Psalms of Solomon

Historical printed page 650

THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON 17. 30-46 (28) And he shall divide them according to their tribes upon the land, 31 And neither sojourner nor alien shall sojourn with them any more. (29) He shall judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness. Se/ah. 32 (30) And he shall have the heathen nations to serve him under his yoke ; And he shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen of (?) all the earth ; 33 And he shall purge Jerusalem, making it holy as of old: 34 (31) So that nations shall come from the ends of the earth to see his glory, Bringing as gifts her sons who had fainted, 3325 And to see the glory of the Lord, wherewith God hath glorified her. (32) And he (shall be) a righteous king, taught of God, over them, 36 And there shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst, For all shall be holy and their king the anointed of the Lord. 37 (33) For he shall not put his trust in horse and rider and bow, Nor shall he multiply for himself gold and silver for war, Nor shall he gather confidence from (?) a multitude (?) for the day of battle. 38 (34) The Lord Himself is his king, the hope of him that is mighty through (his) hope in God. { ) All nations (shall be) in fear before him, 39 (35) For he will smite the earth with the word of his mouth for ever. 40 He will bless the people of the Lord with wisdom and gladness, 41 (36) And he himself (will be) pure from sin, so that he may rule a great people. He will rebuke rulers, and remove sinners by the might of his word ; 42 (37) And (relying) upon his God, throughout his days he will not stumble ; For God will make him mighty by means of (His) holy spirit, And wise by means of the spirit of understanding, with strength and righteousness. 43 (38) And the blessing of the Lord (will be) with him: he will be strong and stumble not ; 44 (39) His hope (will be) in the Lord: who then can prevail against him ? (40) (He will be) mighty in his works, and strong in the fear of God, 45 (He will be) shepherding the flock of the Lord faithfully and righteously, And will suffer none among them to stumble in their pasture. 46 (41) | He will lead them all aright, And there will be no pride among them that any among them should be oppressed. 32 ὁ. in a place to be seen of. So Ryle and James render ἐν ἐπισήμῳ (cp. ii. 6 n.), seeing in the lines an allusion to the miraculously exalted and consequently conspicuous Zion of the Messianic age (Isa. ii. 2). Kit. here, as in ii. 6, takes ἐν ἐπι. to be a rendering of ? 133, and renders ‘openly before’. In $ v. 32 ὁ reads ‘and they (i.e. the nations) shall praise (= glorify) the Lord openly in all the earth’. 34, 35a. Very probably the original form of this tristich (originally a distich ?) is not correctly preserved. ‘ His glory’, i.e. the glory of the Messianic king ; ‘her sons’, i.e. the exiled inhabitants of Jerusalem. 34. So that nations shall come. So RH ὥ; J L ‘Come, ye nations’; #? ‘nations shall come’. fainted. S ‘been scattered from her’. 35. Perhaps ® read simply, ‘ And he (shall be) a righteous king taught of God’, ody being dittographed and then ᾿ read incorrectly omy = omy , ‘over them.’ 36. the anointed of the Lord (cp. xviii. 6). SG ‘the anointed, the Lord’ (= Christ the Lord, Luke ii. Ir), (ἃ Χριστὸς κύριος -- Y TD MWD (or VIN MD), the normal rendering of which would be Χριστὸς κυρίου; for the X. κύριος of (ἃ (95) see Lam. iv. 20. 372. Obscure. S% employs the same verbal phrase here as in 37 a; if by accident 35 so far returns to the original, it is difficult to account for the variation in @&. Further, if πολλοῖς is the objective of the verbal phrase, we might expect it to be preceded by a preposition, and if instrumental by ἐν. Ryle and James conjecture πλοίοις for πολλοῖς, and render ‘nor by ships shall he gather confidence’, &c. 38a. Doubtless this line, together perhaps with v. 37 ¢ in an earlier uncorrupted form, contained the antithesis to | » i ο»ς- vv. 37 a,6: Not in weapons and material resources, but in God does he put his trust. Whether the strangely expressed Greek text at all closely reproduces the original, or whether the Lord was here described as the king’s King, must remain very doubtful. 386. The words καὶ ἐλεήσει, left untranslated above, are probably due to some corruption, whether in ® or τ, ‘He shall have mercy upon all the nations (that come) before him in fear’ (Ryle and James) is a bad introduction to v. 39. καὶ ἐλεήσει . . . €v φόβῳ may represent some such phrase as ‘he shall set trembling’; or καὶ ἐλεήσει may belong to the preceding corrupt line, and ἐν φύβῳ = IN. 39. Cp. Isa. xi. 4. Note also the influence of Isa. xi. 3 f. on the following lines. ἢ 41. He will rebuke ... and remove. (& ‘that he may’, &c. : 42. stumble, or ‘totter’. Cp. e.g. Ps. ix. 3, or Ps. xxvi. (xxv.) 1. Ge ‘be weak’ (ἀσθενήσει = Sway) 3 SO VV. 43, 45. will make. (& ‘made’. 426,c. by means of, or ‘in’. 43. he will be strong. (ἃ ἐν ἰσχύι, ‘in strength’ (= TY3 erroneously read for TY). 46. aright. Lit. ‘in equalness’; so R J L marg.; ‘in holiness’, L (text) H. 650