Psalms of Solomon

Historical printed page 638

THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON 5. 9—6. 4 y (7) Even though Thou restore us not, we will not keep away ; But unto Thee will we come. 10 (8) For if I hunger, unto Thee will I cry, O God ; And 7hou wilt give to me. 11 (9) Birds and fish dost Thou nourish, : In that Thou givest rain to the steppes that green grass may spring up, (10) (80) to prepare fodder in the steppe for every living thing ; 12 And if they hunger, unto Thee do they lift up their face. 13 (11) Kings and rulers and peoples Zou dost nourish, O God ; And who is the help of the poor and needy, if not Thou, O Lord? 14 (12) And Thou wilt hearken—for who is good and gentle but Thou ?— Making glad the soul of the humble by opening Thine hand in mercy. 15 (13) Man’s goodness is (bestowed) grudgingly and .. .; And if he repeat (it) without murmuring, even that is marvellous. 16 (14) But Thy gift is great in goodness and wealth, And he whose hope is (set) on Thee shall have no lack of gifts. 17 (15) Upon the whole earth is Thy mercy, O Lord, in goodness. 18 (16) Happy is he whom God remembereth in (granting to him) a due sufficiency ; 19 Ifa man abound overmuch, he sinneth. 20 (17) Sufficient are moderate means with righteousness, And hereby the blessing of the Lord (becomes) abundance with righteousness. 21 (18) They that fear the Lord rejoice in good (gifts), And Thy goodness is upon Israel in Thy kingdom. Blessed is the glory of the Lord, for He is our king. VI. Jn Hope. Of Solomon. 6 1 Happy is the man whose heart is fixed to call upon the name of the Lord ; 2 When he remembereth the name of the Lord, he will be saved. 3 (2) His ways are made even by the Lord, And the works of his hands are preserved by the Lord his God. 4 (3) At what he sees in his bad dreams, his soul shall not be troubled ; ga. Cp. Ps. Ixxx. 7. $ And turn not Thy face from us, lest we go far from Thee’. 11. To relieve the present awkwardness, von Gebhardt conjectured ἡτοίμισας, ‘thou preparest’, in place of ἑτοιμάσαι ( 5), ‘so to prepare’; perhaps rightly. 38 possibly suffered some misplacement and contamination, and read originally somewhat as follows: When Thou givest rain, the green grass springs up; Thou preparest provender in the steppe for every beast. Birds and fish 7oz dost nourish, And if they hunger, they lift up their face to Thee. At present the fresh grass of the steppes, which is not the food of fish and birds, is brought into unnaturally close relation to them. 12. The tenses, in @ future, were doubtless in 18 imperfects with frequentative force ; cp. vv. Il a, 134, 14. Making glad the soul of the humble, or ‘ make glad’, ἄς. S ‘ And his soul shall be satisfied’, 15. grudgingly. So J (ἐν φειδοῖ ; RLC ἐν fads) S; the reading of H, ἐν φίλῳ, ‘on a friend’, arose from this by error. A synonymous clause followed, but has been obscured by the mistranslation of &, and subsequent mutilation (?). (ἃ reads, ungrammatically, καὶ ἡ αὔριον, which is expanded by S&, and, independently, by Ryle and James, into ‘ to-day and to-morrow’. Possibly #7 read M223 (whence, by confusion with 7M), G's αὔριον), ‘and for a price’ (cp. Frankenberg). : 16. is great, ἄς. Lit. ‘great, with (μετά) kindness, andrich’. God’s gift is given with a free, ungrudging (cp. 15 a) kindness, and is also in itself rich and costly. shall have no lack of gifts. So, probably, the original text of 38 ; but, if so, DM’ was miscopied Din’ (Franken- berg). @ (cp. S$) may be best rendered ‘ will not be sparing with his gifts’. See Ryle and James. 18. God. ‘the Lord’. in (granting to him) a due sufficiency. Cp. e.g. Prov. xxx. 8. 9 ‘in poverty’, perhaps a paraphrase of &, for note ‘ poverty’ also renders τὸ μέτριον in v. 20. 20%. Not very clear. Perhaps the meaning is: the moderate means given by God is equivalent to abundance, but an abundance that does not lead to sin (v. 19). Ryle and James render: ‘and herein is the blessing of the Lord, that (a man) be satisfied in righteousness.’ VI. 3. made even. Cp. Ps. v. 8; or, ‘established’, cp. Ps. xxxvii. 23. 36. the Lord. 3 om. 638 ap. my