Math & Hebrew

Math isn't the only thing I don't understand

Thursday grousing

Psalm 91    Qui habitat

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, * abides under the shadow of the Almighty.

2 He shall say to the LORD, "You are my refuge and my stronghold, * my God in whom I put my trust." (BCP)

Somehow, I don’t think so. It’s too smooth. From memory, I think Psalm 91 opens more jerky than that.

See, this is what comes of not being very smart in the first place, and in the second place what comes of not reading and understanding the language. Hebrew was not part of my curriculum at LTSG. I asked my OT professor to tutor me in Hebrew my first summer but he said he was going on sabbatical and declined. The years that followed, my late forties, fifties and sixties, were too rushed and full to add anything. And trying to learn Hebrew by myself in my seventies proved futile, a fiasco, I couldn’t even remember the letters. 

One single word I recognize, 

יהוָה

יְהוָה

and I certainly can’t remember the little dots and whitchits underneath the letters.

Part of Psalm 91 is our gradual for Sunday, 91:1-2, 9-16 and I can’t see why the lectionary framers left out 3-8 other than they know we are too gardenia alphabet lazy to read the whole thing, which reduces our worship to checking the blocks. This morning, because I never learned Hebrew, I’ve read commentaries of nine different scholars just on verses 1 and 2, plus a dozen English translations (all different) plus the Mechon-Mamre online, “A Hebrew - English Bible According to the Masoretic Text and the JPS 1917 Edition,” different still:

91:1 O thou that dwellest in the covert of the Most High, and abidest in the shadow of the Almighty; 2 I will say of the LORD, who is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust, …

The psalm abruptly changes back and forth between third person and first person, making it awkward, does it open to God (O thou) or a bit obliquely, coyly, of men/humans (He that)? 

9:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. (KJV)

Last night I slept from ten o’clock to six o’clock this morning, eight full hours, and now I’ve wasted an hour and a half of my Thursday trying to work out something that probably will have nothing to do with this first day of what’s left of my life.

I'm with Calvin, and math isn't the only thing I don't understand.

Bumbling Thos+ at eighty and mucking on