Page:Book of common prayer (TEC, 1979).pdf/583

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The version of the Psalms which follows is set out in lines of poetry. The lines correspond to Hebrew versification, which is not based on meter or rhyme, but on parallelism of clauses, a symmetry of form and sense. The parallelism can take the form of similarity (The waters have lifted up, O Lord / the waters have lifted up their voice; / the waters have lifted up their pounding waves. Psalm 93:4), or of contrast (The Lord knows the ways of the righteous; / but the way of the wicked is doomed. Psalm 1:6), or of logical expansion (Our eyes look to the Lord our God, / until he show us his mercy. Psalm 123:3).

The most common verse is a couplet, but triplets are very frequent, and quatrains are not unknown; although quatrains are usually distributed over two verses.

An asterisk divides each verse into two parts for reading or chanting. In reading, a distinct pause should be made at the asterisk.

Three terms are used in the Psalms with reference to God: Elohim ("God"), Adonai (“Lord”) and the personal name YHWH. The “Fourletter Name” (Tetragrammaton) is probably to be vocalized Yahweh; but this is by no means certain, because from very ancient times it has been considered too sacred to be pronounced; and, whenever it occurred, Adonai was substituted for it. In the oldest manuscripts, the Divine Name was written in antique and obsolete letters; in more recent manuscripts and in printed Bibles, after the invention of vowel points, the Name was provided with the vowels of the word Adonai. This produced a hybrid form which has been transliterated “Jehovah.”

The Hebrew reverence and reticence with regard to the Name of God has been carried over into the classical English versions, the Prayer Book Psalter and the King James Old Testament, where it is regularly rendered “Lord”. In order to distinguish it, however, from “Lord” as a translation of Adonai, YHWH is represented in capital and small capital letters: Lord.

From time to time, the Hebrew text has Adonai and YHWH in conjunction. Then, the Hebrew custom is to substitute Elohim for YHWH, and our English tradition follows suit, rendering the combined title as “Lord God.”

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