Psalm 42 and 43: Psalms to See Through Times of Coronavirus

Jewish phrase: "Don't wait for a miracle. Pray psalms."

I've said that I feel these psalms (often taken as one unit) are fitting for Christians cut off from their worship as one body, as the psalmist, within their lament, misses especially congregational worship. So, to help it speak even more to me (at least), I have attempted my own translation. 

For the director. A wisdom poem. For the Qorachites.  

Just as a deer will pant for water channels, 

so it is my breathing-self which pants for you, O Gd.  

My breathing-self thirsts for Gd, for Gd alive.

When can I come and be seen by the gaze of Gd? 

My tears have been as bread to me, day and night, 

while it’s said to me all the day long, “Where is your god?” 

These things let me remember,  

and let me pour out my breathing-self within me: 

o how I went along with the throng, how I’d process to the House of Gd, 

with the sound of ringing shouts and thanks, a crowd keeping the festival.  

Why are you cast down, my own breathing-self,  

and in turmoil within me? 

Wait for Gd, for yet will I thank him,  

whose very gaze brings rescue. 

Oh my Gd, within me my breathing-self is cast down. 

Therefore I will remember you -  

from the land of Jordan, from Hermon and from the Mount of Mitz’ar. 

Deep to deep is calling.  

That is the roar of your waves.  

All your breakers, waterfalls even, over me they flow.  

By day YAH commands his loyal love, 

and in the night his song is with me: 

a prayer to the Gd of my life.  

Let me say to Gd my rock:  

“Why have you forgotten me? 

Why do I go on in darkness, with my enemy pressing in?” 

With a shattering of my bones my opposers taunt me 

while they say to me all the day long: “Where is your god?” 

Why are you cast down, my own breathing-self,  

and in turmoil within me? 

Wait for Gd, for yet will I thank him,  

whose very gaze brings rescue - my Gd.  

Judge me, O Gd  

and argue my case with a people who are not loyal. 

From a man of rebellion and all wrongdoing may you free me. 

For it is you who are the Gd of my strength. 

Why have you rejected me? 

Why do I go about in the darkness, with my enemy pressing in? 

Send out your light and your truth.  

It is they who will lead me. 

They will bring me to the mount of your holiness, 

and to your own dwelling place. 

Oh, let me go to the altar of Gd, 

to Gd the joy of my rejoicing.  

And I will thank you on the harp: Gd is my Gd.  

Why are you cast down, my own breathing-self,  

and in turmoil within me? 

Wait for Gd, for yet will I thank him,  

whose very gaze brings rescue - my Gd. 

Translator’s Notes 

There are all kinds of “judgement calls” in translating a psalm. I do not pretend this is any better than any of the authorised translations. I have not attempted consistency in terms of style overall – whether favouring accuracy or poetic flow. I have gone for something different, but, I think, ultimately justified. No change is for show only.  

Three things need particular note.  

1. “Gd”. Anyone who pays any attention to this blog will (perhaps) have noticed that I tend to write “God” this way. This is deliberate. There is a Jewish tradition of not fully writing the letters of the divine Name (YHWH). Some extend this to the ordinary Hebrew words for God, and even for the English. (“G-d” is a favourite.) This last move is especially controversial within the Jewish community. However, the Christian scholar R. Kendall Soulen has persuaded me that a similar practice is found in Christianity (called Nomina Sacra). Indeed, it goes all the way back to the way Jesus in Matthew especially refers to the Kingdom of the Heavens, meaning the Kingdom of God. Ultimately it goes back to the command not to take the Name of God in vain. It is about human humility when speaking of the Mystery beyond all speaking. The point is: the word for “God” should “trouble the eye”. It isn’t the name for a thing among things, or even a person among persons. Gd is beyond all categories, living (as the psalm insists), but not like a bigger version of any living thing we know. So it is not a bad thing if even the very word makes us stumble a bit in our reading. 

Reference: R. Kendall Soulen, 2011, The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Volume One, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky   

  

2. “Breathing-self”. This is an innovation I am introducing here. I do not pretend it is a particularly attractive or intuitively meaningful expression. But I offer it as the least bad translation I can think of at this time. It translates the Hebrew nefesh. The standard translation of nefesh is “soul”. But that may mislead. To many (we need not worry too much about where the idea comes from) it implies a person or a bit of a person that is detachable from the body. The ghost within the machine. That is not what the biblical Hebrew word means. The root meaning seems to be more “throat”. Actually, that is disputed, but certainly body parts take on metaphorical meaning in Hebrew. So it is your “self” as a breathing thing, as a living creature. (There are other words both for breath and for life; that’s why I add the hyphen; this is a compound idea). You are alive as a creature, a human, and your throat feels this aliveness intimately. But if you don’t like the phrase, read “self”.
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