[Michael Juster]

01: The Lord is my light, my salvation.
..........Who shall awe me?
....The Lord is the stronghold of my life.
..........Whom shall I fear?

02: When the spoilers, my hateful foes,
....come to consume my flesh,
..........they stumble and fall.

03: Though an army encamp against me,
..........I shall not be daunted.
....Though war be declared against me,
..........I shall be unafraid.

04: I have asked one boon of the Lord;
..........I seek it still:
....that I dwell in the house of the Lord
..........all my life’s days,
....beholding the Lord’s resplendence,
..........visiting his temple.

05:....On the day of woe,
....his pavilion will conceal me.
....He will hide me in his tent-flap.
....He has lifted me with his might.

06: See! I hold my head
....higher than foes around me.
....Joyfully I will bring
....my gifts to your abode.
....I will chant and sing to the Lord.

07:....Hear, oh Lord,
..........the cry I voice;
....have pity and answer me.

08:My heart adjures me:
..........seek out your presence.
....Therefore I yearn for you, Lord.

09: Hide not your visage from me,
....nor banish your servant in anger.
....You aided me; turn not away;
..........forsake me not,
..........my God of salvation.

10: When father and mother depart me
....the Lord will take me up.

11: Instruct me, Lord, in your way;
....on the level path, guide me,
..........for I have been hated.
12: Yield me not
..........to the will of my foes.
..........False witnesses
..........rose against me,
....breathers of calumnies.

13: Yet I believed I would see
..........the good of the Lord
..........in the land of the living.

14:....Wait for the Lord;
....be brave; may your heart be steadied.
..........Wait for the Lord.


 
Crib

Young's Literal Version, 19th C.

Jehovah [is] my light and my salvation, Whom do I fear? Jehovah [is] the strength of my life, Of whom am I afraid?
2When evil doers come near to me to eat my flesh, My adversaries and mine enemies to me, They have stumbled and fallen.
3Though a host doth encamp against me, My heart doth not fear, Though war riseth up against me, In this I [am] confident.
4One [thing] I asked of Jehovah -- it I seek. My dwelling in the house of Jehovah, All the days of my life, To look on the pleasantness of Jehovah, And to inquire in His temple.
5For He hideth me in a tabernacle in the day of evil, He hideth me in a secret place of His tent, On a rock he raiseth me up.
6And now, lifted up is my head, Above my enemies -- my surrounders, And I sacrifice in His tent sacrifices of shouting, I sing, yea, I sing praise to Jehovah.
7Hear, O Jehovah, my voice -- I call, And favour me, and answer me.
8To Thee said my heart `They sought my face, Thy face, O Jehovah, I seek.'
9Hide not Thy face from me, Turn not aside in anger Thy servant, My help Thou hast been. Leave me not, nor forsake me, O God of my salvation.
10When my father and my mother Have forsaken me, then doth Jehovah gather me.
11Shew me, O Jehovah, Thy way, And lead me in a path of uprightness, For the sake of my beholders.
12Give me not to the will of my adversaries, For risen against me have false witnesses, And they breathe out violence to me.
13I had not believed to look on the goodness of Jehovah In the land of the living!
14Look unto Jehovah -- be strong, And He doth strengthen thy heart, Yea, look unto Jehovah!



*********************************

I am probably at my most tentative, for multiple reasons, offering comment on Biblical translation, but I'll give it my best shot. I do feel a bit at a disadvantage here because it is pretty clear that "the crib" is not a terribly literal crib.

I think this translation of Psalm 27 is less compelling than the translation of Psalm 91. Verse 1 of Psalm 27 sets a direct, modern tone with flawless diction; I want to see more of that type of accomplishment in the rest of the translation.

Verse 2, for me, stumbles with "spoilers." I do not know the range of options that are appropriate given the original Hebrew, but the crib's "evil doers" resonates fairly well with me. The term "spoilers" does not--I think of a sports team or a politician who stays in a competition without a chance of winning. Perhaps "despoilers," but not "spoilers."

Verse 3--both in the crib and the translation--turns on the problematic phrase "encamp against me," which is close to nonsensical. I am intuiting that the sense here is "surround me," so I could buy "encamped around me" or something like that.

Verse 4 illustrates the wobble in diction. The term "boon" is archaic now, in my opinion, and yet Verse 6 replaces the venerable, majestic and understandable "Behold!" for the prosaic "See!".

Verse 5 is badly off-key with "pavilion," which conjures images of carnivals or summer outdoor show-tune concerts. I would go with "tent" or perhaps "spacious tent."

In Verse 6 I would also try to change "abode," which is not archaic, but rather musty. In Verse 7 my ear wants "this cry" not the unpersuasively impersonal "the cry." My understanding is that articles did not exist in ancient Hebrew, so taht translators have fairly wide latitude in this area. In Verse 8 "adjure" clanged for me, and I wondered why with all the retro language "you" and "your" were not capitalized.

In Verse 9 we get a lot of traditional inversions. I love them in the King James Bible but don't find them genuine in a contemporary translation. In Verse 10 "father" and "mother" seem to refer to individuals, so I would consider capitalizing the words. In verse 11 "for I have been hated" struck me as off-key, and so far off from the crib that I wished I could access the original Hebrew to sort it out.

In Verse 12 I loved "breathers of calumnies" but cringed at "Yield me not...". In verses 13 & 14 the translation seems to be on much surer footing.

If the middle of the piece could rise to the level of the opening and closing verses, we would have an original and compelling version of this psalm.

[Tim Murphy]

Mike, I've translated five psalms myself, not David's, but those of his great followers. This isn't like translating Petrarch or Baudelaire. Think of translating Pindar or Bacchylides, and then cube the difficulty.

I recite this great translation to departing or returning soldiers on the tarmac at North Dakota's three air bases, and I recite it to Gold Star Mothers on Memorial Day. I judge the effectiveness of a translation by its impact on my audience. This blows people away.

I suspect that David was pretty young when he wrote this, maybe about the time he was made a general by Saul, in his mid-twenties.

I saw an incredibly moving video in memory of a 38-year-old captain who died in Afghanistan. All his boys had verse 3, KJV, block-printed on their helmets. I would NOT want to face those boys in combat.

As the Jews sang, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David, his tens of thousands."

I hope Seree Cohen Zohar will weigh in and explain the choices the translator made. As you know very well, it is too late for the translator to revise anything.

[David Rosenthal]

I think Michael's comments are spot-on. Strong opening and closing, wavering middle. Each of the picky diction issues Michael named struck me the same way reading it. I just think it is at its strongest when clear, direct, and barely adorned. The cadences are strong though, and stand out for me almost as an innovation, I just wish the diction were more boldly contemporary. It definitely would have been nice to have the original posted too.

David R.

(P.S. to Tim: Just because the beloved translator is not able to make revisions, and whether or not his decisions -- which I am sure were wise, sound, and well-considered -- can be explained, the work is not exempt from appropriate feedback. This is a forum for analysis and criticism as well as celebration, and the best of us are subject to each other's opinions and critiques. The translator himself would not have had it any other way, right? We do him no honor withholding our earnest critiques, even if we admire his accomplishment.)

[Tim Murphy]

David, I'm not objecting to anything Mike said, but for instance, I much prefer "boon" to "gift." When we're translating such ancient texts as David or the Wulf, there is a place for inversion and "musty" language. David is three thousand years before us, and I suspect, and Seree can confirm, that he was not preoccupied with "contemporary speech."

You are spot on with respect to the strong rhythms of the translation. It is amazing to me that it has never been done before. Talk about low-hanging fruit: Beowulf and David!

[Roger Slater]

I Googled "encamp against me" and found that it is an extremely common phrase, apparently also used in the King James translation of the same psalm, so it can hardly be called "close to nonsensical." The exact phrase returns 223,000 hits (perhaps more than half referencing various versions of this psalm).

[Seree Zohar]

Here's the original and you can also listen, and pick up the sonic effects etc as far as possible:

the reader begins with the number of the psalm in Hebrew:mizmor kaf zayin - and then begins the reading. the 'encamp' line is: im takhaneh alai makhaneh...

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2627.htm

here is a transliteration to help you follow the reading: I've tried to break it into meaning-bytes. Within each of those, I've added phrasal separating spaces.
-----------
27:1 ledâvid Adonai ori veyishi ...mimmi iyrâ .
........ Adonai mâoz-khayyay ...mimmiy efkhad .......


27:2 biqrov âlay merêiym le'ekhol et-besâri ..
...... ..tsâray ve'oyevay liy
…. .. hêmmâh khâshelu venâphâlu

27:3 im-takhaneh âlay makhaneh .. lo'-yiyrâ libbiy
… .. im-tâqum âlay milkhâmâh .. bezo't aniy votê’akh

27:4 akhat shâ'altiy mê'êt-Adonai..otâh 'avaqêsh
.......... shivti beveit-Adonai ..kol-yemêy chayyay
......... .lakhazot beno`am-Adonai ..ulevaqqêr behêychâlo

27:5 kiy yitspenêniy besukkoh ..beyom râ`âh yastirêniy
.......... besêter 'oholo ..betsur yeromemêniy

27:6 ve`attâh yârum ro'shiy ..al oyvai s’vivotai
.......... ve'ezbekhâh b’oholo ziv’kchêy tru`âh.
.......... âshirâh va'azammerâh ladonai

27:7 sh'ma`-Adonai ..qoliy eqrâ'
...... ..vekchânnêni va`anêni

27:8 lekha 'âmar libbi ..baqqeshu phânâi
.......... et-pâneykha Adonai 'avaqqêsh

27:9 ' al-tastêr pâneykha mimmenniy --
...... .al-tat-be'aph avdecha
..........ezrâtiy hâyiytâ '..al-titeshêniy
..........ve'al-ta`azvêniy elohêy yishi

27:10 ki-âvi ve'immi azâvuniy
.......... v’Adonai ya'asphêniy

27:11 horêniy Adonai darkecha
..........un’khêniy be'orakh miyshor.. lema`an shorerây

27:12 al-tittenêniy benephesh tsârây
.... ......Kiy qâmu-viy êdêy-sheqer ..viyphêach khâmâs

27:13 lulei he'emantiy lir'ot betoov-Adonai
........ .. be'erets chayyim

27:14 qavvêh 'el-Adonai
….… ..khazaq veya'amêts libbekha
….… ..veqavvêh 'el-Adonai

[Seree Zohar]

Interesting points that Mike raises.
***
Looking quickly at 'encamp' - you can hear and see from the transliteration, once again, shared root clusters: the Heb literal is:
if. will camp. against me. an encampment. Of course the implication here is of an enemy army, especially since we have "alaiy", against me, rather than "mooli" opposite/across from me. Nor does it say: "im takoom negdi makhaneh" - if an encampment rise up against me. So the verb indicates a foe's blatant setting-up for the purpose of a drawn-out serious battle, rather than a fleeting stay to inflict some damage and dash off.

will try to look in on this again tmow. the pumpkin hour's long since past.

[Tim Murphy]

You can hear me recite and Monsignor Robert Laliberte chant some psalms, including this, on our Distinguished Performance Board: http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=11777

[Scott Miller]

Couple quick comments:

V2: I'm with Mike - don't like "spoilers". It's basically "bad guys", right? If it fit the diction, then maybe that would justify the choice, but it doesn't work.

V3: "encamp against" - I didn't have particular trouble visualizing this. "encamped against" seems cleaner, but I wonder if "pitched" wouldn't serve both purposes and even highlight the parallel constructions further.

V4: "boon" - What about "This alone I have asked of the Lord"? Isn't that the impliction of akhat here?

V5: If you want a fancy word for tent, why not stick with "tabernacle"? Some audiences are familiar with the sukkah, a construction still in (modified) use during the eponymous Jewish holiday.

Overall, I feel like this translation wants to be two things at once. On the one hand, it has a minimalist feel, a narrow translation that highlights (for me) some of the distance between our experience and David's. But at the same time, it has these highly wrought, sometimes even archaic, touches that are quite jarring.

I think the translator needs to go out on a limb and choose one path or the other. It's obviously a very charged subject, so any decision is fraught with peril, but at this point it's just not gelling for me.

Cheers,
Scott

[Seree Zohar]

Scott -
to avoid getting too detailed, re V5, tabernacle is not succah. The former implies positioned presence, residing; the latter is protective, and relates to the protector [btw: the succah constructed for the festival does not imply the walls, actually, the ONLY important part of it is the 'roofing', the cover.] So, issue after issue of maintaining precision. All these of course affect choice of words and diction. To make matters more complex, when tackling a large quantity of such work, consistency must be assured - one can't merely use this word here and a seeming synonym there... so, yes, quite complex.

Nonetheless the remarks are enlightening.