TRENCH ON PROVERBS.
(Vol. viii., pp. 387. 519. 641.)
The courteous spirit which generally distinguishes the communications of your correspondents, renders the "N. & Q." the most agreeable magazine, or, as you have it, "medium of inter-communication for literary men," &c. I was so much pleased with the general animus which characterised the strictures on my proposed translation of Ps. cxxvii. 2., that I was almost disposed to cede to my critics, from sheer good-will towards them. But the elder D'Israeli speaks of such a thing "as an affair of literary conscience," which consideration prescribes my yielding in the present instance; but I trust that our motto will always be, "May our difference of opinion never alter our inter-communications!"
I must however, at the outset, qualify an expression I made use of, which seems to have incurred the censure of all your four correspondents on the subject; I mean the sentence, "The translation of the authorised version of that sacred affirmation is unintelligible." It seems to be perfectly intelligible to Messrs. Buckton, Jebb, Walter, and S. D. I qualify, therefore, the assertion. I mean to say, that the translation of the authorised version of that sacred affirmation was, and is, considered unintelligible to many intelligent biblical critics and expositors; amongst whom I may name Luther, Mendelsohn, Hengstenberg, Zunz, and many others whose names will transpire in the sequel.
Having made that concession, I may now proceed with the replying to my Querists, or rather Critics. Mr. Buckton is entitled to my first consideration, not only because you placed him at the head of the department of that question, but also because of the peculiar mode in which he treated the subject. My replies shall be seriatim.
1. Luther was not the first who translated כן יתן לידידו שנא "Denn seinen Freunden gibt er es schlafend." A far greater Hebraist than Luther, who flourished about two hundred years before the great German Reformer came into note, put the same construction on that sacred affirmation. Rabbi Abraham Hacohen of Zante, who paraphrased the whole Hebrew Psalter into modern metrical Hebrew verse (which, according to a P.S., was completed in 1326), interprets the sentence in question thus:
כי כן יתן אל טרף
לידידו ושנתו מנהו לא תרף׃
"For surely God shall give food
To His beloved, and his sleep shall not be withheld from him."
2. It is more than problematical whether the eminent translator, Mendelsohn, was influenced by Luther's error (?), or by his own superior knowledge of the sacred tongue.
3. I do not think that the phrase, "the proper Jewish notion of gain," was either called for or relevant to the subject.
4. The reign of James I. was by no means as distinguished for Hebrew scholarship as were the immediate previous reigns. Indeed it would appear that the knowledge of the sacred languages was at a very low ebb in this country during the agitating period of the Reformation, so much so that even the unaccountable Henry VIII. was forced to exclaim, "Vehementer dolere nostratium Theologorum sortem sanctissime linguæ scientia carentium, et linguarum doctrinam fuisse intermissam." (Hody, p. 466.)
When Coverdale made his version of the Bible he was not only aided by Tindale, but also by the celebrated Hebrew, of the Hebrews, Emanuel Tremellius, who was then professor of the sacred tongue in the University of Cambridge, where that English Reformer was educated; and Coverdale translated the latter part of Ps. cxxvii. 2. as follows: "For look, to whom it pleaseth Him, He giveth it in sleep."
When the translation was revised, during the reign of James I., the most accomplished Anglo-Hebraist was, by some caprice of jealousy, forced to leave this country; I mean Hugh Broughton. He communicated many renderings to the revisers, some of which they thoughtlessly rejected, and others, to use Broughton's own phrase, "they thrust into the margin." A perusal of Broughton's works[[6]] gives one an accurate notion of the proceedings of the revisers of the previous versions.
5. Coverdale's translation is not "ungrammatical" as far as the Hebrew language is concerned, notwithstanding that it was rejected in the reign of James I. לחם, "bread," is evidently the accusative noun to the transitive verb יתן, "He shall give." Nor is it "false," for the same noun, לחם, "bread," is no doubt the antecedent to which the word it refers.
6. Mendelsohn does not omit the it in his Hebrew comment; and I am therefore unwarrantably charged with supplying it "unauthorisedly." I should like to see Mr. Buckton's translation of that comment. If any doubt remained upon Mr. B.'s mind as to the intended meaning of the word יתנהו used by Mendelsohn, his German version might have removed such a doubt, as the little word es, "it," indicates pretty clearly what Mendelsohn meant by יתנהו. So that, instead of proving Mendelsohn "at variance with himself," he is proved most satisfactorily to have been in perfect harmony with himself.
7. Mendelsohn does not omit the important word כן; and if Mr. B. will refer once more to his copy of Mendelsohn (we are both using the same edition), he will find two different interpretations proposed for the word כן, viz. thus and rightly. I myself prefer the latter rendering. The word occurs about twenty times in the Hebrew Bible, and in the great majority of instances rightly or certainly is the only correct rendering. Both Mendelsohn and Zunz omit to translate it in their German versions, simply because the sentence is more idiomatic, in the German language, without it than with it.
8. I perfectly agree with Mr. B. "that no version has yet had so large an amount of learning bestowed on it as the English one." But Mr. B. will candidly acknowledge that the largest amount was bestowed on it since the revision of the authorised version closed. Lowth, Newcombe, Horne, Horsley, Lee, &c. wrote since, and they boldly called in question many of the renderings in the authorised version.
Let me not be mistaken; I do most sincerely consider our version superior to all others, but it is not for this reason faultless.
In reply to Mr. Jebb's temperate strictures, I would most respectively submit—
1. That considerable examination leads me to take just the reverse view to that of Burkius, that שנא cannot be looked upon as antithetical to surgere, sedere, dolorum. With all my searchings I failed to discover an analogous antithesis. I shall be truly thankful to Mr. Jebb for a case in point. Moreover, Psalms iii. and iv., to which Dr. French and Mr. Skinner refer, prove to my mind that not sleep is the gift, but sustenance and other blessings bestowed upon the Psalmist whilst asleep. I cannot help observing that due reflection makes me look upon the expression, "So He giveth His beloved sleep," as an extraordinary anticlimax.
2. Mr. Jebb challenges the showing strictly analogous instances of ellipses. He acknowledges that there are very numerous ellipses even in the Songs of Degrees themselves, but they are of a very different nature. I might fill the whole of this Number with examples, which the most scrupulous critic would be obliged to acknowledge as being strictly analogous to the passage under review; but such a thing you would not allow. Two instances, however, you will not object to; they will prove a host for Mr. Jebb's purpose, inasmuch as one has the very word שנה elliptically, and the other the transitive verb יתן, minus an accusative noun. Would Messrs. Buckton, Jebb, Walter, and S. D. kindly translate, for the benefit of those who are interested in the question, the following two passages?
זרמתם שנה יהיו בבקר כחציר יחלף׃
Psalm xc. 5.
יתן לפנין גוים ומלכים ירד
יתן כעפר הרבו כקש נזף קשתו׃
Isaiah xli. 2.
The Rev. Henry Walter will see that some of his observations have been anticipated and already replied to. It remains, however, for me to assure him that I never dreamt that any one would suppose that I considered שנא anything else but a noun, minus the ב preposition. The reason why I translated the word "whilst he [the beloved] is asleep," was because I thought the expression more idiomatic.
S. D. attempts to prove nothing; I am exempt therefore from disproving anything as far as he is concerned.
Before I take leave of this lengthy and somewhat elaborate disquisition, let me give my explanation of the scope of the Psalm in dispute, which, I venture to imagine, will commend itself, even to those who differ from me, as the most natural.
This Psalm, as well as the other thirteen entitled "A Song of Degrees," was composed for the singing on the road by those Israelites who went up to Jerusalem to keep the three grand festivals, to beguile their tedious journey, and also to soothe the dejected spirits of those who felt disheartened at having left their homes, their farms, and families without guardians. Ps. cxxvii. is of a soothing character, composed probably by Solomon.
In the first two verses God's watchfulness and care over His beloved are held up to the view of the pilgrims, who are impressed with the truth that no one, "by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature." The best exposition which I can give of those two verses I have learned from our Saviour's "Sermon on the Mount" (Matt. vi. 25-33.). The third and following verses, as well as the next Psalm, are exegetical or illustrative. To whom do you attribute the gift of children? Is it not admitted on all hands to be "an heritage of the Lord?" No one can procure that blessing by personal anxiety and care: God alone can confer the gift. Well, then, the same God who gives you the heritage of children will also grant you all other blessings which are good for you, provided you act the part of "His beloved," and depend upon Him without wavering.
The above is a hasty, but I trust an intelligible, view of the scope of the Psalm.
Moses Margoliouth
Wybunbury, Nantwich.
Footnote 6: [(return)]
Lightfoot, who edited Broughton's works in 1662, entitled them as follows:—"The Works of the great Albionen Divine, renowned in many Nations for rare Skill in Salem's and Athens' Tongues, and familiar acquaintance with all Rabbinical Learning," &c.
Ben Jonson has managed to introduce Broughton into some of his plays. In his Volpone, when the "Fox" delivers a medical lecture, to the great amusement of Politic and Peregrine, the former remarks,
"Is not his language rare?"
To which the latter replies,
"But Alchemy,
I never heard the like, or Broughton's books."
In the Alchemist, "Face" is made thus to speak of a female companion:
"Y' are very right, Sir, she is a most rare scholar,
And is gone mad with studying Broughton's works;
If you but name a word touching the Hebrew,
She falls into her fit, and will discourse
So learnedly of genealogies,
As you would run mad too to hear her, Sir."
(See also The History of the Jews in Great Britain, vol. i. pp. 305, &c.)