Where there’s more going on than meets the eye
In the Bible the book of Psalms is a collection of poetry. Originally written in Hebrew, our translation into English misses out some of the beauty and technical skill of the original compositions.
Philip Hewer recently wrote about the challenges of translating Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, and in its original form, a masterpiece of poetry.
The Hebrew uses 8 different terms in referring to the Word of God, e.g. law, testimony, ordinance/judgment, commandment, statutes, precepts, word, promise/word. However, the Psalmist’s choice from among these terms is largely governed by the demands of the poetic structure, rather than focusing on a particular facet of meaning in each instance. The 176 verses are divided into 22 stanzas (strophes) of 8 lines each, and within each stanza each of the 8 lines starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, working through all 22 letters successively. Wow! Can you imagine the Psalmist composing within those restrictions?
Read the full post here
Philip Hewer is a colleague of mine at Wycliffe Bible Translators. He’s currently embroiled in checking Old Testament text for a Bible translation in Ghana. You can read about his work on his blog, Hewers of Wood.
