A Waterfall, Ancient Inscriptions, and Psalm 42:7-8

Ferrell Jenkins posts a superb photograph of a Jordan River waterfall. It is hard not to be reminded of Psalms 42:7-8. Warning: this post is not for sissies.

עלי נַפְשִׁי תִשְׁתּוֹחָח

עַל־כֵּן אֶזְכָּרְךָ

 

מֵאֶרֶץ יַרְדֵּן וְחֶרְמוֹנִים

מֵהַר מִצְעָר

 

תְּהוֹם־אֶל־תְּהוֹם קוֹרֵא

לְקוֹל צִנּוֹרֶיךָ

 

כָּל־מִשְׁבָּרֶיךָ וְגַלֶּיךָ

עָלַי עָבָרוּ

O (my) High One, my soul is downcast;

       therefore, I call you to mind

from the land of Jordan and the Hermons,

       from mount Mizar.

Where deep calls to deep

        at the sound of your cataracts

all your breakers and waves

        passed over me.

Except at the very beginning, the translation I offer is almost identical to that offered by Peter Craigie, though I came up with it before turning to his splendid commentary (Psalms 1-50 [2^nd ed. with a supplement by Marvin Tate; WBC 19; Nashville: Nelson, 2004] 323). The first word of Ps 42:7, אלהי, is omitted above on the assumption that it is actually the conclusion of the preceding poetic line (ישועות פניו ^42:7 אלהי => ישועות פני ואלהי; cf. 42:12 ישועת פני ואלהי). For the rest, I understand עלי to be a divine name or an epithet used as a divine name, meaning something like “High One.” Perhaps it is short for עליון, sometimes simply transliterated “Elyon.” My proposal builds off observations found in HALOT (Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann Jakob Stamm, and M. E. J. Richardson, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (electronic ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999, 832):

עֵלִי: n.m. < *ʿily (→ עֱלִי) elevated, cf. עֶלְיוֹן or short form cf. יהועלי (Cowley Arm. Pap.) Heb. inscr. עליהא (Moscati Epigrafia 64, 39), cf. n.f. עליה (Vattioni Sigilli 157); Noth Personennamen 146

Note also 1 Sam 2:10:

יְהוָה יֵחַתּוּ מְרִיבָיו

עלו בַּשָּׁמַיִם יַרְעֵם

יְהוָה יָדִין

אַפְסֵי אָרֶץ

יהוה – those who strive with him are shattered,

     the High One in heaven thunders.

יהוה judges

     the ends of the earth.

Readings of this kind are seldom considered because epigraphic finds in the languages of the Hebrew Bible (ancient Hebrew and Aramaic) continue to be woefully underutilized.

Vocative עלי in Psalm 42:7 has a lot going for it. It prepares the way for “I call you to mind” following. Its sense, “High One,” or perhaps “my High One,” forms a perfect contrast to “my soul is downcast” following. It reinforces the conclusion, reached on independent grounds, that 1 Sam 2:10 contains an epithet עלו or עלי of יהוה, in a textual context, interestingly enough, that includes someone with the name עלי which contains the same DN / epithet – Eli, the priest (1 Sam 1:14, 17; 2:11; etc.).

עליהא and עליה, sad to say, are not to be found in Sandra Landis Gogel’s supposedly comprehensive A Grammar of Epigraphic Hebrew (SBLBS 23; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), but עליהו [Avigad HB 35, 141-142] is, and is construed as Alayahu. The plot thickens. It would be fun to track down discussions of these names by experts in onomastics. In an Aramaic text, יהועלי is attested in C3:15:108, to use standard citation formulation among Aramaic scholars, and construed as Yehoeli in Porten, Archives, 137. Note also עלנבו C3:6:10 (Segal, Aramaic Texts, 67).

DN על is discussed in DDD by Brian Schmidt (K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking; Pieter Willem van der Horst, eds; Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible [2nd extensively rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill; 1999, 15). I excerpt the article here. Thanks to Logos, this book is Libronixed. Here’s the excerpt:

A passage from one of the Ugaritic texts describes the deity →Baal as ‘the Most High’ and in this instance the short form ʿly, not ʿlyn, is employed: bʿl ʿly (KTU 1.16 iii:5–9). Another Ugaritic text written in syllabic transcription mentions “the fields of ʿaliyu” a.šà^{ḫi.a d}al-i-yi (RS 18.22:3’-4 = PRU 6 [1970] 55, ll.3’-4’). It has been suggested that on the analogy of the phrase a.šà^{ḫi.a d}ištar, “the fields of →Ishtar”, which appears elsewhere in the same text (1.6’-11’), Aliyu in 11.3’-4’ might likewise function as the name of a god or as a divine epithet: “the fields of the Ascendant”. Although the god →El at Ugarit is closely associated with the epithet ‘Most High’ in KTU 1.111:17–18: ʿly[n]//ʾil, “Elyon… // El… ”, the proposed reading and relationship of the two forms remains a matter of debate (cf. KTU, pace de Moor 1979:652–653 and note Old South Arabic ʾl t ʿly, “El the Most High”, in RES 3882:4–5, 3962: 5–6, 3965:4, 4335:2–3 following U. Oldenburg, ZAW 82 [1970] 189–190, 195 n.42). [snip]

Ancient Hebrew onomastics might preserve the divine name or epithet ʿly in pre-exilic and exilic Israelite society. Hebrew inscriptional personal names preserved on bullae dating from the 6th cent. bce attest to the function of the ʿly element as an epithet of YHWH or yhw(h): yhŵly, “Yahu is Most High”, ywʿly, “Yaw is Most High”, ʿlyhw, “Most High is Yahu” and ʿlyw, “Most High is Yaw” (N. Avigad, Bullae and Seals from a Post Exilic Judaean Archive [Qedem Monographs 4; Jerusalem 1976]). Moreover, the ʿly element in the personal name yḥwʿly inscribed on an 8th cent. bce ostracon from Samaria might function as a divine name “May the Most High give life” (no. 55:2).

Scholars have cited several biblical texts where they conjecture that the short form of the epithet ‘Most High’, ʿly occurs. While most of the proposed passages have been rejected by scholars owing to the lack of textual or contextual support, there are a handful of biblical passages that might document the possible use of ʿly as a divine epithet or name associated with YHWH. Such passages include Deut 33:12; 1 Sam 2:10; 2 Sam 23:1 and Hos 11:7 and provide some ancient testimony or contextual indicators that lends support to the reading and interpretation of ʿly as ‘Most High’ (for a lengthy list of additional but less likely passages from Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Psalms and Job, see [Lorenzo] Viganò [“Nomi e titoli di YHWH alla luce del semitico del Nord-ovest,” BeO 31 (1976) 34–62 [& lit, esp. p 34 n. 4].

END QUOTE. Schmidt’s article (which I have excerpted only; he also discusses Ebla and Mari materials), for all its thoroughness, omits consideration of relevant material cited in HALOT (only some of which is provided in the excerpt above), not to mention עלנבו (Segal, Aramaic Texts, 67). That’s not really a criticism. It’s just the way the ball bounces in the field of NW Semitic epigraphy. The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.

I dedicate this post to the memory of one of my teachers, Mitchell Dahood. He understood עלי in Psalm 42:7 along similar lines. I formed my hypothesis, nonetheless, without foreknowledge of his.

Comments

[Duane]

Hmmm. At one level, I like your understanding. I think there are more divine names and/or epithets in BH than is generally recognized. I even think the opposition of "High One" and "cast down" is interesting. That such an epithet occurred is beyond reasonable doubt. You made that point very well. But I do wonder in this case if the contextual support is strong enough to maintain the suggestion. It doesn't get any support from the LXX. Quite the contrary, the LXX supports the traditional understanding. Or is it that the traditional understanding is supported by the LXX? It is, of course, possibly (likely?) that usage as an epithet was forgotten by the time of the LXX. I guess I would now give this a prior of 50% and hope for more support. Don't get me wrong, before I read your post I would have given it a prior of less than 25%.

[JohnFH]

Duane,

Your caution is well-taken. I would rate the MT here as having a zero chance of reflecting a pristine text. The LXX, on the other hand, reflects a far better text. Caution will dictate accepting it rather than speculating about the shape of a more original text that may lie behind it.

The LXX of the Psalms is usually put between 100 and 200 BCE. That's long after the period of epigraphic attestation of עלי and על as an epithet/DN in PNs. It is possible that the epithet/DN was subject to misunderstanding once it fell out of ongoing use.

LXX Deuteronomy 33:12 preserves either an approximate understanding of עליו or עלי (whatever stood in its Vorlage) only, insofar as it translates with a generic "God," or is a witness to the fact that already by the third cent. BCE at the latest, it was as obscure as other old DNs were, like Shaddai.

But עלי has the added disadvantage of being susceptible to reinterpretation as a preposition + pronominal suffix.