To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Psalm 73:1
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 17:59:07 +0200
><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