the missing NUN verse

As it happened, to go along with adult Sunday School this morning I suppose, a Jewish breakfast, IDK, not sure. It was pretty, quite colorful. I should've got a picture but here's a belated shot:



On a plain white plate,

lox, thin sliced smoked salmon


goat's milk cream cheese from TJs


instead of bagel, slice Good Seeds bread, toasted

half a stuffed egg

12 oz glass ice water.



Because of the Lamentations reading, we are looking at the use of acrostic in Hebrew poetry. Couple of psalms, chapter from Proverbs, and of course Lamentations chapter 1 that our lesson (1:1-6) is taken from. 


Psalm 145 was interesting in that, while working through it I got stumped trying to find the verse after מ and before ס - the verse beginning with נ. 


Turns out the verse has been missing since antiquity, an absence commented on since at least the third century CE by various rabbis and scholars, but explained to nobody's satisfaction. And, in some offerings, a substitute Nun verse added, including, disappointingly I will say, in the NRSV and our BCP 1979. But not in the KJV, nor in the 1928 and prior BCP, whose Psalter was based on the Coverdale bible. 

The Nun verse, which apparently appears in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but arguably not the original, adds    

נאמן אלוהים בדבריו וחסיד בכל מעשיו

Faithful is God in His sayings, 
and Honest in all His works

between
מַלְכֽוּתְךָ֗ מַלְכ֥וּת כָּל־עֹֽלָמִ֑ים וּ֜מֶֽמְשַׁלְתְּךָ֗ בְּכָל־דּ֥וֹר וָדֹֽר

and סוֹמֵ֣ךְ יְ֖הֹוָה לְכָל־הַנֹּֽפְלִ֑ים וְ֜זוֹקֵ֗ף לְכָל־הַכְּפוּפִֽים

If this isn't of interest to you, it probably isn't to others either; but it is of interest to me.

T