A Brief Introduction to Hebrew Poetics in Psalm 1.

 

The message of the First Psalm overlaid on a painting by Floyd County Artisit Winnie Carthel which hangs on the wall of my bedroom.

[Teaching notes by K Cummings Pipes, SouthwestCentralHouston, ZOOM class

This is the first of a series of 2. I link the November 19 post with Part 2 Hebrew Poetics: Concantentaionhttp://the-life-i-read.blogspot.com/2020/11/hebrew-poetics-concantenation-through.html]

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful."  Psalm 1:1  KJV

Blessed!

How blessed! Happy! How happy!

It's not a statement of fact. Not a teaching or code of law.

Blessed!

It's a proclamation, a shout, an assertion of deep fulfillment, a state of harmony with the world, with others, and with oneself

It's a bold and joyous celebration of unity and peace with the God whose name we know, the God whose name we whisper.

Blessed! ‘ashrei in Hebrew a strong, masculine interjection

So begins the first Psalm.

The word “bless” in its various Hebrew forms is the most commonly used word in the Psalms. Over 100 times.

The idea of blessing is the over-arching theme of the Psalms.

What does it mean to be blessed?

Who is blessed?

How do we see blessing in times of fear, pain, loss, doubt, oppression, separation, death?

How do we recover our balance?

How do we find “the level place” [that idea is one of the meanings of the word “bless”] that level place where we can walk in safety and security?

Where is the “straight path, the open way” to promised blessing? [those, too, are meanings in the word “bless”]

When I’m lost, when I’ve stumbled, when I don’t know the way, how do I find the way back?

What is the “next step”? [yet another meaning of “bless”]

 A Hebrew scholar notes the possibility that “Blessing!”  ’ashrei may be an sound-alike  pun on ‘ashurim “steps” and this idea reinforces the walking metaphor of the first Psalm. 

[Robert Alter citing Nahum Sarna]

In the handouts for this lesson, I provided a copy of Psalm 1 from one of the most recent translations of Hebrew scripture into English.  Robert Alter’s highly annotated translation is excellent and belongs in the library of any serious student of the Bible.

I took the liberty of changing Alter’s v. 1 “Happy” to “Blessed” and added 2 “!” to make visible the strong masculine interjection of the Hebrew.

Psalm 1 (Robert Alter’s translation.)

1    Blessed! 

“the man who has not walked in the wicked’s counsel, 

nor stood in the way of offenders has stood, 

nor in the session of scoffers sat.

2    But the LORD’s teaching is his desire,                    

And His teaching he murmurs day and night.

3    And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water  

that bears its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither—

and in all that he does he prospers.

4    Not so! the wicked,  but like chaff that the wind drives away.

5    Therefore, the wicked will not stand up in judgment,  

nor offenders in the band of the righteous.

6    For the LORD embraces the way of the righteous,    

And the way of the wicked is lost.”

Today I’m charged with presenting a brief introduction to some aspects of Hebrew poetics applied to the First Psalm. Some of those basic principles are:

1.    Word choice not only definitions but hidden meanings and the “sounds” of alliteration, rhyme, puns, play on words, shadings of meaning.

2.  Metaphor and Imagery 

3.  Structure which in Psalms is usually defined by key word repetition and parallelism of phrases.

Imagery and metaphor are the language of poetry, where a simple picture of something quite common and ordinary is elevated into something greater, more complex, more powerful, more beautiful, more eternal:

"all the world’s a stage, 

love is a red red rose, 

hope is the thing with feathers, 

conscience is a man’s compass, 

let justice flow down like a river, 

shall we gather at the river, 

I am the light of the world, 

I am the good Shepherd…"

 

Throughout Hebrew scripture, one of the primary identities of God is the One Who Speaks. God speaks in Creation, God speaks to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God speaks from a burning bush, from Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Words; God speaks to kings, and by prophets etc.

As the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews reminds us:

“Long ago God spoke… in many and various ways… but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son.”

The Apostle John asserts that Jesus is the Word, from Alpha to Omega, from beginning to end, the final word. 

There can be a lot of meaning wrapped up in a single word.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Hebrew scripture.

Biblical Hebrew has fewer than 9,000 words (8,198 attested) formed from 2,099 roots.  

Modern Hebrew has 6 times that many words. 

English may have many as ¾ of a million. 

William Shakespeare (approx. contemporaneous with the KJV) used 31,534 unique words, more than 3 times the number of words in all of Biblical Hebrew.

So, we begin to see the translators’ dilemma:

every Hebrew word has layer after layer after layer of meaning.

When I studied Hebrew with Rabbi Samuel Karff, he suggested that, when translating a passage from Hebrew to English, one should look carefully at all the possible meanings of a Hebrew word and all the possible meanings of that word’s root. The words chosen to translate are strongly dependent on context. Especially in the wisdom writings which include the Psalms, one should “hold in one’s mind, all the meanings” and look carefully at the repetitions of those words within the psalm. “When in doubt, include more not fewer meanings and look at them in the context of all scripture.” The Rabbi laughed and  told me, “don’t bother with the Greek just bring your reading, your understanding of Hebrew scripture into your understanding of Messiah in your Christian text."

Now returning to Psalm 1.

I’ve already noted the “walking metaphors” hidden in the root meanings of the word “bless.”

We might even say that, at its most basic level, to be blessed is to be walking in the way of the LORD.

[It is worth noting the Hebrew words used to refer to God. The Hebrew Elohim is translated “God.” The Hebrew Adonai is translated “Lord” and emphasizes God’s authority. That word may also be used for a man in authority. 

Here in this first Psalm and elsewhere, particularly in the older Psalms 3-72 which are offered in the context David’s life—as man and as God’s anointed King—the Hebrew word is the personal name of God, too holy to be spoken aloud. Thus, the word in text would be written “Yah-weh” or “Y-h W-h” but is always spoken as “the LORD” to distinguish from “Adonai.” 

Some newer translations omit the all caps, but the distinction between these words is important to preserve. We bow to the Lord; we have an intimate personal relationship, a spiritual relationship, a breath-to-breath relationship with the LORD whose name we know and whisper.]

Similar layers of meanings are also hidden in the words  “the way” and “the law”

The Hebrew word “the way” derek and its primitive root darak are used over 800 times in Hebrew scripture, 80 times in the Psalms.

phrase “walking the way” means

a road as it is walked one step at a time, 

a pathway, a journey, a course of life, 

a mode of action, custom or habit, 

conversation, 

direction.

Eugene Peterson titled  his book about the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) using the apt phrase: “a long obedience in the same direction.”

I should also note that the root word darak can mean treading the harvest, threshing the grain from the chaff which is blown away with the wind. This layer of meaning in the word "darak" is a powerful reinforcement of the shortened metaphor in v. 4

The Hebrew word “the law” is Torah and its primitive root is “yarah” yaw-raw are frequently associated with “walking the way.”

We usually think of Torah almost as a legal term, meaning precept or statute but the derivation and related words expand our idea of Torah to  include 

“teaching” the word Robert Alter chose for his translation, to instruct, to inform, to direct.

There are other images hidden in the idea of The Law, the Word of the Lord:

flowing as water (or falling as rain) – a blessing image,

to point out as if by aiming a finger, to indicate direction,

a boundary, a hedgerow that marks the path, a turning in the road. [which became the dominant understanding of the word in 19^th and 20^th Centuries commentaries.]

Also hidden deep in the layers of the word yarah are words for “turtle dove” and “bullock” the sacrificial animals for the poor and the rich. I wept with joy when I first noticed this hidden meaning. The primary purpose of Torah, the Law of the LORD, is not legalism but chesed, the Hebrew word that can be translated as grace, unfailing love, the steadfast love of the Lord. 

The Torah of Hebrew scripture and the Gospel’s new commandment of love both point to reconciliation with God, with our selves, and with others.

It is no surprise, then, that within the structure of many Psalms, Torah, the Law of the Lord, is often associated with words for salvation and blessing.

Finally, both Hebrew words or their roots, Torah the law of the LORD and darak the pathways of righteousness, include archery images: setting the arrow, bending the bow, and shooting the arrow on a straight course to the target.

Which is why I often pray a short prayer I wrote many years ago while on retreat with our Youth Group at Rockcleft:

Lord God, shoot us like arrows along your chosen course.

Let us fly straight and true as you direct us.

Let us hit the target.

          Let us not miss the mark.

Psalm 1 is rich in other metaphors:

“A tree planted by the water” which the Apostle Paul echoes in Ephesians with “rooted and grounded in faith”

“by rivers of water” “living water” which in Hebrew imagery evoke a reminder of God’s Spirit on the face of the waters teeming with life and of God’s provision of springs in a desert.

Let’s pause to visualize these images of the growing tree with roots nourished in living water. Recall all the times in the Bible where rivers are the setting, where water is mentioned:

Creation, Jacob’s Well, the Red Sea and the Jordan river where the  foreign leper Naaman found healing, the waters of Babylon where the people hung their harps because they could no longer sing the psalms of Zion, baptisms 

[both Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament offer examples. The Hebrew word is "mikvah" a pool of living water for immersion and purification which brings one into the presence of God.]

The tree that is planted is living water is a rich, rich metaphor.

This broadening understanding of Hebrew scripture brings a new perspective to Jesus changing water into wine and speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well and proclaiming that the those who receive his “living water will never thirst”…

What the tree and the water and the blessed man of Psalm 1 have in common is growth and movement. Living things grow. The one who is blessed is walking, moving toward God. Note that the verbs used in v. 1 of this Psalm are those used in the beloved 23^rd Psalm

v. 3 offers a rich and verbose description of that blessed growth: fruit abundant in season, leaves that don’t wither.

Blessed!

A tree can withstand a drought without withering when it drinks living water. It is fruitful and prospers. 

It is worth noting here that a tree that bears fruit often requires pruning, its growth is not only nourished by the living water but shaped by the will of One who tends tree.

The word "prosper" yatsliah is a masculine verb, more likely to be used to refer to a man than a tree. Its use here makes clear that this image of a fruitful tree is a metaphor of the blessed man, the godly man who is walking the way.

This metaphor of the fruitful tree and the prospering man (blessed!) pushes us back up to the descriptors in v. 1

This poetic device--word choice and metaphor reinforced by the structure of the poem--reminds us that there is a man who made other choices. There is a man who chose to walk in the counsel of the ungodly and to stand in the way of sinners and to sit down with the scornful.  That man moved in the wrong direction and stopped moving.

Then in verse 4, the interjection: “Not so! the wicked”

Usually KJV does a better job than many more recent translations at catching the rhythms of the Hebrew but here it fails.

“Not so!” punches in forceful opposition to the “Blessed!” of v. 1

The verse that follows that “Not so!” is so very short in comparison to the blessed abundance of v. 3

v. 4 is short and abrupt and very sharp and serves as a verbal “cutting off” a perishing, if you will. The structure of the psalm implies "Torah" but there is no "Torah" in any of its many layers in the ungodly man who is not fruitful and is blown away in the wind as chaff from the threshing floor.

v. 5  because they would not walk in the way of the Lord, because they “stood in the way of sinners” they will not stand up in the judgement.

Here the psalmist is using two different words for "stand" but playing with the images. Because they stood where they should not have stood and sat down, the wicked now cannot stand up. They do not have a leg to stand on in the congregation of the righteous.

["the congregation of the righteous" is an image of judgement and is a thematic idea which we will revisit at the end of this study when we look at Psalm 150.]

Finally, there is a metaphor in v. 6 although it is hidden in our English translations.

“The LORD knoweth the way of the righteous” could be more rightly translated using a visually evocative metaphor:

“The LORD shepherds the way of the righteous.” 

Robert Alter translated this phrase: “… the LORD embraces the way of the righteous” and noted that the “The Hebrew-- literally “knows” -- is a verb often used for intimate connection, the sexual union of man and wife.

I like Alter’s  translation, because it calls to mind the 85^th Psalm which also speaks to the idea of judgement;

“Gracious love and faithful truth are joined together; righteousness and peace embrace and kiss.”  (my translation)

I close with a quote from my favorite Old Testament theologian, Walter Brueggmann (Israel’s Praise):

“Psalms are not only responses to the reality of relationship with the biblical God but also expressions that help reshape that relationship with God.  That is, psalms not only reflect reality but also shift reality." 

We stopped here for a short Q&A before continuing with a very quick look at the structure of Psalm 1. 

           

Psalm 1 has two interlocking structures: (1)  two lines in parallel, repeated which is the structure of the oldest Hebrew poetry and (2) the chiastic/nested or ring structures of newer, [post Captivity] writings.

      

Structure: linear through time, A & B offer contrasting rather than similar parallel lines:

present:         A         1-3      Blessed 

not walking, standing,  or sitting with the wicked

B         4-5      the wicked

                        not standing with the assembly of righteous

future:            A         6          Blessed

walk the way God watches over

B         6          the wicked

walk the way that perishes

And a chiastic structure: 

[think of this kind of structure as Russian dolls, go in and then back out. 

The key point is usually in the middle and I’ve seen a few examples that go all the way into a G or even an I point. 

Psalm 1 presents one of the less common structures where there is no middle point, which shifts the emphasis to A and A’.  

In this case, the interior point D has been moved to the end, probably to support the linear, parallel structure ABAB of the older Hebrew poems. 

It is very unusual for a Psalm to have such a complex structure.]

            A                                 1          The blessed walk/stand/sit not with wicked…

                        B                     2                      their way (Torah)

                                    C          3                                  Comparison:  like tree/water

                                                                                    fruitful, useful

                                    C’         4                                  Comparison:  like chaff/wind

                                                                                    not nourishing, trash

                        B’                                            "not so" (their way implied:  not Torah)

A’                                5          The wicked do not stand with righteous

powerful & authoritative:   D         6          God shepherds the way of the righteous

the way of the wicked perishes

Taken together the structure of this Psalm underline the primary message of this psalm:

To be blessed is to walk the way that God knows, watches over, shepherds.  

The wicked (ungodly) follow a way that is cut off (from God) and that way is not "the way" and  perishes.