642 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 218. 



ley, more briefly, but with liis usual force : " You 

 take all this trouble for your security in vain, 

 whilst He gives His beloved sleep." Dr. French 

 and Mr. Skinner adhere to the same sense in their 

 translation, and pertinently refer to Psalms iii. 

 and iv., in which the Psalmist, though beset by 

 enemies, lies down and takes his rest, defended 

 by God his Keeper. So far, indeed, from seeing 

 anything unintelligible, I see no obscurity, either 

 of expression or connexion, in this view, but very 

 _great obscurity in the double ellipsis now pro- 

 posed. In the received translation we have a 

 transitive verb, and a noun, obviously its accu- 

 sative, according to the natural sequence and 

 simple construction of the Hebrew language. In 

 the proposed rendering we must understand an 

 accusative case after giveth (i. e. bi-ead, as Rosen- 

 miiller and others observe), and a particle before 

 sleep. The transitive verb has no subject; the 

 aoun nothing to govern it. We must guess at 

 both. 



As for the alleged instances of ellipses, I main- 

 tain they are not analogous. I cannot call to 

 mind any which are ; and if any of your corre- 

 spondents would show some they would do good 

 service. Hengstenberg's examples of 2"lV, "Ip2, &c. 

 ai'e surely not in point. We have a similar el- 

 lipsis, often used in idiomatic English, morning, 

 noon, and night; but who would say sleep, instead 

 of in sleep, or ivhile asleep ? The ellipses in the 

 Psalms, in the Songs of Degrees themselves, are 

 very numerous, but they are of a different na- 

 ture ; and neither the position nor the nature of 

 the word WtJ* warrants that now defended, as far 

 as I can remember. 



May I remark, by the way, that the Psalm falls 

 rather into three strophes than into two. The 

 first speaks of the raising up of the house, and of 

 the city (an aggregation of houses), protected by 

 the Almighty. The last is in parallelism to the 

 first, though, as often happens, expanded ; and 

 «peaks of the raising up of the family, and of the 

 family arrived at maturity, the defenders of the 

 •city, through the same protecting Providence. 

 The central portion is the main and cardinal sen- 

 timent, viz. the vanity of mere human labour, and 

 the peace of those who are beloved of God. 



John Jebb. 



There Is a proverb which foretells peril to such 

 as interpose in the quarrels of others. But as 

 neither Mr. Trench, nor E. M. B., nor Mr. Mab- 

 GOLiODTH, have as yet betrayed any disposition to 

 quarrel about the question in dispute, a looker-on 

 need not be afraid of interposing. 



_ The Query, about the solution of which they 

 differ, is the proper mode of rendering the last 

 clause of v. 2. Ps. cxxvii. In our Liturgy and 

 Bible it is rendered, " For so He giveth His be- 

 loved sleep;" of which E. M. B. says, "It seems 



to me to be correct;" though he justly observes 

 that " He will give " would be more close. Mr. 

 Trench appears to have rendered it, " He giveth 

 His beloved in their sleep." Mr, Margoliouth 

 says "the words should be. He will give to His 

 beloved whilst he [the beloved] is asleep." In 

 each case the Italics, as usual, designate words not 

 existing in the Hebrew text. 



When expositors would get through a difficult 

 passage, their readers have, not unfrequently, the 

 vexation of finding that a word of some import- 

 ance has been ignored. Such has been the case 

 here with the little word p, which introduces the 

 clause. Its ordinary meaning is so ; and the office 

 of the word so, in such a position, is to lead the 

 mind to revert to what has been previously said, 

 as necessary to the proper application of what 

 follows. Now, the Psalmist's theme was the 

 vanity of all care and labour, unless the Lord 

 both provide for and watch over His people ; for 

 so He will give His beloved sleep — that happy, 

 confiding repose which the solicitude of the 

 worldly cannot procure. This is, surely, intel- 

 ligible enough ; and even If p may be translated 

 for (which Noldius, in his Concordantia Particu- 

 larum, affirms that it here may, adducing however 

 but one dubious instance of its being so used else- 

 where, viz. Jeremiah xiv. 10.), or if the various 

 reading, '•D, be accepted, which would mean for, 

 our version of the clause will be quite compatible 

 with either alteration. 



In this concentrated proposition are contained, 

 the mode of giving, so ; the character of the re- 

 cipient, his beloved; and we reasonably expect to 

 be next told what the Lord will give, and the text 

 accordingly proceeds to say, sleep. Whereas, if 

 cither Mr. Trench's or Mr. Margoliouth's version 

 of the clause could properly be accepted, the gift 

 would remain entirely unmentioned ; after atten- 

 tion had been called to the giver, to his mode of 

 giving, and to the recipient who might expect his 

 bounty. But whilst Mr. Trench is constrained to 

 interpolate in their, apparently unconscious that 

 the Hebrew requires beloved to be in the singular 

 number, Mr. Margoliouth translates XJK* as if 

 it were a participle, which Luther seems also to 

 have heedlessly done. Yet unless XJK' be a noun, 

 derived with a little irregularity from JEJ>% he slept, 

 it has nothing to do with sleep. It cannot be the 

 participle of }E^\ for that verb has a participle in 

 the usual form, not wanting the initial *, which 

 I occurs In several places in the Old Testament, and 

 I is used by Mendelsohn In the very sentence Mr. 

 I Margoliouth has quoted from that Jewish ex- 

 I positor. The critic who will not acknowledge 

 NJti' to be a noun in this clause, is therefore tied 

 up to translating It as either the participle or the 

 preterite of NJti', to change, or to repeat, and would 

 thus make the clause really unintelligible. 



Hbnrt Walter. 



