A tentative translation of Psalm 1

Following on from my translation of Psalm 47, here is another I have been working on for some time, of a psalm I especially love. In view of feedback and questions I received last time, I have aimed for even more over-explanation in my notes.

Psalm 1

1. Happy¹ the man that goeth² not in the counsel of the wicked,
   and in the way of the sinful³ taketh no stand,⁴
   and in the seat of the scoffing⁵ doth not⁶ dwell.⁷

2. Only⁸ in the direction of Yahweh,⁹ his pleasure,
   and in his direction, murmureth¹⁰ day and night.

3. And he is as a tree planted on channels¹¹ of water
   that its fruit, ·it giveth¹² in its time,¹³
   and its leaf, ·it shrivelleth not,
   and all that he doeth, it ·doth succeed.¹⁴

4. Not so are the wicked—
   only as chaff that is driven ‹away›¹⁵ by the spirit.¹⁶

5. Upon-so,¹⁷ no rising of the wicked in the judgement,¹⁸
   and the sinful in the assembly of the righteous.¹⁹

6. For Yahweh is knowing²⁰ the way of the righteous,
   and the way of the wicked is lost.²¹

1. Happy. Literally “O the happiness” (so YLT), but “O the happiness of the man” defies the Hebrew cadence: ashrey ha-ish. Thus, following most translations, I have turned the adjective into a noun for the sake of rhythm. However, unlike those translations I eschew “blessed,” for while that word perhaps does emphasize the future-oriented and spiritually-grounded aspect of biblical happiness, ashrey really means happy, and no modern reader would treat these as synonyms. “Blessed” is a term of abstract piety disconnected from everyday experience—and is too easily confused with blessing, an entirely distinct concept and word.

2. goeth. Or “walketh.” This is a vexing word to translate; it literally means to walk, and thus metaphorically to go. I tend to prefer rendering concrete terms concretely, but this one is so ubiquitous that it would stretch English beyond what is reasonable. E.g., it is hard to entertain rivers or seas walking about (Gen 2:14; Ex 14:21); worse yet the ark walking on the waters, or those waters walking away (Gen 7:18; 8:3). Here in Psalm 1:1, the three verbs are, most simplistically, walk, stand, sit, and I am loath to obscure this fact; yet I am also loath to obscure the connection to everywhere else in scripture where these motions occur, as they are not as simple as those English words suggest. Cf. note on “dwell,” below.

3. sinful. This and “scoffing” are both adjectives in Hebrew, not nouns, and there seems no good reason to nominalize them, nor to place them at the end of the versets when in fact the verb prominently concludes these in Hebrew. The order of the second two versets should be noun → adjective → verb, which is relatively unusual in Hebrew, where the verb generally precedes the noun. Yet most English versions ignore this, and convert it into verb → noun → noun.

4. taketh no stand. Amad often has the sense of stationing oneself, and is even sometimes used of taking a stance in battle (e.g., Jdg 9:44).

5. scoffing. The traditional translation of the root luts as referring to scoffing is correct; or at least, the best we can do in English; it denotes both speaking barbarously (chattering, jabbering, blathering), and mocking or taunting. It is thus used in ways that prevent consistent translation: in Genesis 42:23 it means an interpreter (a man who can speak a barbarous language); in Proverbs 1:6 it refers to an enigmatic saying (an expression that taunts one to understand it). However, the vast majority of cases are best translated as referring to scoffing.

6. doth not. The word “doth” is easily overused as redundant filler in liturgical English. I would generally rather say “dwelleth not.” But in this case, doing so would introduce an asymmetry into the text which does not exist in Hebrew, making “not” the final word of this verset, but not the one before. The only way to preserve the word order of negation → verb in Hebrew is by introducing “doth.” As with everything in translation, this sometimes seems better, and sometimes seems worse; pure mathematical consistency is not possible. The translation I have chosen preserves the word order and rhythmic character of these two Hebrew versets better than the alternative options.

7. dwell. Traditionally “sit,” but yashav almost always means to abide, remain, dwell, rather than merely to sit down (e.g., Cain does not “sit” in the land of Nod; Gen 4:16). As with “go,” something is lost whichever translation choice we make, but I think more is lost by only noticing the simplistic level of movement (walk, stand, sit) than by connecting those verbs to how they are performed in the rest of scripture.

8. Only. The Hebrew ki-im has more contrastive implication than merely “but;” the NET’s gloss of “instead” is on point in emphasizing this. The head of this compound is Genesis 15:4: “This shall not be thine heir, only that cometh forth from thine own innards.” Similarly Genesis 28:17: “this is nothing except the house of God.”

9. the direction of Yahweh. Traditionally torah is translated “law,” but the root verb yarah means to point, and thus to direct or teach. This is plain in passages like Genesis 46:28, where Judah “points” or “directs” the way, and Exodus 15:25, where Yahweh “points” or “directs” Moses unto a tree. Given the concrete nature of Hebrew vocabulary, “direction” is a better fit than “teaching,” even though it is ironically a latinate term and lacks Hebrew’s brusquer cadence. (Compromises abound in translation.) Torah certainly is the law of God, but it is more fundamentally the direction of God: how God directs us to live. He points us this way, not that; go down this path, not that one; you want to end up here, not there. This is all teaching, instruction, custom, law, doctrine—because it is God’s directions and directives in the way we must go. It is no coincidence that Christianity is called the way in Acts 9:2, nor that Jesus, the living Torah, is the way, the truth, and the life. Psalm 1 sets the choice before us: which way? “Direction” does introduce a dual meaning here that is perhaps not present in the Hebrew; it is natural in English to read this as the way to Yahweh rather than the way of Yahweh. I am not sure that this is a problem—certainly it is theologically true, even if not grammatically—but it does demonstrate the challenge of translation. That said, if the psalm were situated within a complete Old Testament, where torah was consistently translated as “direction,” we would not likely find this confusing.

10. murmureth. Traditionally “meditates,” but yagah specifically means to make a noise, to muse quietly to oneself—like a lion growling over his prey (Isa 31:4) or doves moaning (Isa 59:11). It is contrasted with wizards who mutter spells (Isa 8:19) and, in the next Psalm, with the nations who rage and muse emptiness (Ps 2:1). The idea here is specifically to turn God’s word over in the mouth, whereas the modern conception of meditation at best involves silently reading scripture to memorize it, thus emphasizing the eyes. Moreover, meditation today is routinely associated with Eastern practices of making the mind waste and void through the repetition of a single empty word, rather than filling and forming it through the repetition of God’s many fruitful sayings. The head of this word is Joshua 1:8; it is not the same term used in Exodus 15:24 of the people “murmuring” against Moses, lun, which really does not mean to murmur, but rather to stop, resist, be obstinate; “demur” may be a good translation there, as it has a similar root in English as in Hebrew: to delay.

11. channels of water. Traditionally “streams” or “rivers,” but the word is more specific, deriving from a root that means to split or divide. Its head is Genesis 10:25, referring to the dividing of the peoples at Babel; cf. Job 38:25.

12. that its fruit, it giveth. Even Young cannot resist inverting the word order here, no doubt because “that giveth its fruit in its season” is just good poetic rhythm in English. But in Hebrew the cadence is entirely different, and I have tried to evince it, if not completely replicate it, as indicated by the · in front of “it.” I use this symbol to mark words that, though implied, I would not have included if not for rhythmic reasons.

13. in its time. Not “season,” as most translations have it, but rather the proper time, the fitting occasion; this is the word much used in Ecclesiastes, where there is a “time” for everything beneath the heavens.

14. all that he doeth, it doth succeed. The Hebrew has a similar consonance and rhythm here, and this phrasing captures it better than “all that he doeth succeedeth.”

15. driven away. “Away” is only implied in the Hebrew; I have included it both because the connotation is of scattering (cf. “lost,” v. 6), and also for rhythmic reasons.

16. the spirit. Traditionally “the wind,” but Hebrew does not distinguish between these two things; the term ruach means both. In my view, the minor confusion and inconvenience of learning this fact is far outweighed by the necessity of maintaining its symbolic import. The ambiguity of ruach is frequently significant, as in Exodus 14:21, where Yahweh causes the sea to go back by a “strong east ruach” all the night. The connection between spirit, wind, and breath is theologically important, and certainly not irrelevant here in Psalm 1, where it represents the Holy Spirit.

17. Upon-so. This is a fine Hebrew idiom that ought to require no explanation; in English we might say, “upon this cause” or “wherefore;” in Afrikaans, omdat; in Spanish por qué. I rather like “upon-so;” upon-so I intend to normalize it as an English expression.

18. no rising of the wicked in the judgment. This is a somewhat odd way of constructing the sentence, but captures the rhythm and word order of the Hebrew better than the more staid, “the wicked shall not rise in the judgment,” or the more euphonious, “the wicked rise not in the judgment.” That said, I will freely admit that I’m still working at understanding how euphony works in Hebrew, and how much the psalmists care about it, or express it, compared to what we consider ideal in English.

19. the assembly of the righteous. Or “muster of the righteous,” but I translate qahal as muster; this is adat. Alter says “band,” and the NET goes as far as suggesting “circle,” which I think a stretch. Traditionally adat is translated “congregation,” and the word is used most often of the people of Israel. The root, however, implies not a passive group, but an assembly called together at an appointed time. What is being depicted is ultimately the heavenly court itself (cf. Ps 82:1, adat el, the assembly of God), fulfilled in the church—the assembly of Christ—on the final day, where we shall even judge angels (1 Cor 6:3).

20. is knowing. I have chosen the present continuous not just for grammatical reasons (following Young) but also because of cadence. What is implied in this verb? At least to take awareness of the way of the righteous—hence the NET’s “the Lord guards the way of the godly.” The contrast with “losing” the way of the wicked suggests that “preserves” would be appropriate also. But knowing in scripture is often presented as highly intimate also: “the man knew Eve his wife and she conceived” (Gen 4:17). Hence Alter, “the Lord embraces the way of the righteous;” or we might say, “intimately loves the way of the righteous.” Yet even this is too weak, for there is something both more comprehensive and more fruitful (cf. v. 3) about knowing that cannot be captured by these expressions. The full range of David’s meaning can only be expressed by “know,” and can only be drawn out by the very kind of thoughtful reflection that he commends in this psalm.

21. is lost. Or “is destroyed,” “shall perish,” but these are overly specific since the word really just means to lose, and thus by implication to be destroyed or to perish.