Last week for the Liturgy of the Palms we had verses 19 – 24 of Psalm 118. This week for Easter Day we have those verses again, prefaced by verses 14 – 18, forming the refrain and first two stanzas.
In verse 16 I chose to use ‘lifted high’ rather than ‘raised’ or ‘exalted’, other than that the first stanza was fairly straightforward.
15 Songs of joyful freedom fill the homes of the just,
the right hand of the Lord is mighty.
16 The right hand of the Lord is lifted high,
the right hand of the Lord is mighty.
In the second stanza, verse 18 required a little mor thought. In the first line, the Hebrew has the same verb repeated in different forms for emphasis. Most translations use just one verb and add ‘severely’ to convey the emphasis. So, for example, a number of translations (including the NIV) has ‘The Lord has chastened me severely’.
The verb used has a sense of ‘teaching, instruction or punishment’, perhaps ‘teaching a lesson’ (in the colloquial sense of punishing someone), however I felt this would be too flippant in English. I thought about using ‘disciplining’ but that was too many syllables. In the end, I decided to use two verbs, choosing ones that have connotations of teaching.
17 I will not die, but live
to recount the works of the Lord.
18 The Lord has rebuked and punished me.
but has not delivered me to death.
For translation notes on the rest of this psalm, please see last week’s post. And click the following link for the music for Psalm 118 for Easter Day.
I am gradually pulling ahead with my psalm settings and have nearly finished Psalms for Eastertide, so if you’re planning music for the next couple of months do take a look.