What David’s Tomb Could Not Say (Psalm 16)
At Pentecost, Peter quoted Psalm 16: “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.” But is the Greek word for “corruption” an accurate translation of the Hebrew?
The Price of Another God (Psalm 16)
Psalm 16:4 opens with a line that modern translators have called difficult, uncertain, even obscure. The ESV refers to those who “run after” another god. Yet this is not what the term typically means.
The Lines That Fell (Psalm 16)
Psalm 16 declares, “Property lines have fallen for me in the most delightful places.” What does this mean, and what is its significance to our understanding of the poem?
A Fortress Built from the Cries of Infants (Psalm 8:3)
Few verses in the Psalter pack as much textual difficulty into so few words as Psalm 8:3. And yet our preferred reading yields one of the most arresting images in the psalm.
A Little Lower Than… Whom? The Elohim of Psalm 8:6
Psalm 8 features one of the most contested single words in the Psalter. The King James Version says humanity is “a little lower than the angels.” Other translations read “a little lower than God.” Which is right?
An Impossible Word: The Riddle of Psalm 8:2b
Psalm 8 opens with one of the most stubborn grammatical puzzles in the Psalter. Yet behind that interpretive headache lies a rich image.
A King Reached for These Words (Psalm 6)
Is the sufferer in Psalm 6 actually sick? The psalm never quite says. It gives you hints, but never names a disease. One detail tips the balance.
The Word in the Title No One Can Translate (Psalm 6)
Open Psalm 6 and before the first line of the poem there’s an instruction — a note to the music director. Part of it is a single Hebrew word that has defeated translators for two thousand years: sheminith (שְׁמִינִית).
Return, or Relent? (Psalm 6)
Most English Bibles translate Ps 6:4[5] as “Return, O LORD.” A few say something quite different: “Relent.” It’s one word, yet it potentially conveys two entirely different pictures of what has gone wrong.
One Word, Three Directions (Psalm 4)
Psalm 4:6 (7 in Hebrew) ends with a line every translation renders differently, and the disagreement comes down to a single Hebrew word: neseh (נְסֵה).
