Psalm 123 – Had Enough!
Psalm 123, Proper 28A/Ordinary 33A/Pentecost +27
November 16, 2008
(Note that I always use Text Week for my lectionary study)
A song of ascents.
1To you we lift up our eyes,
You who live in heaven.
2As the eyes of slaves turn to the hand of their master,
As the eyes of a maid looks to the hand of her mistress,
So our eyes look to our God until he shows us favor.
3Show us favor, YHWH,
For we have had more than enough contempt.
4Our souls are satiated
— on the mocking of those at ease.
— on the contempt of the arrogant.
Not many notes are necessary here on translation. The big issue for a translator would be how to handle the poetic parallelism, and that is usually answered for a translation as a whole. In terms of dynamic equivalence, the CEV goes with breaking up the parallelism. While it presents the tone of the prayer rather well, it loses some of the suspense by getting to the point so quickly.
For example, verse 2 in the CEV reads:
Servants look to their master, but we will look to you,
until you have mercy on us.
In The Message it reads:
Like servants, alert to their master’s commands,
like a maiden attending her lady,
we’re watching and waiting, holding our breath,
awaiting your word of mercy.
I like the way the message manages to hold the suspense, though “holding our breath” is perhaps a bit over the top in terms of dynamic equivalence. I do question whether this looking to the master is attentive, or perhaps hopeful and pleading, longing to be treated mercifully. A good exegetical question would be just what aspect of the attentiveness of a servant or slave (as I have translated) is in view here.