The Serenity Prayer in Hebrew Patiently Explained
Lindsay asks how the serenity prayer goes in Hebrew. I found a version here. There are some minor details in that version that strike me as a bit odd, but in general I adhere to its diction, and I do not depart from its wording:
אלי תן־לי ת'שלוה
לקבל ת'דברים
שאין ביכולתי לשנותם
ת'אומץ לשנות ת'דברים
אשר ביכולתי
ואת התבונה להבחין
בין השניים
My God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things
not in my power to change,
the courage to change
the things I can,
and the discernment to distinguish
between the two.
יְכֹלֶת ability ביכולתו within his power, he is able
הבחין = הבדיל
השניים = שניהם
Ya'akov "Kobi" Shimoni (יעקב "קובי" שמעוני), an Israeli rapper, revised the prayer and made it the basis of a smash hit entitled “Hope” (תקווה). He is better known as Subliminal (סאבלימינל). Go here for audio samples of his rapping. Here is Subliminal’s revision:
אלוהים, תן לי ת'תקווה
לקבל מה שאין
תן לי את הכח
לשנות את מה שכן
תן לי את האומץ
לנסות לתקן את העולם
to accept what is not yet.
Grant me the strength
to change what is.
Grant me the courage
to try to mend the world.
Here’s an interesting question: which of the two prayers, the Serenity Prayer, or the Serenity Prayer remixed, is more solidly biblical? Which one is closer to the way Moses and Jeremiah prayed?
The answer is clear. Subliminal, the Israeli rapper, knows how to pray better than did Reinhold Niebuhr, the Christian theologian, and author of the serenity prayer.
For a video of Subliminal doing this piece, go here. For the Hebrew and a translation of the whole song, go here.
Are you surprised? I’m not. Here's the man, and here's the Serenity Prayer in what has now become the standard redaction:
A Literary Translation of Psalm 51
The basic rule of thumb of good translation, it seems to me, is to be as literal as possible and as free as necessary. Still, it is my firm conviction that translations in the King James tradition – I’m thinking of the KJV itself, the RSV, the NRSV, the ESV, the NKJV, and the HCSB - are too literal in some places and too free in others.
Furthermore, the freshness of the original is often obscured in this translation tradition. The classical translation choices they preserve - a number of which go back to the Vulgate and/or the Septuagint – are now the exclusive patrimony of religious environments. Words like sin, iniquity, transgression, and righteousness, for example, are no longer faithful equivalents - and sometimes never were - to the Hebrew words they render.
The Hebrew words in question were used in a wide variety of contexts – political, familial, and so on. The English words used to translate them are almost exclusively churchy; they have become barriers to understanding for literate and unread interpreters alike.
The classical liturgical language of the church is a treasure in its own right, but if we wish to hear the Psalms according to the sense they had before Christianity and rabbinic Judaism appropriated them for their respective purposes, it is essential to retranslate the Psalms into literary English designed to go behind the interpretive traditions of which they are now a part.
This is not necessarily an anti-traditional move. In both Christian and Jewish tradition, streams of interpretation have diligently sought to elucidate the sense of the original even if the result was at odds with tradition. Jerome comes to mind, who sought after the hebraica veritas. Yefet ben-Ali, Ibn Ezra, and Samuele Davide Luzzatto come to mind among Jewish interpreters.
Recent translations of Psalm 51 which are traditionally anti-traditional as just defined include those of James Kugel and Robert Alter. The new translation of the Jewish Publication Society (NJPSV) which preceded them moves along the same lines. If modern philological insights suggest that a traditional understanding of the Hebrew requires revision, these translations do not hesitate to render accordingly. For an analysis of Kugel and Alter’s translations of Psalm 51:3-12, go here, here, here, and here.
My translation of Psalm 51 stands within the NJPSV-Kugel-Alter tradition, but goes its own way when it seemed better to do so. I am trying to translate Psalm 51 into what I take to be fluent literary English. I look forward to comments from readers. Where have I failed to be literary? Where have I failed to be fluent? What kind of explanatory notes might be helpful?
Here is a one page pdf of the translation.
Psalm 51:10-21: An Exercise in Translation
Wayne Leman took the time to work through my translation of Psalm 51 and noted problematic aspects as he sees them. It is highly instructive to think through these issues calmly and constructively.
In this post, the last in a series, I record Wayne’s observations on Psalm 51:10-21 and respond as best I know how. Earlier posts in the series: here and here. Be sure to check out the comment threads. This is a work in progress.
10 Let me hear gladness and joy,
let the frame you crushed exult.
11 Avert your face from my offenses,
erase all my misdeeds.
12 Make for me, O God,
a clean heart.
Put within me
a new, right spirit.
13 Do not throw me out of your presence,
your holy spirit
do not take from me.
14 Let me be contented by your deliverance,
let a vigorous spirit sustain me.
15 I will teach transgressors your ways,
offenders will return to you.
16 Rescue me from bloodguilt, O God;
my delivering God,
let my tongue sing of your goodness.
17 O Lord, open my lips,
let my mouth declare your praise.
18 Because it’s not sacrifice you desire,
with a burnt offering I make
you are not satisfied,
19 God’s sacrifices
are a broken spirit,
a broken, crushed heart
you do not despise, O God.
20 Be good with Zion in your pleasure,
may you rebuild Jerusalem’s walls.
21 Then you’ll be desirous of proper sacrifice,
burnt and whole offerings;
then bulls shall burn on your altar.
W’s comment re “Make for me, O God, / a clean heart”: This sounds like it could be an external heart. I think this is closer to what David intended: "O God, make my heart clean."
My response: I see Wayne’s point. My translation is close to REB, NAB and NJPSV. NRSV and NJB seem to want to avoid the misunderstanding Wayne anticipates. They translate “create in me a clean heart.” I wish to retain “for me,” as does Alter. It’s appropriate to think of the “clean heart” as something that, metaphorically, comes from the outside. Compare Ezekiel 36:26, where God says “I will put a new heart within you.”
W’s comment re “with a burnt offering I make / you are not satisfied”: Each time I read this, I find it difficult to process. Consider: "with my burnt offerings you are not satisfied."
My response: the original is difficult to process, too! I construe the underlying text, as have others before me, against the masoretic accents. The example illustrates a perennial issue. Should a difficult-to-process text be improved in translation? The text would read more smoothly if translated: “with burnt offerings I make / you are not satisfied.” Not as smooth as Wayne’s suggestion, but closer to the level of smoothness of the original.
W’s comment re “God’s sacrifices”: Ambiguity in English not intended by the Hebrew; Are they sacrifices to God or sacrifices God makes? Consider "Sacrifices God wants."
My response: Wayne identifies an important issue. Is there intended ambiguity here? When I translated the text, I was struck by the potential ambiguity of the text, and translated accordingly. But potential ambiguity is not the same as intended ambiguity. In much traditional exegesis, two levels of intention are assumed: that of the human author, and that of God, with God’s intention being identified with the potential ambiguity and range of meanings a construction might have irrespective of the particular context. It might be best to resolve the ambiguity with NRSV and NJPSV and translate “The sacrifices acceptable to God.” In a footnote, a calque of the Hebrew might be given as an aid to understanding traditional exegesis that depends on the text’s “ambiguity in the abstract.”
W’s comment re “in your pleasure”: "in your pleasure" adds an awkward sound to this clause.
My response: I concur. The passage means, in bad, prosaic English: “in accordance with your known will, be good to Zion.” The challenge: to reduce that to a terse, poetic, and natural expression.
W’s comment re “you’ll be desirous”: stilted English; consider "Then you'll desire proper sacrifice."
My response: I concur. The translation I offer is stilted. Wayne’s proposal flows better, and I think it is also possible to avoid the contraction: “Then you will desire.”
I enjoyed this exercise. Wayne’s comments push me in the direction of translating in a more readable and natural fashion. I am thankful.
Psalm 51:3-5: An Exercise in Translation
Wayne Leman has done a great service by working through my translation of Psalm 51 and noting problematic aspects as he sees them. It is highly instructive to think through issues of translation calmly and constructively. Wayne’s comments provide an excellent jumping-off point for doing so.
3 Favor me, God, in your kindness,
in your great mercy
erase my crimes.
W’s comment re “in your kindness” and “in your great mercy”: I suggest this is not literary English, but, rather syntactic transliteration from the biblical language. English does not naturally use "in ___" phrases like this, as far as I know.
My response: REB, NAB, NJB, and Kugel all translate with "in ___" phrases here. I follow their example. But that doesn’t settle the question. What is needed is a tagged and searchable database of literary English against which the question might be probed.
W’s comment re “erase my crimes”: I don't think crimes can be erased in English. A record of crimes can, however, be erased. We cannot erase something which has already been done.
My response: “erase my/your crime/s” is acceptable English. Google them and you will discover I am not inventing an idiom. I did so only after Wayne sowed a seed of doubt in my mind, and I discovered that Barbara Elison Rosenblit translates Psalm 51 here just as I have. Her entire translation of the psalm is worth looking at. But the following point needs to be made: if an idiom turns out to occur only in religious language, that is one thing. If it is used in a variety of contexts, that is another. It turns out that the idiom under consideration is not restricted to religious use, but also occurs in secular song lyrics, political journalism, and novels. That makes it all the more usable in a translation of Psalm 51. Let me reformulate the assertion as a question: if an idiom occurs across a wide swath of genres in the target language, and constitutes a dynamic equivalent to its counterpart in the source language, does that make it a good candidate for use in translation?
purify me of my offense.
5 My crimes I know,
my offense is ever before me.
W’s comment re “ever before me”: Hebraism; not natural literary English; natural literary English would be more like: "I continually remember my offense."
ames Kugel vs. Robert Alter: Round Two
In this post, I begin to compare Kugel and Alter’s translations of Psalm 51:6-15. For Round One of this cage match, go here. Bibliographical references are supplied there.
Since I will not refrain from being critical of both Kugel and Alter’s translation efforts, I wish also to reiterate my intense respect for the work of both scholars. For a fine plug in favor of Kugel’s excellent contributions to the field, check out Iyov’s remarks here.
The scansion I offer of Ps 51:6-11 is identical to that found in BHS and in most modern translations. 51:12, however, I treat as a pair of lines, in accordance with the general rule. The short 2:2 lines of 51:12 are asymmetrical to their context in which 3:3 lines dominate. The changeup in rhythm focuses attention on the compact lines, the rhetorical peak as it were of the larger prayer. Another psalm that shortens up the rhythm to mark its rhetorical peak is 130.
I trisect 51:13 and 14. The division is a refinement, not a rejection of, the traditional bisection of the verses. The line-types instantiated, 3:(2:2) and (2:2):3, are very well-attested.
וְהָרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי
לְמַעַן תִּצְדַּק בְּדָבְרֶךָ
תִּזְכֶּה בְשָׁפְטֶךָ
7הֵן־בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי
וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִּי
8הֵן־אֱמֶת חָפַצְתָּ בַטֻּחוֹת
וּבְסָתֻם חָכְמָה תוֹדִיעֵנִי
9תְּחַטְּאֵנִי בְאֵזוֹב וְאֶטְהָר
תְּכַבְּסֵנִי וּמִשֶּׁלֶג אַלְבִּין
10תַּשְׁמִיעֵנִי שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה
תָּגֵלְנָה עֲצָמוֹת דִּכִּיתָ
11הַסְתֵּר פָּנֶיךָ מֵחֲטָאָי
וְכָל־עֲוֹנֹתַי מְחֵה
12לֵב טָהוֹר
בְּרָא־לִי אֱלֹהִים
וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן
חַדֵּשׁ בְּקִרְבִּי
13אַל־תַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי מִלְּפָנֶיךָ
וְרוּחַ קָדְשְׁךָ
אַל־תִּקַּח מִמֶּנִּי
14הָשִׁיבָה לִּי
שְׂשׂוֹן יִשְׁעֶךָ
וְרוּחַ נְדִיבָה תִסְמְכֵנִי
15אֲלַמְּדָה פֹשְׁעִים דְּרָכֶיךָ
וְחַטָּאִים אֵלֶיךָ יָשׁוּבוּ
I did what was is evil in Your sight.
You always are fair in Your sentence,
impartial in what You decree.
7 But consider, I was born to transgression,
conceived by my mother in sin.
8 Secretly You love faithfulness;
so in secret help me grow wise.
9 Clean me with hyssop till I am pure,
wash me till I’m whiter than snow.
10 Let me have gladness and joy once again,
let the bones that You struck rejoice.
11 Turn away from my sin,
and blot out all my offenses.
12 God, make me a pure heart,
put a new, right spirit inside me.
13 Please, don’t send me away;
don’t take Your holy spirit from me.
14 Give me back the joy of your help,
hold me up with a kindly spirit.
15 Let me teach sinners Your ways.
so offenders turn back to You.
and what is evil in Your eyes I have done.
So You are just when you sentence,
you are right when You judge.
7 Look, in transgression was I conceived,
and in offense my mother spawned me.
8 Look, You desired truth in what is hidden;
in what is concealed make wisdom known to me.
9 Purify me with a hyssop, that I be clean.
Wash me, that I be whiter than snow.
10 Let me hear gladness and joy,
let the bones that You crushed exult.
11 Avert your face from my offenses,
and all my misdeeds wipe away.
12 A pure heart create for me, God,
and a firm spirit renew within me.
13 Do not fling me from Your presence,
and Your holy spirit take not from me.
14 Give me back the gladness of Your rescue
and with a noble spirit sustain me.
15 Let me teach transgressors Your ways,
and offenders will come back to You.
תזכה poses a challenge for translators. Literally, ‘you are clean’ when you judge. But that is not idiomatic English. One possibility is to translate 51:6 as follows:
what is evil in your eyes I have done,
so you are just when you speak,
you are pure when you judge.
Psalm 51:6-9: An Exercise in Translation
This post continues to interact with Wayne Leman’s comments on my translation of Psalm 51. He raises important issues. More than once, Wayne’s comments have brought about a change in my thinking.
6 You alone have I offended,
I have done evil in your eyes.
So you are just when you speak,
you are pure when you judge.
7 Truth be told, I was born into sin,
into wrongdoing my mother expelled me.
8 Truth be told, you desire truth in the inward parts,
in secret you would teach me wisdom.
9 Purify me with hyssop, till I be clean,
wash me, till I be whiter than snow.
My response: Perhaps the idiom has its origin in biblical diction, but a google search makes clear that it is deployed today in a variety of genres. Am I the only Peter Gabriel fan here? My sense is that the idiom resonates well and is readily comprehensible. Are there standard for testing a hypothesis of this kind?
W’s comment re “into wrongdoing my mother expelled me”: "expelled me" refers to getting kicked out of school, not to birthing.
My response: a google search demonstrates that “expel a fetus” is acceptable English. Still, Wayne has put his finger on a piece of the translation I’m unhappy with. Part of the problem is that the construction in the Hebrew is otherwise unattested. Its precise sense may actually elude us. As I understand it, the sense is: “remember, I was born into sin, / my mother’s estrus brought me into misdoing.” “Sin” and “misdeed” describe the human condition as one in which wrongdoing is normal. My goal would be to preserve the concreteness of the original’s reference to “estrus,” and the reference to “offense” and “misdeed” as descriptive of the human condition, not of the psalmist himself, as some translations have it, or of the sexual act, as other translations have it. Any ideas out there?
W’s comment re “in the inward parts”: Hebraism, not English.
My response: I agree with the comment. It is also an infelicitous Hebraism. NJB’s “You delight in sincerity of heart” is attractive in some ways, but it seems best to avoid introducing “heart” here. My goal is to offer an adequate parallel to the “B” component of the parallel pair (“in secret”) of the original. Perhaps NRSV’s “in the inward being” is idiomatic enough; my tentative suggestion would be to reuse it.
W’s comment re “be”: Should be "am."
My response: are my subjunctives a result of linguistic interference from Italian? It’s possible. The simpler “am” is preferable anyway. Thanks, Wayne.
ames Kugel vs. Robert Alter on Psalm 51:7-8
With reference to the past or present, הנה, as Samuel Rolles Driver points out in BDB - Driver had more Hebrew in the pinky of his left hand than most OT commentators have in their whole body: his observations are always worth careful consideration - “points generally to some truth either newly asserted, or newly recognised.” It’s as if the psalmist wants to say to God, “Two things, I would point out, determine my life. First off, sin is the water I have swum in since my mother’s womb. Don’t be too taken aback if I’ve crossed you so badly. Even so, o God, you desire truth in the inward being. In that secret place, you would teach me wisdom.”
A lot of commentators make haste to say that 51:7 cannot be taken to teach original sin. That’s both right and wrong. Right, because the verse does not assume the full-blown doctrine of sin of patristic theology, with its specification of sin’s transmission through the sexual act and biology. Wrong, because the verse does reflect an awareness of the human condition as a locus of depravity. According to the psalmist, as Erich Zenger puts it, “Sin is a given, with his being and becoming from the beginning.” [1] According to the psalmist, a culture of sin - described in archetypal terms in Genesis 3-4 - characterizes the human predicament (cf. Gen 8:21). We are born into it, and it conditions our choices.
Here is the Hebrew:
7הֵן־בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי
וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִּי
8הֵן־אֱמֶת חָפַצְתָּ בַטֻּחוֹת
וּבְסָתֻם חָכְמָה תוֹדִיעֵנִי
7 But consider, I was born to transgression,
conceived by my mother in sin.
8 Secretly You love faithfulness;
so in secret help me grow wise.
Alter’s Translation
7 Look, in transgression was I conceived,
and in offense my mother spawned me.
8 Look, You desired truth in what is hidden;
in what is concealed make wisdom known to me.
Kugel does not reproduce the double הן in translation. Admittedly, it is not easy to do in a convincing way, but omitting a translation of the second הן hardly seems helpful. NRSV before Kugel nevertheless took the same path.
The first הן is idiomatically translated by ‘Remember,’ in NJB. It is hard to improve on that. The second is idiomatically translated by “Still,’ in NAB. That might seem to solve the problem. Surprise, surprise, I am not satisfied.
If an attempt is going to be made to stage the relationship of the statements made in 51:7 and 8 in translation along the same lines as it is staged in the original, the translation chosen for הן must be identical in both instances. A translation that works, I think, though unfortunately wordy, is the following: “Truth be told.”
The verb used here, the D passive or Polal of חול, means literally, in the active, ‘writhe’ as in what dancers do (Judges 21:23; 1 Sam 18:6 [emended]; Ps 87:7), and especially, as in what birthmothers do when bearing a child. Interestingly, the verb is used of God ‘writhing forth’ earth and world in Ps 90:2.
Of course, ‘writhing forth’ is not idiomatic English, so it’s not acceptable to translate, ‘Remember, I was writhed forth in iniquity.’ It’s too bad, though, because the verb in question was chosen for a reason. It carries an immense amount of metaphorical freight. Alter translates ‘I was conceived,’ which is plain incorrect; Kugel’s translation, ‘I was born,’ is better.
Does a mother ‘spawn’ children in English? I suppose one might say that, but Alter’s translation sounds strange to my ears. As in the case of Dp חול, the verb in question is wonderfully concrete. D יחם means ‘go into heat,’ as in animals doing that (everywhere else in biblical Hebrew: Gen 30:41; 31:10). In Aramaic, the verb is attested in a wider set of contexts. Here it seems to mean ‘in offense my mother heated me out.’ Of course, the birth process is not so described in English, so the translation doesn’t work. Kugel’s ‘my mother conceived me’ is not bad, but tame compared to the original; D יחם carries a violent nuance, as does the parallel Dp חול preceding it, ‘writhe forth.’ The condition of sin into which the psalmist is born is colored by heat and violence through the choice of verbs in this passage. Ideally, a translation would capture this somehow. Neither Kugel nor Alter do.
KJV and other translations in its wake translate the verbs ‘writhed forth’ and ‘heated me out’ (if that is the meaning of the latter) with ‘I was shapen,’ and my mother ‘conceived me,’ respectively. In aggregate, both Kugel and Alter hew closer to the Hebrew than this.
Kugel, 1; Alter, 0.5; KJV, traditional, 0.
Psalm 51:8
[1]Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51-100 (ed. Klaus Baltzer; tr. Linda M. Maloney; Hermeneia--a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible: Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005) 20.
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