Lullaby

I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me.  Psalm 3:5 [English]  NASB

Slept – Look at Robert Alter’s translation: “I lie down and I sleep.  I awake, for the LORD has sustained me.”  Notice anything different?  Alter’s translation renders the verbs in the present tense.  The action is happening now.  The NASB renders the verbs in the past tense.  The action is already finished.  The actual Hebrew verbs are a Qal perfect (lie down) and a waw-consecutive imperfect (sleep).  There’s a minor problem with the way this verb is treated in Logos, if you’re interested in technical things.[1]  The crucial point here is the nuance of the translation.  Since the second verb is a waw-consecutive, it captures the continuing action of being awake.  Alter applies this continuity to the entire idea; the NASB treats it as if the whole experience is over.

Why should we be concerned about such minor details?  Well, Alter’s version helps me realize that the author is reflecting now on what he is experiencing now.  He isn’t reading a personal memoir.  He’s acknowledging the immediate existential awareness that being awake is a sign of God’s grace, and that, on reflection, he can be confident when he sleeps that God is watching over him.  “Now I lay me down to sleep.  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

I don’t know about you, but sometimes my need for sleep is delayed by my concerns about dying.  I think to myself, “What if I don’t wake up?  What if all those things I wish I’d never done are discovered after I’m dead?  I don’t really want to die tonight, but that ‘barns’ parable is going off in my mind.  What if this is the night?  Maybe I can just stay awake so nothing bad happens to me when I’m unconscious.”  I guess you could say that I’m still afraid of the dark.  Maybe I want this naïve application to be true for me too:

David cries out to the Lord while being pursued by many enemies.  Others are telling him the situation is hopeless, that he cannot be delivered from his trouble.  However, David testifies that the Lord is his shield and deliverer.  He says that Lord answered him from the site of Mount Zion.  This answer to prayer led to a good night’s sleep and confidence that he had nothing to fear from his many foes.[2]

Is that really what this poem communicates?  Is there any part of this that applies to me?  Now that I lay me down to sleep, I must confess I’m not so sure.  I guess I’ll find out in the morning.

Topical Index:  sleep, yāšēn, Psalm 3:5

[1] According to the Westminster morphology in Logos software, the verb yāšēn (to sleep, to be asleep) has a paragogic hey.  “The paragogic ה (he) suffix can only attach to an imperative verb and most likely expresses some kind of added emphasis to the verb. However, the specific nature and meaning of this emphasis is unknown.”  https://uhg.readthedocs.io/en/latest/suffix_paragogic_he.html.  But this is certainly wrong because the verb is not an imperative (like “Go to sleep”) and there is another similar ending.  “This suffix should not be confused with the cohortative verbal ending, although they appear exactly alike. These suffixes are distinguished by the form of the verb to which they are attached. The paragogic ה suffix always attaches to an imperative verb in Biblical Hebrew, whereas the cohortative qamets-he ending always attaches to an imperfect verb to form the specific cohortative verbal form.”

[2] https://www.bibleref.com/Psalms/3/Psalm-3-5.html