There is a proverb which foretells peril to such as interpose in the
quarrels of others. But as neither Mr. Trench, nor E. M. B., nor MR.
MARGOLIOUTH, have as yet betrayed any disposition to quarrel about the
question in dispute, a looker-on need not be afraid of interposing.
The Query, about the solution of which they differ, is the proper mode of
rendering the last clause of v. 2. Ps. cxxvii. In our Liturgy and Bible it
is rendered, "_For_ so He giveth His beloved sleep;" of which E. M. B.
says, "It seems to me to be correct;" though he justly observes that "He
will give" would be more close. Mr. Trench appears to have rendered it, "He
giveth His beloved _in their_ sleep." MR. MARGOLIOUTH says "the words
should be, He will give to His beloved _whilst he_ [the beloved] _is_
asleep." In each case the Italics, as usual, designate words not existing
in the Hebrew text.
When expositors would get through a difficult passage, their readers have,
not unfrequently, the vexation of finding that a word of some importance
has been ignored. Such has been the case here with the little word [Hebrew:
KN], which introduces the clause. Its ordinary meaning is _so_; and the
office of the word _so_, in such a position, is to lead the remind to
revert to what has been previously said, as necessary to the proper
application of what follows. Now, the Psalmist's theme was the vanity of
all care and labour, unless the Lord both provide for and watch over His
people; _for_ so He will give His beloved sleep--that happy, confiding
repose which the solicitude of the worldly cannot procure. This is, surely,
intelligible enough and even if [Hebrew: KN] may be translated _for_ (which
Noldius, in his _Concordantia Particularum_, affirms that it here may,
adducing however but one dubious instance of its being so used elsewhere,
viz. Jeremiah xiv. 10.), or if the various reading, [Hebrew: KY], be
accepted, which would mean _for_, our version of the clause will be quite
compatible with either alteration.
In this concentrated proposition are contained, the mode of giving, _so_;
the character of the recipient, _his beloved_; and we reasonably expect to
be next told what the Lord will give, and the text accordingly proceeds to
say, _sleep_. Whereas, if either Mr. Trench's or MR. MARGOLIOUTH's version
of the clause could properly be accepted, the gift would remain entirely
unmentioned; after attention had been called to the giver, to his mode of
giving, and to the recipient who might expect his bounty. But whilst Mr.
Trench is constrained to interpolate _in their_, apparently unconscious
that the Hebrew requires _beloved_ to be in the singular number, MR.
MARGOLIOUTH translates [Hebrew: SHN'] as if it were a participle, which
Luther seems also to have heedlessly done. Yet unless [Hebrew: SHN'] be a
noun, derived with a little irregularity from [Hebrew: YSHN], _he slept_,
it has nothing to do with sleep. It cannot be the participle of [Hebrew:
YSHN], for that verb has a participle in the usual form, not wanting the
initial [Hebrew: Y], which occurs in several places in the Old Testament,
and is used by Mendelsohn in the very sentence MR. MARGOLIOUTH has quoted
from that Jewish expositor. The critic who will not acknowledge [Hebrew:
SHN'] to be a noun in this clause, is therefore tied up to translating it
as either the participle or the preterite of [Hebrew: SHN'], _to change_,
or _to repeal_, and would thus make the clause really unintelligible.