The place to check is Flint's book on the psalms in the dss..there might be a variation there. but if not, it is still a jump to say that it once existed and was then lost (not to imply that that never happens, but one must be very careful when attempting to "recover" a verse to which no surviving evidence testifies. I think R Shalom Carmy had pointed out an english poem that also originally had left out a verse that would've seemed appropriate given the structure. it was left out at first for stylistic reasons.
not every pslam displays parallelism; nor need it.
re the correct order of ע and פ, Mitchell First has very interesting material that shows our order is not original so acrostics that manifest a difft order are not necessarily curruptions.
the paragraph beginning "Psalm 34 is interestring" and the following 3 words ("the entire verse")should probably not be hyperlinked.
good post. welcome back! hope vacation was nice :)
--mivami
>it is still a jump to say that it once existed and was then lost
I agree. It has to remain a somewhat open question. However, the point is that it seems reasonable, close to the point of certain that it is absent; that is, there is no vav verse. Not that if you chop the verse in two then you get a vav, and that is the vav which completes the poem, with all 22 letters represented.
Indeed, some poetic element might be the reason why there is no vav here. But the point is that the Talmud (or other Jewish sources) don't give such a reason and therefore not only doesn't Artscroll call attention to it in the notes, it even splits the verse onto two lines so that the vav is apparently not absent at all!
>re the correct order of ע and פ, Mitchell First has very interesting material that shows our order is not original so acrostics that manifest a difft order are not necessarily curruptions.
Indeed. In fact I had intended to note this, referring to Semitic abecedaries which exhibit a variety of orders which seem to show that the order was not entirely stable until a later date (if that is the correct interpretation of the phenomenon). But the post got so long-winded I completely forgot!
Thanks for the welcoming words! :) (and the correction)
I don't think this is entirely a fair criticism. If I were Artscroll I wouldn't have split the verse into two lines, but I would have bolded the vav. It seems to me that the most reasonable explanation for the lack of a vav verse is indeed that the poet, having just used a vav to begin the second half of the previous verse, saw no need to use it again.
Even the medieval paytanim, who were in general much more formal about their poetical forms, would often fudge acrostics towards the ends of their poems, by using several words in the same verse instead of writing a whole verse for each letter; my guess is that they were tired by then, or had run out of inspiration, and wanted to get it over with. I don't see why David shouldn't have engaged in a similar shortcut.
Also note that the parallelism in this psalm isn't perfect: look at verses 8, 10, 11, and 17; no parallelism there, and no real need to explain it either - the poet fudged it, but the result is pleasing, so who cares?
>I don't think this is entirely a fair criticism. If I were Artscroll I wouldn't have split the verse into two lines, but I would have bolded the vav. It seems to me that the most reasonable explanation for the lack of a vav verse is indeed that the poet, having just used a vav to begin the second half of the previous verse, saw no need to use it again.
The problem I have with this explanation is that vavs are so common in Hebrew that it is almost always there anyway. If so, why didn't the poet not bother with a vav verse in Ashrei? The second half of the heh also has a vav.
Now, I know that you're not saying that this is a consistent feature of biblical acrostic poetry, but my point is that this would seem to be exceptional. Maybe you're right (although I'm not persuaded). But you haven't really addressed why Artscroll did this. If they were thinking as you are, why not mention it? It's certainly something which requires thought, rather than it being the natural explanation.
My contention is that A. was unaware of a traditional treatment of the missing vav verse (even one like you propose), so they acted as if it wasn't missing at all using a cheap, artificial technique even though it sort of opposes the masoretic text! Why did they do this? I bet (but do not know) it was because they simply didn't want to call attention to a potential or real corruption or peculiarity in the biblical text without a ready Talmudic reference.
As for the imperfect parallelism, these are also examples of parallelism. As noted in my post, the idea of parallelism is either that the second half restates the first or completes the thought.
There are examples of acrostics in Tehillim in which two of the letters are represented in a single verse, like "Halleluya, Odeh Hashem B'chol Levav, Besod Yesharim V'Edah. Gedolim Maaseh Hashem, Derushim L'chol Heftsehem, etc."
Also, in the case you are discussing (Psalm 34), adding a verse that begins with Vav would lead to an aesthetic "bumpiness" in the flow of the poem.
Because there are already two phrases beginning with Vav in the passuq that starts with Hay (Venaharu and Uphnehem), beginning another verse with Vav would have been "overkill" and might have ruined the texture of the poem from a literary and musical standpoint. (Think of "and...and...and").
>Because there are already two phrases beginning with Vav in the passuq that starts with Hay (Venaharu and Uphnehem), beginning another verse with Vav would have been "overkill" and might have ruined the texture of the poem from a literary and musical standpoint. (Think of "and...and...and").
Trouble is there are many such verses which abound with vavs. That's a typical element of Hebrew. The thing to remember is that vav doesn't mean "and." "And" is one of its meanings. As it is, the constant vavs translated as "and" don't work in English, but it worked quite well in Hebrew when vav was a conjuctive that meant "and" "but" "for" and "also" and many other things.
Hebrew evolved from phoenician(?) right, so diden't they already have a stable alphabet where the order was not mixed up?
If I were Artscroll I wouldn't have split the verse into two lines, but I would have bolded the vav.
Which is what artscroll does in their Hebrew only siddur. I think, a better choice is to resist highlighting of acrostics altogether.
I think, a better choice is to resist highlighting of acrostics altogether. - Joe
Why? It's a stylistic element (or mnemonic device), intentionally chosen by the author. What is gained by suppressing it?
In short, I like it.
Did you expect Artscroll to embrace (or even flirt with) textual criticism?
In the EJ entry on "Acrostics" (missing a few words because of, I assume, a typo, which goes uncorrected in the second edition), they list each one, including deficiencies, including missing "vav"s- I think there are others. The only "perfect" acrostics- 22 verses, 22 letters- are Lamentations 1 and the end of Proverbs.
The Psalm is also noteworthy in that it concludes oddly. The whole Psalm is alphabetical, except for the last verse.
34:23 – פֹּדֶה יְהוָה, נֶפֶשׁ עֲבָדָיו; וְלֹא יֶאְשְׁמוּ, כָּל-הַחֹסִים בּוֹ
It's a stylistic element (or mnemonic device), intentionally chosen by the author.
And yet, for hundreds of years, siddurim managed to fulfill their role without spilling the extra ink.
What is gained by suppressing it?
Those who aren't into that sort of thing, would avoid having it jammed in their face, while those who like it (and there many) would still be able to discover it by paying just a wee bit more attention to the text they are reading. I suspect that people like you might actually get more pleasure out of discovering these things on their own without Artscroll's (or anyone else's) assistance.
Regarding the Lamentation's verse that you quote, I think, Daas Mikra suggests that inverting alphabet order was intenional to communicate tat the entire order of Creation was turned over by this catastrophe.
Actually, this very perek of Tehillim makes more sense if you switch the 'ayin and pe. Otherwise, tzadi has a remote subject, as it's called. Ergo, it's somewhat possible that that was the original order.
missing a few words because of, I assume, a typo, which goes uncorrected in the second edition
Nachum, where do the missing words begin?
it concludes oddly. The whole Psalm is alphabetical, except for the last verse
S mentions this in the post. That last פ was possibly meant as an alternative to the one already in the acrostic, or for other reasons.
--mivami
"it concludes oddly. The whole Psalm is alphabetical, except for the last verse
S mentions this in the post. That last פ was possibly meant as an alternative to the one already in the acrostic, or for other reasons."
Does the "peh verse as the missing vav verse theory" have anything to do with the fact that peh is paired with vav in atbash?
And welcome back, S.!
Welcome back S.!
I hope that you had a great vacation.
I would like to point out a small correction to your post. In the introductory paragraph, you stated that each chapter in Lamentations is an alphabetical acrostic. While the first four chapters of Lamentations are indeed alphabetical acrostics, the fifth chapter is not. However, the poem in chapter five does contain exactly 22 verses, and thus loosely relates in form to the alphabetical acrostic poems in Lamentations.
P.S. Do you think that you will have time soon to respond to my e-mail?
S.,
True, an abundance of "vav"s can occur, but we are talking about a poem that derives some measure of its elegance from the order of the acrostic...
mivami, I will look it up.
Artscroll were not the first to assume the vav to be there; the JPS translation also did it.
I imagine Artscroll just put the vav on a new line so that the alphabetical sequence should be more noticable. I don't think this in any way detracts from the verse division, which remains intact along with its parallelism etc. There's also no need to insert a footnote, as all the information is already in the text.
Sorry, missed your note about the final Peh, as the guys pointed out.
Is there any need for an alphabet to have a specific order?
>Is there any need for an alphabet to have a specific order?
It's a far easier way to organize information of some length which people need to memorize.
The specific order doesn't seem that important; Arabic is interesting because it is the only alphabet descended from Phoenician/ Proto-Hebrew (as nearly all alphabets are) which had its order changed; the change was made based on graphic similarity of the letters, which is why it begins alif, ba like all the others, but then promptly goes into ta (the equivalent of ת) before jim and so forth.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/...ting/
arabic.htm
See it even more clearly with this list of the way the Hebrew alphabet was used in Judeo-Arabic
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/...udeo-
arabic.htm
Off-topic Artscroll observation, to save you an email: Artscroll notes, in the notes, an alternative explantion for the phrase "liveshi bigdei ami" in Lecho Dodi. In the Ashkenaz edition Artscroll refers to it as " a novel explanation". This editorial is removed in the sefard edition. Don't know why.
(This factoid was mentioned en passant by Meshulem Klarberg in his morsels of hebrew grammar coloumn, this past week).
DF:
I suspect it was just for reasons of space. I've done my own share of comparing A/S versions of Artscroll Siddurim/Machzorim and there are sometimes entire footnotes that get included or excluded based on it.
Could you do a post about Artscroll's additional comment on Yigdal in Nusach Sfard? Please?
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