A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the music director; according to Mahalath Leannoth. A [a]Maskil of Heman [b]the Ezrahite. Psalm 88:1 (Hebrew) Music director – We investigated this unusual psalm about three years ago (perhaps you remember). At the time I didn’t know the “frightening emotional darkness in [this] psalm that is absent…
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. For the music director; according to Mahalath Leannoth. A [a]Maskil of Heman [b]the Ezrahite. Psalm 88:1 (Hebrew) Music director – Of course you know that many of the psalms (mizmôt) are really lyrics for songs. No news there. But some of these songs are particularly interesting—and troubling. This…
A [a]Maskil of Asaph. Psalm 78 title Maskil – Another case where the Hebrew text isn’t included in the English psalm. Here the introduction tells us that this song is from Asaph. But this is a special kind of song. It’s a מַסְכִיל (maskîl), a poem intended to promote insight. The word comes from the verb…
Blessed is he who considers the poor; YHWH does deliver him in a day of evil. Tehillim 41:1 ISR Considers – Let’s think about the poor. First we have to know what word Hebrew uses to describe the “poor” since there are four different words with this same English translation. Here the word is dal. …
Of David, a contemplation. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom YHWH does not charge iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Psalm 32:1-2 Forgiven/Covered/Does Not Charge/No Guile – Now that we see the parallelism in David’s maskil, we must draw the connecting…
Blessed is the man to whom YHWH does not charge iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. Psalm 32:2 Does Not Charge – David’s insight into the relationship between “blessing” and righteousness continues. This verse is now a parallel to the first verse (the first occurrence of “blessed”). It begins with the same…
Of David, a contemplation. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Psalm 32:1 Blessed Is – So, now you know that this is a maskil. That means it is an insight for action. But immediately following the word maskil, we come to what appears to be a passive verb, blessed is. …
Of David, a contemplation. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Psalm 32:1 (here is the link to the Blue Letter Bible but you will notice that even it leaves out the Hebrew words) Of David. A contemplation – Some translations don’t even include this opening indication. Apparently, authorship and context…
