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The motive for this came about while thinking about how easy it it to “theologically” translate passages. The Psalm is of course a wedding song, and it can be easy to fall prey to a cultural tendency and portray it as a modern wedding involving a modern monogamous couple. So for example in verse 9 (verse 10 in the Hebrew) NIV has “the royal bride”, with the implication that this is the same woman in view as the daughter we are about to meet in the following verse.
However, the wedding is of an ancient near-eastern monarch with quite different expectations of marriage. The actual word used here is a fairly crude one - the underlying verb was later considered too obscene to be used in scripture. Hence ‘concubine’ comes a little closer to it in English, and the likelihood is she was already a consort of the king in question, with the marriage being celebrated here in the Psalm a second or subsequent one for the king.
So ... what if we take an even more extreme view, and the author was not really praising a wedding, but using an ironic vehicle to criticise royal habits, somewhat as Samuel does about royal social habits in 1 Sam 8:11ff. There is in fact quite a lot in the language of this Psalm that permits such an interpretation.
Hence this alternate version - the main one offered assumes that the poet was serious in his praise and celebration of a near-eastern royal wedding. The second explores the alternative route of a kind of protest-song. Whilst it remains reasonably faithful to the original, it pushes the wording into a rather more ironic region. As a translation, it is perhaps unlikely to ever catch on in devoted Christian circles, but on the other hand Bible-as-protest-literature does have an honourable history!
1. |
To the music director.
A strong word seethes in my soul,
Most striking of men
Sheathe the sword at your thighs, you Hero -
Your authority godlike always and ever:
Bittersweet perfumes envelope your clothes,
Listen, girl, look, take heed:
All solemn chief's daughter inside
In place of your family, children - |
Translations |