Psalm 17 v14 what is the Hebrew???

Status
Not open for further replies.

Eoghan

Puritan Board Senior
Verse 14 is rendered

"Do thou fill their belly with what Thou hast in store for them; May their children have their fill;may they leave their surplus to their babes"

This in Leupold's commentary allows the exposition that what is intended is God's wrath unto the third generation (alluding to Exodus 20:5).

I was labouring under the belief that the NASB put in italics any additional words, as does the KJV. This being the case I am at a loss as to why the word "treasure" appears to emmanate from the text in the NASB but is interpolated in the KJV.

Am I to assume that the underlying texts are the explanation. A laymans guess would be that the KJV uses the MT and the NASB relies on the LXX (which is a collection of documents rather than one volume)?
 
Last edited:
There is no textual variant, as far as I can tell (I haven't referenced my BHS, though). As far as I can see what is going on sitting on my couch away from my books, the word there means "treasure," but has a connotation of hidden-ness (so says HALOT). So, the KJV leaves "hid" in regular and puts "treasure" in italics, as it sees the "hid" part to be of more emphasis.

My guess.
 
Treasures in Hebrew should be H214, H1596, H4301 or H6259 amongst others so there are a variety of words that could have been used
 
There is a kethib/qere at this point between a noun (your treasure; ketib [the consonantal text]) and a related verb (stored up/hidden [as treasure is] by you [the vocalized text]). The same verb shows up in a similar context in Prov 13:22: "The wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

The NIV is the only modern translation that takes it along the lines you do (the Lord having stored up judgment for the wicked. Most (taking their cue from the end of the previous line, "Men of the world who have their portion in this life") take it as describing a positive gift from God that may be enjoyed by the wicked and even their children and grandchildren but has no lasting benefit (much like Psalm 73). These wicked men may prosper in the present but the Psalmist says "as for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied with your likeness".
The ESV adds another wrinkle by identifying the good thing God has given the wicked as children filling their womb, rather than (food) filling their bellies but while this is possible, it seems like a less likely direction to me.
 
There is a ketiv/qere variation here. The ketiv reads צפין which various lexicons translate as treasure. The qere, however, reads a passive participle form of the verb צפן, which is glossed as "hide" or "treasure up." I don't see any comparative data that would drive us toward a noun צפין that means treasure, but as the word does follow a qatil (קטיל) noun pattern, it could be a way to understand what a noun from צפן would actually refer to. The passive participle in the qere is not so different from the noun in the ketiv though; it's basically a substantive: "your thing that was hidden."

In the end, I think this just has more to do with the lexicon. The NASB is translating the word (whether ketiv or qere) as "treasure" because that is what it believes is the nature of its hiddenness (i.e., things that are hidden are usually treasure). The KJV is translating the word as "hid treasure" because it wants to preserve the generic meaning of the word צפן while specifying the nature of the hiding being described. I would expand the translation "hid treasure" as follows in order to show what they seem to be doing: "hid(en thing, namely) treasure"

That's my read - hope that helps!
 
Thanks that kinda helps. I usually go with the NASB but am puzzled that the threshold for inserting a word (italics) seems to be a lot higher than I expected.

The KJV is useful for the plural/singular of you, I guess it is also useful for indicating words inserted too, seemingly having a lower threshold than the NASB for italics.

I know that the italics indicate a word that fits, is justified and a possible reading of the text but I really like a translation that says so. Score one for the KJV
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top