Interpolation and Explanation

Both low and high, rich and poor together.  Psalm 49:2  NASB

Both – By now you realize that translations are often interpretations rather than textual communication.  Remember Robert Alters’ warning: “ . . . modern English versions, impelled by the misconception that modern readers cannot make sense of parataxis and that everything in the biblical text needs to be explained.”[1]  This translation is a perfect example.  Frankly, I can’t figure out how the NASB arrived at this English sentence from the Hebrew text.

Here’s the Hebrew:

גַּם-בְּנֵי אָדָם גַּם-בְּנֵי-אִיש יַחַד עָשִיר וְאֶבְיוֹן׃

Transliterated: gam-bene adam gam bene ish yachad ashir ve-evyon

Literally: Again (or ‘like’) sons of Adam, again (or ‘like’) sons of men, united rich and poor.

Somehow the translators decided that “sons of Adam” and “sons of men” should be rendered “low and high.”  I don’t know why they chose those words in English as they have no Hebrew equivalent.  This is a case of translating the idea into modern parlance rather than translating the text as it appears.  Of course, we understand the idea, and since there isn’t any footnote to tell us that the Hebrew doesn’t say this, we think the sons of Korah wrote it the way we read it in English.  But they didn’t.

Now let’s see what happens if we read it according to the Hebrew text.

What is the difference between sons of Adam and sons of men (perhaps there isn’t any difference and it’s just Hebrew parallelism)?  If the sons of Adam are the same as the sons of men, then why say it twice?  But what if sons of Adam refers to all those whose ancestry goes back to Adam (everyone?) and sons of men refers to those who qualify as human beings because they express behaviorally the character of God (cf. Exodus 34:6-7)?  Then the sons of men are a subset of the sons of Adam; the sons of men are the obedient ones, not like the followers of Korah who died.  The sons of Adam are the ones who fell into the earth.  The sons of men are the ones who didn’t.

What justification do I have to suggest this?  Well, to begin with, אִיש (‘ish) doesn’t actually mean “men.”  As David Stein has shown,[2] properly understood the word means something like all the affiliations and relationships that make up the identity of a person.  In other words, ‘ish is not biological.  It is also not ethnic (although it includes that).  Above all, it’s personal.  If we apply Stein’s insight, we recognize that “sons of Adam” is biological but “son of men” is relational.  The two are not the same; especially so for the sons of Korah.  This verse recognizes that all, those who are biologically connected and those who are relationally connected, are united in this one thing:  they must listen to their Creator.

If there were ever a psalm for everyone, this is it!  Now we need to know what it is that we should all listen to.

Topical Index: sons of Adam, sons of men, ‘ish, both, gam, Psalm 49:2

Oh, BTW, there are four different words in Hebrew for “poor.” This one has a special meaning (see my discussion in The Lucky Life on the first Beatitude).

[1] Robert Alter, The Art of Bible Translation (Princeton University Press, 2019), p. 4.

[2] David Stein, “The Noun אִיש (‘IŠ) in Biblical Hebrew: A Term of Affiliation,” The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Vol. 8, Article 1.