[cut]I will give you a detailed response, but first explain to me this. SALITA of Psalms 119:118 is translated by the NAB as 'reject', [the KJV has it as 'trodden down']. Is this translation correct, and if yes how do we know it to be so?
Isaac,
you are putting a question here which is difficult to answer to. Mainly, to my sense, because Ps 119:118 is the only place where this verb SALAH appears in the Bible (in qal) (the word T:SWLEH in Job 28:16 comes from another quite different SALAH)
We can often be accurate as regards the "exact" translation of a given word because we can verify the different meanings or shades of meaning this word got in other places of the bible (mainly in the same book we are dealing with... )
But here it is not so.
The dictionary (my dictionary) meaning of SALAH (in qal) is "to make light of", "toss aside". If this meaning is right (or if these meanings are right), both translations you mention are (would be) wrong... because either "reject" or "tread down" are concepts that differ from "to make light of" and from "toss aside".
One must too take into account the meaning or sense of the preceding verses (117, 116, 115...) or even of the whose psalm (which verses I have not read nor the psalm...): I feel this can also help to fix the right translation of SALAH in Ps 119:118 but, of course, it is not sure it will help.
I think this is all I can say as a replaying to your question.
Pere Porta
Barcelona (Spain)
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.