(Vol. viii., pp. 387. 519.)
The error, which Luther was the first to fall into, in departing from the
anciently received version of Ps. cxxvii. 2., Mendelsohn adopted; but no
translator of eminence has followed these two Hebraists; although some
critics have been carried away by their authority to the proper Jewish
notion of "gain," and not sleep, being the subject. Luther's version--"Denn
seinen Freunden gibt er _es_ schlafend"--was certainly before the revisers
of our authorised version of James I.; but was rejected, I consider, as
ungrammatical and false: _ungrammatical_, because the transitive verb
"give" (_gibt_) has no accusative noun; and _false_, because he supplies,
without authority, the place of the missing noun by the pronoun "it"
(_es_), there being no antecedent to which this _it_ refers. Mendelsohn
omits the _it_ in his Hebrew comment, supplied however unauthorisedly by
MR. MARGOLIOUTH in his translation of such comment. But Mendelsohn
introduces the "_es_" (it), in his German version (Berlin, 1788, dedicated
to Ramler), without however any authority from the Hebrew original of this
Psalm. He is therefore at variance with himself. And, farther, he has
omitted altogether the important word [Hebrew: KEIN] (_so_ or _thus_),
rendered "_denn_" (for) by Luther.
As to the "unintelligible authorised version," I must premise that no
version has yet had so large an amount of learning bestowed on it as the
English one; indeed it has fairly beaten out of the field all the versions
of all other sections of Christians. The difficulty of the English version
arises from its close adherence to the oriental letter; but if we put the
scope of this Psalm into the vernacular, such difficulty is eliminated.
Solomon says, in this Psalm: "Without Jehovah's support, my house will
fall: if He keep this city, the watch, with its early-risings,
late-resting, and ill-feeding, is useless: _thus He_ (by so keeping or
watching the city himself) _gives sleep to him whom He loves_." The
remainder of the Psalm refers to the increase of population as Jehovah's
gift, wherein Solomon considers the strength of the city to consist. The
words in Italics correspond precisely in sense with those of the authorised
version--"_For_ so He giveth His beloved sleep;" and the latter is
supported fully by all the ancient versions, and, as far as I can at
present ascertain, by all the best modern ones.