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Fruit trees will [burgeon and blossom],
and springs will not fail.
{5} The poor will have to eat, (6)
and they that fear the LORD will be sated.
II
Let heaven and earth unite
in a chorus of praise! (1)
Let all the stars of evening
break out in hymns! (2)
Be right joyful, O Judah,
right merry and gay!
Make thy pilgrimages;
pay (in a purified Temple)
the offerings thou hast vowed,
for Belial shall no more be in thy midst! (3)
Victory and triumph shall be thine;
for lo, thine enemies shall perish,
and all evildoers be scattered; (4)
{5} but Thou, O LORD, art eternal
and Thine is a glory which endureth
world without end. (5)
Hallelujah.
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Notes
The Hymn of the Initiants
1. I.e., at noon.
2. 'Storehouses of darkness' are mentioned (metaphorically) in Isa. 45.3.
3. Literally, 'and sets against it (?)'; the text is somewhat obscure.
4. I.e., at midnight. The reference in these lines is to the three statutory tunes of daily prayer; cf.
Mishnah, Berachoth, iv.l.
5. On the basis of such Biblical passages as Hab. 3.11; Deut. 26.15; Jer. 25.30 and II Chron. 30.27, the
terms 'Height' (Heb. Zebul) and 'Abode' (Heb. Ma'on) came to be used in rabbinic literature as names
of two of the seven heavens.
6. In the calendrical system underlying the pseudepigraphic books of Jubilees and Enoch, seasons
formally begin at new moon.
7. I.e., at solstice and equinox.
8. Cp. Ex. 12.14; Lev. 23.24; Num. 10.10.
9. An allusion to the belief, still maintained by the Samaritans, that all the commandments given to
Moses were engraven by God on tablets. Cp. Ex. 32.16. 10. An allusion to the obligation of bringing
tribute at seasonal festivals; cp. Num. 15.19-20. Jewish tradition declares that prayer now substitutes
for offerings, and the statutory services are still named for those offerings. The Essenes, says Josephus
(War, I, iii, 5) did not make offerings but 'offered sacrifices within themselves'. This was also the
attitude of the early Church. The Didascalia Apostolorum declare expressly that 'instead of sacrifices
which then were, offer now prayers and petitions and thanksgivings' (p. 86 ed Conolly).
11. Cp. Lev. 25.8ff.
12. The expression occurs also in the Psalms of Solomon 15.3: 'The fruit of the lips with the well-
tuned instru-ment of the tongue, the first-fruits of the lips from a pious and righteous heart—he that
offereth these shall never be shaken by evil'. There is a subtle play on words in the original, for the
Hebrew word azam-merah means at once 'cull' (strictly, trim vines'; cp. Lev. 25.3) and 'sing'. The
concept of 'fruit of the lips' is derived from Isa. 57.19, and more especially from a variant reading of
Hos. 14.3(2) preserved in the Greek (Septuagint) and Syriac (Peshitta) translation (and adopted by the
Revised Standard Version).
13. Cp. Jer. 31.35-36. The point is that the Hebrew word for 'bound' also means 'statute, ordinance'. In
observing the fixed order of day and night, the psalmist will be inspired likewise to abide by God's
rules.
14. Literally, 'and where they [i.e., God's bounds, statutes] are will I set my boundary'.
15. The pious Jew offers a blessing every morning as soon as he takes his first steps, viz. 'Blessed art
Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, Who directest the steps of man'.
16. An adaptation of the words, 'when thou liest down and when thou risest up', in Deut. 6.7. The
pious Jew recites the Shema' (Deut. 6.4-9, etc.) when he lies down to sleep and when he wakes up in
the morning —in the former case, in a recumbent position, in the latter standing up; cp. Mishnah,
Berachoth, i.3.
17. An allusion to the benediction pronounced before meals, viz. 'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God,
King of the Universe, Who bringest forth food (bread) from the earth'.
18. An allusion to the blessing offered by Jews on hearing bad news, viz. 'Blessed is He, the truthful
Judge' (Mishnah, Berachoth, ix.2). Cp. Mishnah, Ber. ix.5: 'Man is obliged to offer blessing for evil as
well as for good'.
19. An allusion to the blessing offered by Jews on deliver-ance from danger, viz. 'Blessed art Thou, O
Lord our God ... Who bestowest good things on the undeserving, and Who hast bestowed a good thing
upon me'.
20. An adaptation of Ps. 23.6.
21. Cp. Manual, ix.22.
22. Cp. Manual, ix.16.
23 The expression is derived from Deut. 32.35, accord-ing to the reading found in the Samaritan
recension and in the Greek (Septuagint) Version, viz. 'Is not this stored up with Me ... against the Day
of Requital?' This reading is actually found in a fragment of Deuteronomy discovered at Qumran. See
also Isa. 34.8; 61.2. 'Day of Requital' is the technical term among the Samaritans for Doomsday.
24. Cp. Manual, vii.8.
25. Cp. Manual, vii.9.
26. Cp. Manual, vii. 5ff.
27. Pss. 16.8; 121.5.
28. Ps. 40.3(2).
29. Cp. Eph. 1.3; II Thess. 1.5. A similar expression occurs at the beginning of the Apostolic
Constitutions.
30. Based on Isa. 60.21; 61.3. The Apostolic Constitutions speaks of 'God's planting and the holy
vineyard, the church catholic, the elect', and so too does Epiphanius, Haer., xiv.4.
31. Cp. John 1.3.
32. The word, I suggest, has a technical nuance, for Josephus (War, II, viii, 7) speaks of one who was
admitted to the communion after the first year of probation as 'one who comes nearer'. I would
therefore make a distinction between 'coming near' as indicating the first stage, and 'coming nearer' as
indicating the second. The former is here intended, since the psalmist virtually repeats the preliminary
oath described in Manual, col. i.
33. The Hebrew text is doubtful. Others read, 'a draining of spittle', but I find this meaningless,
because spittle is ejected, not drained. 34. Job 33.6.
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The Book of Hymns
~~1~~
1. This is perhaps the most intricate hymn in the collection, and in order to bring out the nexus of
though I have had to resort to a certain amount of expansion and paraphrase. The central idea appears
to be that God has appointed sentient spirits to inform and govern the various elements of the
universe.
The functions and operations of such spirits were determined even before they were created. Man too
is endowed with such a spirit Hence, God knows and determined all that man will ever do, think or
say. But since God's power is matched by His benevolence, He also fortifies that spirit against the
trials and afflictions of human existence; and when it gets tainted by worldly corruption, He
constantly cleanses it. Man can save himself from error and profanation by adopting a sober and
temperate mode of life.
The doctrine of controlling spirits may owe some-thing to Iranian ideas about the yazatas, who
likewise 'animate' phenomena and bestow help upon men.
2. Cp. Jer. 32.19.
3. Cp. Ex. 34.6. The psalmist resorts to the common rabbinic device of contrasting, or juxtaposing, the
vari-ous attributes of God.
4. Cp. John 1.3.
5. Restored from Isa. 45.12.
6. The rabbinic tradition was that angels were created only on the second or fifth day; cp. Genesis
Rabbah, i.3.
7. The language is borrowed from Num. 4.27.
8. The concept is based on such Scriptural passages as Jer. 10.13; 51.16; Ps. 135.7 (promptuaries of
winds); Ps. 33.7 (of waters); Job 38.22 (of hail); and Isa, 45..3 (of darkness). It is elaborated in Enoch
17.3; 18.1; 41.4ff.; 60.12-24; 69.23; 71.4.
9. Cp. Enoch 41.3; 59.1; 71.4.
10. Note the contrast between the power and the wisdom of God, exemplifying the general statement
made in the opening lines. The restoration is imposed by the basic theme of the psalm.
11. Cp. Zech. 12.1.
12. Literally, 'at their fixed times'.
13. Cp. Manual of Discipline, iii. 14—15.
14. Cp. John 1.3.
15. Cp. Isa. 29.24; Ps. 95.10; I John 4.6 ('the spirit of error').
16. Cp. Hymns, xvi.10; Slavonic Enoch, 50.1. See also T.H. Gaster, Thespis2 (1961), pp. 288f.
17. Cp. I Sam. 2.3.
18. The phrase is based on Hos. 14.3, read as in the Greek (Septuagint) and Syriac (Peshitta) Versions.
19. Literally, 'settest words upon a line'.
20. Literally, 'and the expression of the spirit of the lips in due measure'. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]