(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.