Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

><Peter>
>>>"Surely good to [the] upright [is] El,
>Elohim to [the] clean-ones [of] heart".
>
><Bill>
>How strained is that reading? Is it "very comfortable?"
>
>Doesn't Elohim appear at the beginning of the sentence as well?:
>
>ie: "Surely Elohim is good to [the] upright of El,
>Elohim to [the] clean-ones [of] heart".

A reading in the footnotes of BHS Psalms for 73:1 has a space 
in the word 

ly$r'l ("to Israel")

thus: 

ly$r ("to the upright") 'l ("God")

In context, if the separation is not just a scribal error 
(both LXX and Vulgate give Israel, and there is no exemplar 
of the psalm in the DSS), the separation changes the whole 
structure of the verse.

It should be noted that the subject is delayed in the verse, 
which starts (after saying that it is a psalm of Asaph) 

Surely good to 1) the upright [is] El, Elohim  to the 
               2) Israel         [is]  Elohim, to the 

  clean ones of heart.

A space seems to make a lot of difference here!?


Ian