Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Psalms

  • Easter Evening, 2005

    Easter Evening, Year A

    March 27, 2005

    I didn’t manage to restart these notes before Lent as I had planned and stated on the web page, but they are restarted now. I am no longer including my working translation so I can focus more on the interpretive process. Where I have worked such translations over enough, they will be found on my Totally Free Bible Version page, a project to work on Bible translation in public with input from anybody and everybody and the result free to anybody. Whether there is an entry there or not, I will include a link to a translation of the passage on the Bible Gateway, normally from the Contemporary English Version (CEV). I apologize for the long break in posting these notes, and hope the new style will be helpful.

    At the bottom of the page is a form for posting response notes. This will allow readers to add their own comments and thoughts.

    • Isaiah 25:6-9
      Isaiah’s prophecy of the whole world coming to know the Lord.
    • Psalm 114
      A song of passover celebration.
    • 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8
      Response in our lives to Christ’s passover sacrifice–unleavened bread is equated to purity.
    • Luke 24:13-49
      The walk to Emmaus–What do you do when events confuse you?

    (more…)

  • Faithful Promises: Psalm 12

    One of the long term projects I have for this blog is to take a brief look at the major passages of scripture that relate to inspiration or that are used in discussions about it. I’m taking these passages from various sources, including comments made on this blog, but also from personal conversations, books, letters, e-mails, and so forth.

    In theological debates, the actual intent of Biblical passages often gets subordinated to a theological agenda. I recall one debate, or perhaps it would better be called an argument, in which both my opponent and I were citing Hebrews 4:12, yet our positions were polar opposites. That’s why an assertion with a parenthetical scripture reference, such as “the Bible is inerrant (2 Tim. 3:16)” have a tendency to fail in discussion.

    One favorite of the KJV-Only group is Psalm 12, of which they regularly cite verses 6 and 7. There are several things to look at about this Psalm. First we must ask just what type of literature it is. We know it is a Psalm (I wonder what our first clue was!) but just what type of Psalm?

    We can make some generalizations about Psalms. They are poetry and will tend to use figurative and picturesque language as is common in poetry. They are written from various perspectives and intended for various occasions. Thus it is very dangerous to pick a few lines from a Psalm and apply it theologically. There is the great example of quoting “there is no god” from Psalm 14:1. Of course, the Psalmist is quoting some unspecified group of fools, or perhaps some particular fool.

    Psalm 12, in particular is a prayer that is divided into some quite precise divisions. Verses 1 & 2 lament the lack of good people and describe the depravity of those who surround the Psalmist. This is followed in verses 3 & 4 by the actual petition, which is to cut off those who are flattering and arrogant. Verse 5 is YHWH’s response to the situation, in which he declares his intention to respond to the petition presented. Finally, verses 6-8, we have the expression of faith that despite the way in which the petitioner(s) is surrounded by the wicked, God will be faithful to his word–his promise–of protection given in verse 5.

    The two elements that the KJV-Only advocates have grabbed out of this Psalm are the statement that the Lord’s words are pure, and in verse 7 that the promise is forever. They take this to mean that the KJV is God’s pure word and that it will remain forever. Of course, the Psalm says nothing of the sort.

    Note that many modern versions (NRSV and NIV among them) translate “words” in verse 6 as “promises.” That is a correct reading of the Hebrew in which the specific words are the ones just spoken, and are thus promises in context. This meaning is similar to our use of “give your word” in English.

    Thus this passage says nothing directly about the Bible or its inspiration. It does, however, say some things indirectly, by talking about God and the nature of his promises. God’s promises are amongst God’s words, and he will be faithful to what he has declared. We can expect God’s word as reflected elsewhere, such as in scripture, to share characteristics with his word expressed to worshiper(s) here.

    Psalm 12 is a good example of a prayer of petition in the Bible, and it declares God faithful in what he says.

  • Psalm 104 Article

    Since Psalm 104 is in the lectionary for Pentecost (May 11), I thought I’d take this opportunity to link again to my essay on that Psalm which dates from when I was working on my MA.

    I created a critical (or reconstructed) Hebrew text, provided a translation and notes, and did some analysis on the structure. Most of my conclusions I would still support today, even though more years have passed than I care to number.

    It’s a wonderful Psalm, and I hope my work on it will be of help to someone who is studying it along with the lectionary.

  • 10 Psalms Not Heard (much) in Modern Worship

    Don has a post titles 10 Tough Psalms for Worship Songs that deserves some serious thinking. I relate it to my recent post Psalm 95 and 81: Interrupting Praise with Prophecy?. Do we tend to censor the more challenging material in our worship?

  • Psalm 95 and 81: Interrupting Praise with Prophecy?

    A few days ago I blogged about Psalm 95 and how I felt that Matthew Henry had missed the emphasis. I’ve mentioned before that my current devotional exercise is to read the lectionary texts for coming Sundays starting two weeks ahead until the Sunday in question. Thus I’m continually reading two sets of lectionary texts. These tend to lead me to various interesting sources of study.

    Today, I read Psalm 95 from my New Interpreter’s Study Bible, which has an interesting note. On Psalm 95:8, the point at which the Psalm turns the corner from praise into a call for repentance, there is this note:

    . . . In the very midst of Israel’s worship, it seems, prophets would occasionally interrupt the proceedings and call the people to repentance and amendment of life.

    On consideration of just Psalm 95, I didn’t find that very convincing. I felt (and to some extent still feel) that the combination of praise and a willingness to listen and obey went well together in a context of worship. However, if one reads Psalm 81, to which reference is made earlier in the same note, there is an even more abrupt transition between praise and the call to repentance. There the praise seems almost to be only an introduction to the meat of the Psalm, which is strong admonition.]

    I find this an interesting concept, considering that obedience is scripturally placed above various acts of worship, 1 Samuel 15:22-23 being a good example. Obedience is seen in scripture as an act of worship. I have only seen this sort of thing rarely in modern charismatic worship. Most congregations would regard such a prophetic word as an unseemly interruption of the flow of the service of praise. I have even heard pastors express a strong preference for “words from the Lord” that are positive over those that involve rebuke. I think if one were to survey prophetic words in scripture, one would find that the balance is precisely the opposite.

    In addition, of course, one wonders just how one is to get one’s desired balance of positive and negative words from the Lord. If they are, indeed, from the Lord, one would assume he would set the balance!

  • A Desire to Please and a Fear to Offend – Psalm 95

    Matthew Henry, in commenting on Psalm 95 says that “[t]his psalm must be sung with a holy reverence of God’s majesty and a dread of his justice, with a desire to please him and a fear to offend him.” I’m wondering just how that was derived from this Psalm.

    I don’t doubt that there we should desire to please and fear to offend God, if for no other reason than that I believe God commands us to do merely what is best for us in any case. But in this Psalm we have a description of approaching God, and it doesn’t seem to match this solemnity. Working from God’s Word (GW), the first couple of verses refer to shouting, using adverbs like “joyfully” and “happily.”

    Now I don’t think reverence and happiness are incompatible. I don’t think shouting and reverence are incompatible. But I know plenty of congregations where they would be seen as such. A person who approached the song service by shouting joyfully would be very unwelcome. I won’t accuse Matthew Henry of making such a mistake. I don’t know precisely what his approach to worship would be.

    At the same time we turn to fearing to offend. Again, a joyous response doesn’t seem to involve a fear to offend, but rather points to a situation in which perfect love has cast fear out (1 John 4:18). And no, I don’t think I’m confusing the awe/fear of reverence with fear as in terror. The one fear the Psalm calls for is a fear of being stubborn and closed off to God’s direction, a fear of testing God.

    I may have been unfair to Matthew Henry here, but his entry on this Psalm doesn’t seem to match the spirit of the work.

  • Quoting the Old Testament in the New – Psalm 40:6

    Note: I will be using the English verse numbering throughout. Hebrew verse numbers are one greater in this chapter, thus this is Psalm 40:7 in Hebrew.

    In reading Psalm 40 several times, since it’s the lectionary passage for this week, I noticed a few things that I would have missed in just one pass. One of these is Psalm 40:6-8, which is quoted in Hebrews 10:5-7. There is a difference in the Hebrew of Psalm 40:6 and the quoted text of Hebres 10:5, however, which illustrates an interesting translation issue. The question is whether New Testament quotations of the Old Testament should be accommodated to the Old Testament translation in the same version.

    The book of Hebrews provides a good laboratory for discussing this issue. I’ve used the illustration of Hebrews 2:7 quoting Psalm 8:5 before. The NIV accommodates the translation by using “a little lower” in Hebrews 2:7, rather than “for a little while” which is a better translation of the Greek there. (I discussed this a bit more here.)

    It’s interesting, however, that while the NIV provides notes in all cases, they do not accommodate the translation in Hebrews 10:5. There we read in part:

    but a body you prepared for me;

    The text in Psalm 40:6 reads:

    but my ears you have pierced;

    I’m not sure why one was accommodated, but not the other, but the issues involved would likely highlight the difficulty one has in deciding this sort of issue. It’s not that I want to criticize them for their choice, though my choice would be to translate the text in front of me. It is always possible that they felt that there was more possibility for the alternative meaning in Hebrews 2:7 (where it is indeed possible, though not best, in my view), but did not see the same possibility in Hebrews 10:5.

    This raises some issues of inspiration. In certain views of inspiration, one would prefer to have a single text which was entirely consistent. The idea of New Testament writers using varying texts can be disconcerting to someone who would prefer a very rigid standard.

    I find this kind of thing very enlightening. The New Testament writers lived with differing manuscripts just like we do, even though they had not developed textual criticism in the same way. Extracting theology from scripture is much more an art than a science.

  • Translating Psalm 40:7-8

    Aside from numbering problems, Psalm 40:7-8 appears to be quite straightforward on first reading in Hebrew (where it is verse 8-9). The numbering problems include chapter numbering (39 in the LXX), and verse numbering (8-9 in Hebrew, 7-8 in English). Of course, we all know that verse numbering is not inspired; it is often positively uninspiring.

    The reason I wanted to bring it up, however, is to show how our approaches to interpretation might change what we see as a translation problem. Few of the English versions I consulted see any obscurity in this passage at all. The NRSV translates it thus:

    7Then I said, “Here I am;
    in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
    8I delight to do your will, O my God;
    your law is within my heart.”

    There is a footnote that tells us, “Meaning of Heb uncertain” but does not provide any alternatives or any discussion. A number of English versions, including the http://books.energion.com/bibles/enebvdetail.php?version=REB”>REB and the http://books.energion.com/bibles/enebvdetail.php?version=NLT”>NLT mention no difficulty at all. The http://books.energion.com/bibles/enebvdetail.php?version=NASB”>NASB provides the note “Or, prescribed for,” with is actually quite helpful. Yet in general if you read this book from the various English versions done mostly by Christian translators, you won’t get a sense that there is any translation issue here. Even the LXX translates it pretty much the same way.

    This is one reason I enjoy reading both the New JPS translation and the notes in The Jewish Study Bible. First, they provided a clearly marked footnote on this, and then the notes provide a good explanation of the issue.

    7Then I said,
    b- “See, I will bring a scroll recounting what befell me.” -b
    8To do what pleases You, my God, is my desire;
    Your teaching is in my inmost parts.

    Note b reads: “Meaning of Heb. uncertain.” The notes however tell us that the NJPS translation is interpreting this as “the psalmist’s hymn or a record of his experience.” Alternatives include the Torah (which fits with verse 9 in Hebrew very well), or the book of life, in which case the psalmist is thankful that his name is written there.

    I think the problem here is not major issues such as whether there is some sort of Messianic prophecy or not. Rather, we’re used to hearing this more frequently from the quotation in Hebrews 10:5-7, which has its own variations. The quote begins with verse 6, for one thing, in which we have the word “body” (as in the best mss of the LXX) rather than “ears” as we have in the Hebrew (and some mss of the LXX). Nonetheless, in general the text doesn’t have to be specifically Messianic to be used by Jesus. At the same time its common use in quotation may blind us (or might I say blinded me?) to the alternative understandings.

    The use in Hebrews 10 suggests that the writing is about the person speaking. Thus Jesus is saying that it is written of him in the Tanakh. Yet we have seen three alternatives. It might be something written by the speaker about himself. It could be the instructions of the Torah itself, connected to his expressed desire to do God’s will (v. 8), or even yet the book of life. I do see this last as the least likely in connection with the theme of the Psalm.

    It is such little things that make me really enjoy reading both the NJPS translation and the notes in The Jewish Study Bible.

  • A Common Theme for the Epiphany 2 Lectionary

    I’m probably going to talk about common themes later, but I noticed something interesting that might not be the first thing one would notice in these passages, and that’s a combined sense of inadequacy without God’s Spirit, and the adequacy given by the presence of God’s Spirit. In Isaiah 49, the servant is taken as an infant, and equipped by God. This parallels John 1, I think, where we do not have an expression of inadequacy, but we have the giving of the Spirit at baptism, and ministry that follows it.

    Inadequacy is specifically expressed in Psalm 40:1-11 “pulled me up from the seething chasm” and “from the mud of the mire” (v. 2, NJB), and in Paul’s letters frequently, but demonstrated in our passage again through the focus on “called by the will of God (v. 1), and “relying on God” (v. 9).

    Whether or not the inadequacy is expressed, in each case the preparation and the giving of the Spirit is the launching point for ministry. We talk about the baptism of Jesus as demonstrating the path that each Christian must follow. Jesus is obedient to God, even though he has not sinned and doesn’t require baptism for forgiveness of sins. But note also that Jesus is not inadequate, as we would normally think of inadequacy, but he also launches his ministry when he receives the Spirit.

    There is a pattern there for modern ministry (clergy or lay) as well.

  • Psalm 100

    John Hobbins has an excellent post on the structure of Psalm 100.