Psalm 111 in Technicolor

Praise יה!

1 I acknowledge יהוה with a whole heart           in the council and assembly of the true;

 2magnificent are יהוה’s accomplishments,      retraced by all who cherish them;

3 glory, majesty describe his work,                    his beneficence stands forever.

 

4 Renown he won by his wonders,                   generous and merciful is יהוה;

5 spoil he gave to those who fear him,            he remembers his covenant in perpetuity;

6 the power of his deeds he evidenced to his people   by granting them the estate of nations.

 

7 The actions of his hands are sure and just,     trusted are all his dispositions,

8 established for all time in perpetuity,             accomplished in surety and truth.

 

9 Redemption he sent his people,                      ordained his covenant in perpetuity;

                                                                      holy, awesome, his name.

10 The beginning of wisdom: fear of יהוה;      keen sense belongs to all who act on them;

                                                                      his praise stands forever.

Praise יה!

The colors signal lexical, clause constituent, and information structure chains. For example, green marks the objects of praise in the psalm; grey, attributes of the objects of praise; magenta, the performers of praise and the qualities they should possess: the beginning of wisdom: fear of the Lord, and keen sense. 

Comments

[mokumalef]

John, this looks awesome. But it looks even better when done to the Hebrew text. I use a similar method in teaching Biblical Hebrew. In addition I indicate the major teamim and vavs in blazing color. I then break up the verse accordingly into semantic units. A little like the "Handbook on the Hebrew Text" series but more colorful.

[JohnFH]

Hi Mokumalef,

In fact, I marked the text up in Hebrew first of all, but had trouble getting it to formulate properly as a post. I will provide it in PDF form soon.

[Carl Kinbar]

It's comforting to know that someone else has problems formatting Hebrew text.

[JohnFH]

I don't have much trouble formatting pure Hebrew text, but I always have trouble mixing Hebrew and English on the same line.

I have a Hebrew-English diglot template worked up, but it is bicolumnar whereas I need something more complex in this instance. The bicolumnar format itself is a pain to work with, which makes me leery of trying to go the whole nine yards.

[Carl Kinbar]

"I always have trouble mixing Hebrew and English on the same line."

Right. I use DavkaWriter, which works most of the time. Still, there are problems.

[Gary Simmons]

Truly amazing, John. However: "keen sense belongs to all who act on them." What is the antecedent of "them?" Is it "his dispositions?" It took me a moment to find it, since the antecedent is so far back.

[Gary Simmons]

Ah -- I see you addressed this in the next post. Honestly, it seems strange to find "X=Y" and then a plural antecedent referring to "X+Y." It doesn't seem logical to me that it's referring to fear of Adonai and wisdom, although the 112 reference makes sense (logically, despite the grammatical disagreement in number).

[JohnFH]

I agree, Gary. It's a crux. "Dispositions" seems a bit far away. It is also strange, as you say, to find "X=Y" and then a plural antecedent referring to "X+Y." I can't think of any other examples.

Maybe the author simply had a brain burp, with something like "his commandments" to be understood as the unstated referent.

Can the truth be spoken in and through brain burps? I don't see (BURP) why not.

[Everett]

I love this. I have a question, though. I like that you opted to not translate the Tetragrammaton, however when you speak the psalm aloud, what do you say? Lord? Adonai? Something else?

Thanks.

EG

[JohnFH]

Hi Everett,

I prefer Ha-Shem, but that's just me.

[Phil]

I prefer HaShem too. When learnign cantillation from an Orthodox cantor he insisted that I say HaShem and not Adonay, as HaShem was "less holy." I prefer it because at least the number of syllables are the same as יהוה.