Psalm 91, part 4

Wayne Leman’s recent post on pronoun switching in Psalm 23 prompted me to dredge up my previous posts on the opening verses of Psalm 91 (see here, here and here) and take another look. These are the relevant examples from my previous looks at verses 1-2:

First the NASB:

[1] He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
[2] I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

Next, the TNIV:

[1] Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
[2] They say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

And the NRSV:

[1] You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
[2] will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.’

And finally the NET:

[1] As for you, the one who lives in the shelter of the sovereign One, and resides in the protective shadow of the mighty king –
[2] I say this about the Lord, my shelter and my stronghold, my God in whom I trust [...]

Pronoun soup! At least verses 3-13 in all translations use the “he/you” pronouns, then switch to God speaking in the first-person in verses 14-16. In response to my comment along these lines to Wayne’s post, Peter Kirk posted the following:

“[T]here is a good reason for the pronoun soup in Psalm 91:2. The Masoretic text is literally ‘omar “I say” or “I will say”, but the BHS [ed. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia] suggests an emendation to yo’mar “he says” or “he will say”, based on the LXX reading erei “he will say”; or the unpointed Hebrew could be read as the participle ‘omer “saying”, agreeing with the subject of verse 1. Add into the mix the policy in NRSV and TNIV of avoiding gender generic “he”, and that explains the variation here.”

My ear prefers the unpointed Hebrew ‘omer’ approach since it allows the opening two phrases of verse 1 to be read as a parallel descriptive structure leading into verse 2 rather than forming an autonomous causal statement. In addition to the NRSV, the REB is the other translation I’m familiar with that took this approach:

[1] He who lives in the shelter of the Most High, who lodges under the shadow of the Almighty,
[2] says of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and fortress, my God in whom I put my trust.’

Getting back to Wayne’s original post and question, the NRSV gender polishes the pronoun issue by using “You” in verse 1, consistent with the rest of the Psalm. The REB keeps verses 1-2 as an introduction with a generic “He”, before switching voice to “you” in verse 3ff. Without any immediate recourse to the original language texts or explanatory notes from the translations considered above, it would be interesting to consider the work of Alter, Kugel and Hobbins on this psalm.

** 10/4 update **

Blogger Iyov has provided a detailed response to the pronoun issues discussed here. He prefers the traditional interpretation that sees three voices in the psalm: the poet (vss 1, 3-13), the protected (vs. 2) and God (vss. 14-16). Iyov provides Robert Alter’s translation:

[1] He who dwells in the Most High’s shelter, in the shadow of Shaddai lies at night –
[2] I say of the LORD, “My refuge and bastion, my God in whom I trust.”

Here is a unique approach in verse 1, where Alter explicitly translates (lodges, abides, rests, resides) as “lies at night”, creating a day/night contrast between the protection of the Most High and of the Almighty. Note also the mirror structure of the opening verse. Iyov also quotes Alter’s notes, where he comments that:

“The Israeli scholar Yair Hoffman, noting its eloquent expression of God’s unflagging providential protection, has interestingly characterized the poem as an “amulet psalm” with the idea that its recitation might help a person attain or perhaps simply feel God’s guarding power.”

Ironically, that thought was one of my first introductions to this particular psalm when someone referred to it as their “911 verse” - a double reference to September 11, 2001 and also to the 9-1-1 emergency response phone number used here in the United States.