In Other Words

One of my favourite verses of Scripture had, for many years, been Psalm 22.3. I knew it from the RSV as ‘Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel;’ and I used to thrill to the thought that, as I and others began to praise and worship the Lord, we — his new Israel — were somehow creating a place for him in our midst; a place where he could seat himself among us and reign. The sentiment is nicely caught in that part of Paul Kyle’s song ‘Jesus, we enthrone you’ which says ‘And as we worship, build a throne ... Come Lord Jesus and take Your place.’ But then I moved from the RSV to the NIV and I was upset to find that the translation I had liked so much had been relegated to a footnote and replaced by ‘Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.’ Anxious to find out which of the two renditions was the more accurate, I began to check the verse in other versions, and I found to my delight that by far the majority of translations sided with the RSV rather than the NIV. In other words, most translators understood the Hebrew to be saying that God dwells or enthrones himself (the verb yashab means ‘to sit, to remain, or to dwell’) in his people’s praise, rather than that God is enthroned and his people praise him. It seemed then that the RSV was not wrong, nor had it swung behind a rendering that was less-likely to reflect the original Hebrew than that adopted by the NIV? But a close look at the Hebrew did show me why the differences have occurred and reminded me of just how difficult a translator’s task is.

Here is the Hebrew as it appears in the Masoretic Text:

Notice the little red squiggle under the second word from the right? (Hebrew is written and read from right to left.) That squiggle is called an athnah. It is an accent sign, and it is what gives rise to the different translations. In the Hebrew Bible, each verse is usually divided into two parts, often of unequal length, the first of which is closed by an athnah; and it is the placing of the athnah that, in ambiguous situations, determines which words belong together. Here, if the athnah belongs where I have shown it, ‘But you’ and ‘holy’ belong together as the first thought of the verse, while ‘sitting’ and ‘the praises of’ and ‘Israel’ belong together and form the second thought of the verse. So we get ‘But you [are] holy ... sitting [on or in] the praises of Israel.’ However, if (as is possible) the athnah belongs under the third word from the right, ‘sitting’ belongs with ‘But you’ and ‘holy’ while ‘the praises’ and ‘of Israel’ alone form the second thought of the verse. This gives us ‘But you [are] sitting [as the] holy [one] ... the praise of Israel’ or even ‘But you [are] sitting [in the] holy [place, ie the sanctuary] ... the praise of Israel.’

A number of translations are given below. The first ten take the athnah to be where I have shown it, the final four regard it as belonging one word further along:

But you are holy, being enthroned on Israel’s praises. Jay P Green Snr’s Literal Translation of the Bible But you are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. New King James Version Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Revised Standard Version Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. New Revised Standard Version Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. New American Standard Bible Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. New International Version - footnote But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. King James Version Yet You are holy, O You who inhabit the praises of Israel. New American Standard Bible - footnote And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel. J N Darby Yet, Holy One, you who make your home in the praises of Israel. Jerusalem Bible ******* Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. New International Version But you are enthroned as the Holy One, the one whom Israel praises. Good News Bible For you are holy. The praises of our fathers surrounded your throne. Living Bible Yet, Holy One, you who dwell in the sanctuary, the praise of Israel. Jerusalem Bible - footnote