A few months ago, I set myself a goal: to not only read but to translate the book of Psalms. Now, considering that I’m not much of a Hebrew scholar, this was a very ambitious goal – but how else will I get better? Moreover, what better way to really understand the genius of the Hebrew tongue but by reading and wrestling with its greatest poetry?! Indeed, years ago when I first started studying Hebrew, my primary reason for doing it was because I wanted to read David’s Psalms as intended!
And while the explosion in growth in the Messianic Jewish community has led to never-before-seen widespread availability to hear the Psalms in a modern musical setting while retaining the beauty and poetry of the Hebrew, the fact remains that very few people are native Hebrew speakers…and very few will ever become Hebrew speakers at all! Which means that for the overwhelming majority of Christians, while groups like MIQEDEM and Joshua Aaron will help us to have a greater appreciation for the pure musical beauty of the Bible, it will do little to increase our appreciation of Hebrew poetry qua Hebrew poetry.
Does this mean that we unfortunate Gentiles should just ignore the poetry and beauty of the Psalms? Of course not! We should take advantage of our brothers and sisters who are putting God’s word to modern music to help us worship! We should challenge ourselves by reading commentaries and listening to sermons on the Psalms. We should actually read them…out loud! In public and in private. The wonderful thing about the Psalms is that they retain a lot of their great qualities even in translation because of how Hebrew poetry works.
But today I want us to look at one Psalm in particular. I want us to consider Psalm 18. I began translating this a few weeks ago and it took me quite a bit of time to translate it and polish the translation to something that both sounds good in English, but also retains some of the qualities of Hebrew. This is a far bigger challenge than I anticipated – and I expected it to be hard. Moreover, the results were disappointing. All I can see is how far short I fell of my goal to give a translation that is both accurate and retains some of the stylistic beauty of the Psalm. I wanted to give you an experience reading it that caused you to lose as little as possible from the Hebrew.
Because that’s all translators really do, is prevent loss. All translations lose something. The best translation is the one that loses the least. And translators have to decide what gets lost! That makes it a very difficult job, because you’re trying to create something and choose its inferiorities! And that’s a tough pill to swallow.
But it’s a tough pill worth swallowing because the work of translation is never done. It can always be improved. And, it’s worth it to try to give people the opportunity to lose a little less of the Word of God – or at least to lose something different and give people something that another translation has lost! That’s the great blessing of being a native English speaker in this day in which we live. We can compare many quality Bible translations and get a composite picture of what the text is in its original language without having to learn the original language.
Since, at Bryan FBC, we’re reading a Psalm a week as our call to worship, I was particularly excited to do this translation in time for us to read it together. Not because I think it’s the best translation out there — it certainly is not — but because I want to give my church a different look at something and maybe, just meybe, help them glimpse just the tiniest bit of the beauty they may not get from another translation.
Because this Psalm truly is beautiful and I highly recommend reading this along with other translations: side-by side. Again, I wrote this translation for you because I wanted to help you experience – even in the smallest way – the joy and beauty and wonder (the transport!) I experienced when working through it in Hebrew. I hope and pray this blesses you in some way!
Psalm 18: Poetic Translation
For the Director of Music, by David, the servant of Yahweh – these are the words which he spoke to Yahweh on the day Yahweh delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and the hand of Saul. And He said:
1 I love you, Yahweh, my strength!
2 Yahweh, my Rock and my Fortress and my Deliverer;
My God, my Stone; I take refuge in You.
My Shield and the Horn of my Rescue – my Safe Height!
3 Praises I cried, Yahweh;
And I was rescued from my enemies!
4 Cords of death surrounded me;
And streams of Belial[1] – they terrified me!
5 Cords of Sheol encompassed me;
Snares of death confronted me!
6 In my distress, I called “Yahweh!”
To my God I called for help;
He heard my voice from His palace;
And my call for help was before Him and entered His ears!
7 And the earth shook and quaked;
And the foundations of the mountains trembled;
And they were shaken because of He was angry.
8 Smoke went up from His nostrils;
And fire from His mouth consumed;
Burning coals came from it.
9 He parted the Heavens and came down;
And thick darkness was under His feet.[2]
10 He made a Cherub his chariot and flew;
And He glided on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His hideaway;
Holing himself up in a hut:[3]
Waters of darkness – clouds of thunderheads.
12 Gleaming in front of Him, the clouds crossed –
Hail and fiery coals.
13 He thunders in the heavens, Yahweh Elion,
He shouts –
Hail and fiery coals.[4]
14 He sent arrows of lightning,
And He scattered them;
Much lightning – and they were panicked.
15 The streams of water were seen;[5]
And the foundations of the mainland laid bare,
By your rebuke, Yahweh,
By a breath of wind from your nostrils.[6]
16 He sent from the High Place and He took me;
He drew me out of the great waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy;
And from my haters that are too strong for me.
18 They confronted me[7] in the day of my distress;
And Yahweh was my help.
19 He brought me out into open places;
He pulled me out because He takes pleasure in me.
20 Yahweh repaid me according to my righteousness;
According to the purity of my hands He rewarded me.
21 Because I had heard of Yahweh’s ways,
And I did not become evil before my God.
22 Because all His judgments are in front[8] of me,
And I have not turned from His statutes.
23 And I was complete[9] with Him;
And I was wary of perversion.
24 And Yahweh repaid me according to my righteousness;
According to the cleanness of my hands in his perception.[10]
25 With the lovingkind you are lovingkind;
With integrous men you are integrous!
26 With the purified you are pure;
To the crooked you’re a crook.
27 Because You, you rescued the humble;
And you humiliate the haughty.
28 Because You, Yahweh, you light my lamp,
My God makes light shine in darkness.
29 Because by you I can rush into an army of marauders;
By my God I can leap a wall!
30 The God is integrous in His way;
Yahweh’s words are refined;
A shield to all who seek refuge in Him.
31 Because, who is a God besides Yahweh?
And who is a Rock apart from our God?
32 The God girds me with power;
He gives my way integrity.
33 He makes my foot like a deer’s;
And He causes me to stand in the high places.
34 He makes my hands wise for war,
And my arms can bend a brazen bow.
35 You gave me the shield of your salvation!
And your right hand upholds me;
And by making yourself little you make me large![11]
36 You make room under me[12] for my steps;
And my ankles do not slip.
37 I pursue my enemies and overtake them;
I do not return until they are destroyed.
38 I break them to pieces and they cannot arise;
And they fall under[13] my feet.
39 You clothe me in brawn for battle;[14]
You cause those who arise against me to kneel under me![15]
40 You make my enemies give me their necks;[16]
And I exterminate my haters.
41 They cried for help[17] and there was no helper;
To Yahweh and He did not answer them!
42 I crush them like dust in the wind;
I dump them out like mud in the streets.[18]
43 You brought me out of a dispute with a people;
You set me as the head of a nation;
A people I did not know serve me.
44 They hear a report about me;
Sons of a foreigner fawn over me.
45 Sons of a foreigner lose heart;
They come cringing out of their strongholds.
46 Yahweh lives! And blessed be my Rock!
Exalted be the God who saves me!
47 The God is the giver of my vengeance;
He speaks and subdues peoples under me.
48 The One who frees me from my enemies;
You lift me up over those who arise against me;
You deliver me from violent men.
49 Therefore I will praise you among the nations, Yahweh;
And I will sing your name!
50 The One who makes His king’s salvation great,
And He makes lovingkindness for His anointed –
To David and his seed forever!
Explanatory and Translation Notes:
[1] Belial means “useless” or “uselessness”; some consider this a term for Hell. Hanna in 1 Samuel asks that Eli not think of her as a “daughter of Belial”. It’s not a common word, but it is a difficult one to translate. Compare how other translations treat this word.
[2] Notice the emphasis of things being places “under” and “under my feet”. This is a major theme in this Psalm.
[3] The literal word for “holing-up” is SBB. It’s seems to be a reference to verse 5 – where the cords of the grave “encompass” David. I chose to use this alliterative format to follow the beautiful Hebrew alliteration:
“Yasheth choshekh s’veevowthayv sookathow chashkhath-mayeem ahvee shachakeem”.
[4] Some manuscripts do not have this repetition of “hail and fiery coals”.
[5] This probably refers to deep undersea currents or the subterranean rivers which seem prominent in ancient thought.
[6] Nostrils are significant as the word for nose/ nostril is also the word of anger.
[7] See verse 5 where the same verb “confronted” is used to the snares of death.
[8] This is a different word than the word I translate as “before me”. David is trying to give some nuance here that is complex.
[9] A difficult word to translate. When referring to sacrifices of animals and other things, it means without blemish. This is its most common use. It also refers to God as being perfect. It is also used to mean “all”, as in “all of something” – see Lev. 3:9, 23:15, 25:30; Joshua 10:13. When referring to people it means something like complete, having integrity, being blameless, being perfect in ethical character. It refers to Noah. It might refer to the Devil, pre-fall – see Ezekiel 28:15. It’s a fairly common word, used 91 times in the OT. It’s also one of the most common words in this Psalm. God, Yahweh, and Enemy are the only nouns (or verbs) used more in this Psalm. Thus, it is crucially important. See also, II Samuel 22.
[10] Here there is a resumption of the “according to” seen in verse 20. There is a clever pun David plays on the last words of verses 23 and 24. The last word in 23 is “guilt/ transgression/ sin” “ah-ownee” the last word in 24 is “in his eyes” “ay-nee-ow”. Unfortunately there is not a good way to convey the poetry in English and retain the genius of the Hebrew.
[11] There is actually no alliteration in Hebrew here, but there is a clear poetry or parallelism that English doesn’t convey well, so I used alliteration to try to convey it.
[12] Another reference to “under”.
[13] See above.
[14] Literally, “You gird me in strength for battle.”
[15] Under, again!
[16] This idiom seems to mean “run away” or “retreat”, but the imagery is too good to gloss over in this type of translation.
[17] Note the resumption of this verb from verse 6.
[18] See note from Expositor’s Bible Commentary:
“The enemies’ strength was reduced so that they were no more than useless “dust” (cf. 2 Ki 13:7), only good for being stepped on, like “mud” (cf. Isa 10:6; Mic 7:10) in the open places (“streets,” v. 42). It may well be that the battles are those mentioned in 2 Samuel 8:10, but the more general point of the section lies in the confidence that no enemy can stand up against the Lord’s anointed.”