Hebrew Scrabble
I said to the LORD, “My Master You are, my good is only through You.” Psalm 16:2 Robert Alter (Hebrew numbering)
Is only through You – “The textual difficulties of this whole segment of the poem being here, because the Hebrew bal-‘aleikha is unclear.”[1] Here are a few other attempts to translate this:
I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides You.” NASB
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” NIV
I said to the Lord, “You are my Master! Every good thing I have come from you.” NLT
Perhaps the idea seems almost the same in the NASB and the NIV. The NLT is certainly heading in a different direction when it suggests that “good things” are the subject. That might be wishful thinking. This poem seems more likely to express the idea that God Himself is somehow my good. There are a few other psalms that employ this idea.
How does the grammatical analysis of the TWOT treat this verse? First, let’s get the phrase in literal English and phonetic Hebrew.
good I not-(besides) You
to•va•ti bal-aleikha
bal-aleikah is the problem. bal appears to be a derivative of bālâ, meaning “become old, worn out.” But the derivative pushes the edge of this meaning. “(bal). Not. An adverb appearing sixty-nine times. Both Phoenician and Ugaritic attest this negative. It is used mainly in poetry instead of loʾ, which normally appears in prose.”[2] So, since this is poetry, perhaps the poet is deliberately stretching the word. However, the context seems to suggest something else. This verse is about the connection between goodness, God, and the author. How does bal fit?
Perhaps the answer can be found in the next word. Unfortunately, now things get worse. Here is our familiar word, ʿālâ. Do you remember the discussion about climbing up from the river bed in Joshua 4? If you do, you’ll remember that ʿālâ has more than 100 English translations. In cases where it is used as a preposition (like here), it usually means “above.” So, does the poet write, “not above You,” “not besides You,” “only through You,” or something else. Frankly, no one knows. This is a poem that even in Hebrew is a tangled mess. Maybe we just have to rely on Psalm 73:28 (cf. HERE) and leave it at that.
Topical Index: bal-aleikah, not besides You, Psalm 73:28, Psalm 16:2
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Volume 3 Writings, p. 51, fn. 2.
[2] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 246 בָּלָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 110). Chicago: Moody Press.
