- This fascinating exploration of textology highlights the complexity of interpreting ancient texts. Differences in manuscript traditions raise questions about the accuracy of translation, especially in the context of the use of the Aramaic word "bar." Indeed, with insufficient knowledge of the nuances of another language, various interpretations and misunderstandings can arise. Although many languages have similar roots, some words can often have opposite meanings. In some cases, this can even completely change the essence of the original text.
- In this context, it is also important to pay attention to cultural aspects that influence the interpretation of the text. For example, a common ritual or symbol in one culture may be perceived quite differently in another. Such cultural nuances add an additional layer of complexity to the analysis of texts, emphasizing the need for a deep understanding of context and traditions to accurately interpret the meaning of a work. I encounter such issues with English because it is not my native language, and I haven't lived in English or American culture. Currently, I use https://essays.edubirdie.com/english-assignment-help to avoid making glaring mistakes that could undermine my work. However, I am learning, and I hope to master the language perfectly. Your fascinating exploration of textology is a wonderful example of how important it is to understand the history and culture of the authors of ancient texts for their proper interpretation.
The Importance of Textual Families Part 4: Psalm 2:12 “Kiss the Son”
Psalms 2:12 is a unique case in the textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible where there is vast difference in manuscript traditions. Jacob ben Chayim’s Masoretic Recension as found in the Masoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, as well as codex Manuscriptus Hebraicus (which is a manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud known as the Munich codex Hebraicus 95), are the only two extant Hebrew Manuscripts which contain the Aramaic word בַ֡ר bar which means “son,” instead of the Hebrew word for “son,” ben, which, if we take the word בַ֡ר bar as “son,” would give the rendering:
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Ibn-Ezra also appears to support this rendering:
“’‘Serve the Lord’ refers to HaShem, and ‘Kiss the Son’ refers to the Messiah; the meaning of bar, ‘son,’ is as we find it in Proverbs 31:2,’ [where “bar” appears three times, clearly meaning “son”] (Cited in The Messianic Outreach 11:2 (1992), p. 17).” [1]
The Peshitta and Jerome’s translation contain “son” as well. The Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (HOTTP) supports this rendering. It would appear, however, that other recensions of the Masoretic text do not contain the word and, in fact, many medieval manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible have בְרַגְלָיו (foot) instead. If we look to the LXX and vulgate [2] they both have “take hold of instruction” and Augustine reads in this verse “Lay hold of Discipline” [3]. The Targums also render “accept instruction” [4]. Here we have a complex textual issue then, not just in terms of manuscript disagreement but also in the appearance of Aramaic in this text.
If we date this Psalm to David’s time, that is pre-exilic [5], then we have the issue that Aramaic would not have emerged yet (Aramaic is understood to have emerged in the Babylonian exilic and post exilic periods) and thus the reading is not original. Likewise, we have the issue of the Psalm earlier using בֵּן bēn (v. 7), the Hebrew word for son, which makes this an especially strange place for an Aramaic insertion. It is for these reasons that this reading seems suspect to many scholars. The problem is that the disparity between LXX, Vulgate, Targums, medieval Hebrew manuscripts vs. the rendering found in the two earlier Hebrew witnesses to בַ֡ר bar is so high that something has gone afoul here.
It has been suggested that the Aramaic word בַ֡ר bar can mean “pure,” among other things, [6] which could mean that the word was misunderstood by the translators of the LXX and other versions. The problem with this view is that one, no modern lexicon or dictionary even gives “pure” as a possible meaning of בַ֡ר bar [7] and there cannot be found a single example in any Aramaic text in or outside of Israel of the word being read in this way. And two, בַ֡ר bar does appear in the Hebrew Bible in another text (Proverbs 31:2) where it is clearly talking of someone’s son. In fact, all the versions previously discussed (LXX, Vulgate, Targum, etc.) have son/child for that verse. And three, “… because many of the restless tribes on Israel’s threatened boarders were Arameans. Also, the poet may have wished to avoid a discordant rhyming assonance of ben with the next word pen (lest). The poet also used the Aramaic word rʽʽ (“to break”) in v. 9 instead of the normal Hebrew verb rṣṣ. The Aramaic word in that verse also confused the ancient translators.” [8] This would mean that the psalm was speaking of or to those Arameans who would be the ones commanded to kiss the son.
Many have argued that “kiss the son,” meaning the Messiah, cannot be justified by usage or context even still [9]. Thus, they have come up with various solutions to this issue. They propose emendations (changes) of vv. 11b-12a. For example, Robert Alter even admits that the Hebrew nashqu bar is difficult to translate and is a quite complicated textual issue. But his own solution of revocalizing bar as bor, "purity," and his taking of nashqu as "to bear [or wield] arms" both seem like something that can easily be defeated. He himself admits that the idea of an idiom meaning to arm oneself with purity is unattested to in the Bible. His rendering then, "with purity be armed" seems made as if to attempt to avoid the textual issue altogether while supplying a parallel to an earlier idea in the Psalm. However, his rendering is, by his own admission, a bit faulty and when you think through the decisions he made to get there they do not hold up well to scrutiny whatsoever. In trying to balance out the admittedly strange concoction of Aramaic and Hebrew in the text he created an even stranger and arguably more difficult to justify translation.
Likewise, the rendering "kiss his feet" of the RSV & NRSV is not acceptable either as no manuscript contains the word "he." In fact, underlying the RSV and NRSV is still the word bar. The rendering seemingly attempts to avoid controversy at all and in doing so presents itself as the weakest translation of the bunch. There is no justification, not even unsurety, for translating bar as "his."
W. J. Holladay (VT 28 [1978]: 110–12), building on Dahood, conjectures nōšê qeber “forgetters of the grave.” Still, no ancient Heb. Mss. or versions have this reading, and the verb nšh is never used for nšk (“forget”) in the Psalms [10]. Thus, many “modern translations, like RSV and TEV, change the Hebrew text, either by emending it or punctuating it differently. (To emend the Hebrew text means to change it, either by a change of one or two letters in a word, or by a more extensive change, which at times may be based on the text of an ancient version such as the Greek Septuagint. Sometimes a distinction must be made between emending the Hebrew text and emending the Masoretic text, since in some passages some of the ancient Hebrew manuscripts, such as the Qumran manuscripts, will be different from the Masoretic text.) SPCL has “Worship the Lord with joy and reverence; bow down before him with fear”; NEB “tremble, and kiss the king”; NAB “with trembling pay homage to him”; NJB “with trembling kiss his feet” (also Zürcher Bibel [ZÜR]); NJV “pay homage in good faith”—with a footnote saying that the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain.” [11]
All of these have clear and attestable issues of changing the text or appealing to incorrect understandings of the word in question. We have already shown a number of points in favor of rendering בַ֡ר bar as son and, in fact, that it would make sense for it to be the correct original rendering of the verse here. However, we would like to bring up yet another thing in support of this view. And that would be an example where Ancient Near Eastern iconography and background lends support to the verse’s veracity.
“The Assyrian palace relief shows a scene which might have served as a model for Ps 2:12. The Assyrian king has conquered the Elamites and deposed the hostile king, Teumman. As agent of the Assyrian king, a general presents the nephew of the deposed Teumman for homage by the Elamite nobles.
The nephew is friendly to Assyria (cf Plate XXV//, part of the same scene). The first of the Elamite nobles is about to kiss the feet of the envoy of the Great King. Indeed, this homage before the new king is primarily a pledge of loyalty to the Great King who appointed him. Similarly, the homage of the "kings of the earth" before the Judaic king on Zion would be a tribute to Yahweh.” [12]
The vassal kings in the Ancient Near East kissed the ground immediately before the feet of the overlord’s representative. In Ancient Near Eastern Pictures Relating to the Old Testament pg. 35a one can find the famous Black Obelisk showing the symbols of the Assyrian deities over the Assyrian king, and Jehu licking the dust at Shalmaneser’s feet. The NET Bible notes,
“The verb נָשַׁק (nashaq, “kiss”) refers metonymically to showing homage (see 1 Sam 10:1; Hos 13:2). The exhortation in v. 12a advocates a genuine expression of allegiance and warns against insincerity. When swearing allegiance, vassal kings would sometimes do so insincerely, with the intent of rebelling when the time was right. The so-called “Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon” also warn against such an attitude. In this treaty the vassal is told: “If you, as you stand on the soil where this oath [is sworn], swear the oath with your words and lips [only], do not swear with your entire heart, do not transmit it to your sons who will live after this treaty, if you take this curse upon yourselves but do not plan to keep the treaty of Esarhaddon … may your sons and grandsons because of this fear in the future” (see J. B. Pritchard, e.d., The Ancient Near East, 2:62).”[13]
This makes the most sense within the logic of the Psalm. The “son” who is understood as the Messiah-king, who is the representative of Yahweh on the earth, should be given homage. Because to show fidelity to him is to show fidelity to Yahweh which is true of other messianic and kingly texts in the Hebrew Bible and is true, again, of the Ancient Near Eastern environment around Israel. It is also very clearly true of Jesus in the New Testament. However, the logic clearly stands within the Psalm in its own environment and so, too, does the clear meaning of בַ֡ר bar as son and its Aramaic use here.
This is a good example of the majority of manuscripts not always being correct. It is also a good example of a few manuscripts in Hebrew and in the ancient rabbinic sources disagreeing with the Masoretic text (at least a number of recensions of it), showing that not all of the Masoretic manuscripts are uniform and not all are agreed upon. The messianic nature of this Psalm is clearly understood from early periods (see our Deity of Messiah study) and the usage of bar is not as problematic as some think and best fits the character, meaning, and purpose of the Psalm. A rendering only found in 2 Hebrew manuscripts including a rabbinic manuscript appears to be the best renderings we have for this text.
Tune in for more in the future.
Footnotes
[1] Stern, D. H. (1996). Jewish New Testament Commentary: a companion volume to the Jewish New Testament (electronic ed., 2 Co 4:1). Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications.
[2] Checked against the clementine vulgate and the Biblia Sacra Vulgate
[3] Augustine of Hippo. (1888). Expositions on the Book of Psalms. In P. Schaff (Ed.), A. C. Coxe (Trans.), Saint Augustin: Expositions on the Book of Psalms (Vol. 8, p. 4). New York: Christian Literature Company
[4] Cathcart, K., Maher, M., & McNamara, M. (Eds.). (2004). The Aramaic Bible: The Targum of Psalms. (D. M. Stec, Trans.) (Vol. 16, Ps 2:11–12). Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press
[5] cf. Dahood, M., S. J. (2008). Psalms I: 1-50: Introduction, translation, and notes (Vol. 16, p. xxx). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
[6] Brown, F., Driver, S. R., & Briggs, C. A. (1977). Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (p. 135). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[7] Checked against: Koehler, L., Baumgartner, W., Richardson, M. E. J., & Stamm, J. J. (1994–2000). The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 153). Leiden: E.J. Brill; Clines, D. J. A. (Ed.). (1993–2011). The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Vol. 2, p. 257). Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press; Sheffield Phoenix Press; Gesenius, W., & Tregelles, S. P. (2003). Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (p. 138). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
[8] Waltke, B. K., Houston, J. M., & Moore, E. (2010). The Psalms as Christian Worship: A Historical Commentary (p. 177). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[9] for example Briggs, C. A., & Briggs, E. G. (1906–1907). A critical and exegetical commentary on the book of Psalms (p. 17). New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.
[10] Waltke, B. K., Houston, J. M., & Moore, E. (2010). The Psalms as Christian Worship: A Historical Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[11] Bratcher, R. G., & Reyburn, W. D. (1991). A translator’s handbook on the book of Psalms (p. 32). New York: United Bible Societies.
[12] Keel, Othmar. (1997) The Symbolism of the Biblical world: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the book of the psalms. (p. 268).
[13] Biblical Studies Press. (2006). The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Ps 2:12). Biblical Studies Press.