpathize” was put by
mistake
for the noun “sympathy.” I have only used it once in Ps. lxix.,
and
there to express a Hebrew noun which occurs nowhere else.
xiv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
offends
the ear. Indeed our familiarity with this version is
such,
that not only would most English Churchmen having
occasion
to quote a verse of a Psalm quote it as it stands in
the
Prayer-Book, but they would often be very much sur-
prised
if they were told that the very sense of the Bible
Version
was different. Of the multitude of persons who are
familiar
with the phrase, "The iron entered into his soul," how
many
are aware that the rendering in our Bible is, “He was
laid
in iron” There can be no question as to which is
the
more rhythmical and the more expressive; but there can
also
be no question that the Authorized Version faithfully
represents
the Hebrew, which the other does not. It would
be
no difficult task to quote a number of passages from the
Bible
Version of the Psalms which fail essentially in rhythm
just
because they are faithful to the original.
Take for instance the following (Ps.
lviii. 7):—"Let them
melt
away as waters which run continually:
when he bendeth
his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be
as cut in pieces."
Now contrast with this the freer but
inaccurate rendering
of
the Prayer-Book Version:--"Let them fall away like water
that
runneth apace; and when they shoot their arrows, let
them
be rooted out."
Again, the Bible version of lix. 19
is:---"God shall hear
and
afflict them, even He that abideth of old. Because they
have
no changes, therefore they fear not God."
Whereas the Prayer-Book Version
(again very inaccurate,
but
much smoother) is:—"Yea, even God, that endureth for
ever,
shall hear me, and bring them down: for they will not
turn
nor fear God."
In the Bible, Ps. lxviii. 19
stands:—"Thou, 0 God, didst
send
a plentiful rain, whereby Thou didst confirm Thine
inheritance,
when it was weary."
In the Prayer-Book Version it
is: “Thou, 0 God, sentest
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xv
a
gracious rain upon Thine inheritance, and refreshedst it
when
it was weary."
Or compare the two versions in xlix.
7-9, or in cxxx.
1-4,
and the same phenomenon presents itself, as it does in
many
other instances; the Bible is the more accurate, the
Prayer-Book
the more rhythmical version. But if this is the
case,
then in estimating a new translation, the object of which
is
avowedly to give as exactly as possible the sense of the
original,
justice requires that it should be compared with the
language
of the Authorized Version, not with that of the
Prayer-Book.
3. Thirdly, I have been censured for
adhering too closely to
the
form of the Hebrew, both in its idiom and in the structure
of
the clauses. Perhaps I have gone too far in this direction.
But
before a question of this kind can be decided, it is im-
portant
to lay down as clearly as possible to the mind what
it
is we aim at in a translation. "There are two maxims of
translation,"
says Goethe: "the one requires that the author
of
a foreign nation be brought to us in such a manner that we
may
regard him as our own; the other, on the contrary, de-
mands
of us that we transport ourselves over to him, and,
adopt
his situation, his mode of speaking, his peculiarities.
The
advantages of both are sufficiently known to all in-
structed
persons, from masterly examples." Each of these
methods
"is good," says Mrs. Austin, the accomplished trans-
lator
of Ranke's History of the Popes,
"with relation to its ends
—the
one when matter alone is to be transferred, the other
when
matter and form." And she adds very truly: "The
praise
that a translated work might be taken for an original,
is
acceptable to the translator only when the original is a work
in
which form is unimportant." She
instances Pope's Homer
as
essentially a failure, because we want to know not only
what Homer said, but how he said it. "A light
narrative," she
xvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
continues,
“a scientific exposition, or a plain statement of
facts,
which pretends to nothing as a work of art, cannot be
too
thoroughly naturalized. Whatever may be thought of the
difficulties
in the way of this kind of translation, they are
slight
compared with those attending the other kind, as any-
body
who carefully studies the masterpieces in this way must
perceive.
In the former kind the requisites are two—the
meaning
of the author, and a good vernacular style; in the
latter,
the translator has, as far as possible, to combine with
these
the idiomatic tone of the author—to place him before
the
reader with his national and individual
peculiarities of
thought
and of speech. The more rich, new, and striking these
peculiarities
are, the more arduous will the task become; for
there
is manifestly a boundary-line, difficult if not impossible
to
define, beyond which the most courageously faithful trans-
lator
dares not venture, under pain of becoming unreadable.
This
must be mainly determined by the plasticity of his lan-
guage,
and by the taste of his fellow-countrymen. A German
translator
can effect, and may venture, more than an Egnlish;
an
English than a French;--and this, not only because his
language
is more fulll and pliant, but because Germans have
less
nationality, and can endure unusual forms of speech for
the
sake of gaining accurate insight into the characteristics of
the
literature of other countries.”
It is on these grounds that Mrs.
Austin defends her own
“Germanisms”
in her translation of Goethe into English.
It
is on similar grounds that I would defend “Hebraisms”
in
the rendering of the Psalms and the poetical portion
of
the Hebrew Scriptures into English. In the poetry of a
people,
more than in any other species of literature, form is
of
importance. Hence we find Mrs. Austin, whose skill as
a
translator has been universally admitted, not shunning
*Characteristics of Goethe, vol. i.
pp. xxxv-xxxxvii.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xvii
inversions
of language in her translations from Goethe, where
“fidelity”
and “literalness” are her object. Thus, for in-
stance,
the lines in the Metamorphose der Pflanzen:
“Dich verwirret, Geliebte, die
tausendfaltige Mischung,
Dieses Blumengewuhls uber dem Garten umber;”
are
rendered by her—
“Thee perplexes, beloved, the
thousandfold intermixture
Of this flowery throng, around in the garden.”
And
again,
“Blattlos aber und schnell erhebt
sich der zartere Stengel,
Und ein Wundergebild zieht den Betrachtenden an,”
is
translated—
“Leafless, however, and rapid, up
darts the slenderer flower-stalk,
And a wonderful picture attracts the observer’s eye.”
I have in the same way deliberately
preferred, where the
English
idiom did not absolutely forbid it, to retain the order
of
the words in the Hebrew, because I felt that in sacrificing
the
form, I should be inflicting a loss upon the reader. How-
ever,
as I said, in revising my work I have somewhat
modified
my practice in this respect, and have contented
myself
on several occasions with putting the more literal
rendering
in a note.
4. Besides being guilty of too great
“punctiliousness” and
“inelegance,”
where idiom and harmony are concerned, I
have
sinned, according to one of my reviewers,* in the intro-
duction
of the word “Jehovah” instead of “the Lord,” which
has
for centuries been its customary equivalent. The change,
he
says, would be perfectly legitimate, if I were professing to
make
everything give way to verbal exactness. But as I
allow
other considerations to come in, he thinks that the
perpetual
recurrence of the Hebrew form of the word is in
the
highest degree strange and unpleasant. “As the name
*Saturday Review, July 2, 1864.
xviii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
had
fallen out of use in the Jewish Church, and never became
current
in the Christian, our old translators did well to prefer
the
idea to the name; and the attempt to bring back the
name
seems now to force into prominence its local and
national
character, where everything calls for a word which
has
nothing local or national about it." In reply to these
objections,
it might be almost sufficient to observe that in
retaining
the Hebrew name I have only followed the example
of
every modern translator of eminence. But of course it is
still
a question for consideration, whether there are sufficient
grounds
for the change. I think there are very
cogent
grounds,
which the reviewer in his dislike of novelty, or his
dislike
of Puritanism, has entirely overlooked, (I) In the
first
place, our translators in their use of the word "Lord"
make
no distinction between two names, "Jehovah and
"Adonai,"
perfectly distinct in Hebrew, and conveying
different
conceptions of God. (2) In the next place, it is
well
known that whole Psalms are characterized, just as
sections
of the Pentateuch are characterized, by peculiar
names
of God, and it is surely of some importance to retain as
far
as possible these characteristic features, especially when
critical
discussions have made them prominent, and questions
of
age and authorship have turned upon them. (3) What the
reviewer
regards as a disagreeable innovation, has been held
by
very good authorities to be a desirable emendation in our
Authorized
Version. "Why continue the translation of the
Hebrew
into English," says Coleridge, "at
second hand,
through
the medium of the Septuagint? Have we not
adopted
the Hebrew word Jehovah? Is not the Ku<rioj, or Lord,
of
the Septuagint, a Greek substitute in countless instances
for
the Hebrew, Jehovah? Why not, then,
restore the
original
word; and in the Old Testament religiously render
Jehovah,
by Jehovah; and every text in the New Testament,
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xix
referring
to the Old, by the Hebrew word in the text referred
to?"*
No one could be a better judge on such a point than one
who,
like Coleridge, was both poet and critic; and it is observ-
able
that he would have carried the change even farther than
to
confine it to the Old Testament. And the late Professor
Blunt,
quoting this passage, remarks that "though we may
not
agree with him to the full extent of his conclusion that
‘had
this been done, Socinianism would have been scarcely
possible
in
translation
of the divine name has had its effect in fostering it."†
(4)
If owing to merely superstitious scruples the name fell
out
of use in the Jewish Church, and if owing to a too slavish
copying
of the Greek and Latin Versions our own Version
lost
the word, these are reasons of no force whatever against
a
return to the original use. It is no doubt a question how
the
word should be written when transferred to another lan-
guage.
"Jehovah" certainly is not a proper equivalent for
the
Hebrew form; for it is well known that the Jews, having
lost
the true pronunciation of the name, transferred to it the
vowels
of the other name "Adonai," which in reading they
have
for centuries substituted for it. Some of the Germans
write
"Jahveh," others "Jahaveh;" and Hupfeld, despairing of
any
certainty as to the vowels, retains merely the consonants
and
writes "Jhvh." Probably the most correct equivalent in
English
would be "Yahveh" or "Yahaveh," but this would
look
pedantic, and would doubtless shock sensitive eyes and
ears
far more than the comparatively familiar form, Jehovah.
Nor
must it be forgotten that this Hebrew form is sometimes,
though
rarely, admitted by our translators, as is also the still
less
euphonious form, Jah. (5) Lastly, I cannot feel that it is
any
objection that the use of the Hebrew name "forces into
* Coleridge's Remains, iv. p. 226.
† Blunt, Duties of the Parish Priest, Lect. II. p. 41.
xx PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
prominence
its local and national character." On the contrary,
if
we are to read the Old Testament with anything like discern-
ing
appreciation, if we are not to confound the New Testament
with
the Old, as the majority of ancient Commentators and
a
large number of modern Commentators do, thus effacing
altogether,
as far as in them lies, the progressive character of
Revelation,
we shall be anxious to retain all that is distinctive
and
characteristic in the earlier Scriptures, that we may give
to
each portion its proper value. We shall not wish to efface
a
single character by which God helps us the better to trace
His
footsteps, but shall thankfully remember that He who
"in
many portions and in many manners spake to the fathers
by
the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us in
a
Son."
Having said so much on this subject
of translation, I will
venture
to add a few words on the proposed revision of our
Authorized
Version.
It appears to me a matter of real
congratulation to the
Church
that such a revision has at length been seriously
entertained
by Convocation. I do not share the feelings of
those
who look upon any attempt to correct manifest errors
with
dislike and apprehension. Indeed the objectors have in
this
instance suffered their fears very grossly to exaggerate
the
evil against which they protest. Nothing surely can be
more
moderate, or more cautiously framed, than the language
of
the resolution adopted by the Southern Province in Con-
vocation.
They only advise that those passages in the
Authorized
Version should be amended "where plain and
clear
errors . . . . shall on due investigation be found to
exist."
Yet it has been assumed, by nearly every writer
and
speaker who is opposed to revision, that revision is
equivalent
to reconstruction. It has been assumed that a
Commission
would not leave of the existing structure one
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. xxi
stone
upon another—would scarcely even make use of the
stones
of the old building for the construction of the new. The
whole
strength of the objectors' case rests on this assumption.
Yet,
even setting aside the distinct avowal of the resolution
to
the contrary, scholars and men of taste and judgement are
not
likely to agree together to be guilty of any such ruthless
demolition.
The probability is that among those to whom
the
task of revision would be entrusted, there would be found
many
men whose veneration for our Authorized Version is
quite
as great, and quite as intelligent, as that of those who
object
to any alteration. Men of this kind would not be for
rash
and hasty corrections, or for trivial emendations. They
would
not suffer wanton injury to be done. They would
religiously
preserve the fine old diction, the mother idiom, the
grace
and the strength of the existing Version. These are
too
precious a heritage, they would feel, to be lightly sacri-
ficed.
Keeping close to the terms of the Resolution, they
would
only give a true rendering to passages which have
undoubtedly been wrongly
translated.
With the overthrow of this
assumption, all the other argu-
ments
against revision lose their force. It has been said, for
instance,
that the specimens of new translations which have
lately
appeared are not such as to hold out any prospect of
improvement
in the new Version. They may be more literal,
but
they are less idiomatic than the Authorized Translation.
But
it is one thing for an individual to put forth a translation
which
he believes gives the nearest and most literal rendering
of
a book; it is another thing to revise an existing transla-
tion.
In the former case, the utmost liberty may be claimed