History Matters

I considered my ways and turned my feet to Your testimonies.  Psalm 119:59  NASB

Considered/ turned – I know, I know.  You’re getting tired of all these grammar lessons.  I’d say the same thing if it weren’t for the interesting variety of translations.  You have to wonder how both Jewish and Christian scholars can justify such liberal applications of basic grammatical rules.  Before we look at the meaning of this verse, let’s consider how the translation handles the verbs.  Here they are:

חִשַּׁ֥בְתִּי דְרָכָ֑י וָֽאָשִׁ֥יבָה רַ֜גְלַ֗י אֶל־עֵֽדֹתֶֽיךָ

 The first is ḥāšab (“to think, plan, make a judgment”); the second šûb (to turn, re-turn).  You’ll notice that the second verb has a prefixed vav.  Compare the conjugations below:

חָשַׁבְתִּי  I thought

אֶחְשֹׁב  I will think

שַׁבְתִּי   I turned

אָשׁוּב  I will turn

What did you discover?  The first verb is clearly past tense.  The second verb is future tense—but the prefixed vav converts it to past tense.  So, both verbs are read as past, as we see in the NASB translation.

However, that’s not the way some Jewish commentators handle these verbs.  Some translate these verbs as future, some as present.  Once again we raise the question, “Is translation a matter of individual preference or are there rules to follow?”  If Jewish scholars have the freedom to apply or disregard the grammatical rules, what does that say about the integrity of the text?  Or its application?  Fortunately, both Rashi and Radak consider the verbs past tense.  But not everyone.  Perhaps Altar’s comment about translation needs to be given even more weight.  Translation is an art, not a science.

Now, the meaning.  The psalmist is engaged in a bit of self-critical therapy.  Perhaps he’s in the original Twelve Step group and he’s engaging in Step 4—the fearless moral inventory.  “Considered” probably isn’t strong enough.  After all, we “consider” all kinds of things that we never act upon.  The psalmist uses the verb ḥāšab in one or two of its various meanings, that is, to make a judgment and to account.  He’s making a list of all those actions that make up his life.  He’s judging them by some standard.  What is that standard?  It’s God’s ʿēdût, the witness of God’s actions among His people.  How do I know if my actions are good, moral, blameless?  I compare them with the history, with the record of what God did, what happened.  And I walk in that direction.

In the past I’ve written about the unusual picture painted by the Hebrew word ʾaḥărît.  Translated as “after, end” or “future (in time)” it is an image of a man in a rowboat who looks to the past in order to row toward the future.[1]  That’s an appropriate image for what the psalmist is saying.  “I did a fearless inventory of my life.  I measured it against God’s past actions.  And I turned back to His direction.”

“Turned back,” not simply “turned.”

[šûb] is the twelfth most frequently used verb in the ot, appearing just over 1050 times. With very few exceptions šûb is restricted to the Qal and Hiphil stems. It appears most often in Jeremiah (111 times) followed by Psalms (seventy-one times), Genesis (sixty-eight times), Ezekiel (sixty-two times), I Kings (sixty-two times), II Chronicles (sixty-one times), II Kings (fifty-five times), Isaiah (fifty-one times). . . the basic meaning of šûb “to (re)turn” implying physical motion or movement appears over 270 times. . . The third important use of šûb in the Qal, and theologically the most crucial, is in passages dealing with the covenant community’s return to God (in the sense of repentance), or turning away from evil (in the sense of renouncing and disowning sin), or turning away from God (in the sense of becoming apostate). In such contexts šûb in the Qal is used 129 times. By contrast, in the Hiphil šûb is used only eleven times when discussing the divine-human relationship. “turn back (Qal imperative) and ‘let yourself be turned from your idols’ (Hiphil) from your idols” (Ezk 14:6).^[2] 

“To turn” isn’t the same as “return.”  I can change directions without turning back to the origin.  The psalmist does not declare that he made an adjustment, but rather that he returned to his history, the history of God with his people.  This tells us something critically important.  History is our guide.  Change the history, rewrite the stories, alter the outcomes and you throw away the markers you need to know where you’re going and how to get there.  When Moses told the people not to add or take away from the text, he included manipulating the history.  What God did matters.  Without that history we are completely adrift on a sea of self-determination.  You might consider this implication in our present culture of history negation.  Is it any wonder that the Jewish people continue to celebrate events that occurred thousands of years ago?

Topical Index: history, šûb, return, ḥāšab, judgement, ʿēdût, witness, Psalm 119:59

[1] https://skipmoen.com/2009/03/row-row-row-your-boat/

^[2] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 2340 שׁוּב. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 909). Moody Press.