Psalm 131: verses 3 - 5

Today's verses of Psalm 131 go to the form and content of King David's vow to build the Temple.

Verse notes

3	V	Si introíero in tabernáculum domus meæ, * si ascéndero in lectum strati mei :
	NV	Non introibo in tabernaculum domus meae, non ascendam in lectum strati mei,
	JH	Si intrauero in tabernaculum domus meae, si adsedero super lectum straminis mei ;
		εἰ εἰσελεύσομαι εἰς σκήνωμα οἴκου μου εἰ ἀναβήσομαι ἐπὶ κλίνης στρωμνῆς μου

Si (if) introíero (I will go into) in tabernáculum (into the tent) domus (house) meæ (of my)  si (if) ascéndero (I will go up) in lectum (onto the couch) strati (of  the bed) mei (of my)

The ‘si…si’ form of this and the next verse is a formula of swearing an oath (there is an implicit ‘May God do so and so to me if I don’t…’ standing before it).  Boylan suggests that tabernaculum domus meae; should be translated as ‘the tent which is my dwelling’, since the Hebrew word here strictly means tent (and is not the same word as used in verse 5 and 7); and lectum strati as the bed which is my couch.

tabernaculum, i, n. a tent, pavilion,

introeo, ivi or li, Itum, ire, to go into, to enter.

ascendo, scendi, scensum, ere 3  to go up, ascend. to mount a horse, chariot, etc., to ride.

lectus, i, m.  a couch, bed.

stratum, i, n.  a bed, couch.

domus, us,   house, structure, abode, dwelling place; the inmates of a house, a family, household.

DR	If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house: if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie:
Brenton	saying, I will not go into the tabernacle of my house; I will not go up to the couch of my bed
Cover	I will not come within the tabernacle of mine house, nor climb up into my bed

4	V	Si dédero somnum óculis meis, * et pálpebris meis dormitatiónem :
	NV	non dabo somnum oculis meis et palpebris meis dormitationem,
	JH	si dedero somnum oculis meis, et palpebris meis dormitationem
		εἰ δώσω ὕπνον τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς μου καὶ τοῖς βλεφάροις μου νυσταγμὸν καὶ ἀνάπαυσιν τοῖς κροτάφοις μου

Si (if) dédero (I will give) somnum (sleep) óculis (to the eyes) meis (my) et (and) pálpebris (eyelids) meis (my) dormitatiónem (slumber)

The text parallels Proverbs 6:4’s injunction to make no delay in getting out of a state of debt or obligation.

do, dedi, datum, are, to give

palpebra, ae, /.  the eyelid..

somnus, i, m.  during sleep

oculus, i, , the eye.

dormitatio, onis, f slumber.

DR	If I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids,
Brenton	I will not give sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids,
Cover	I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyelids to slumber

5	V	Et réquiem tempóribus meis: donec invéniam locum Dómino, * tabernáculum Deo Jacob.
	NV	donec inveniam locum Domino, tabernaculum Potenti Iacob ”.
	JH	donec inueniam locum Domino, tabernacula Deo lacob.
		ἕως οὗ εὕρω τόπον τῷ κυρίῳ σκήνωμα τῷ θεῷ Ιακωβ

Et (and) réquiem (I will rest) tempóribus (temples) meis (my) donec (then/until) invéniam (I will find) locum (the place) Dómino (for the Lord) tabernáculum (the dwelling place/tabernacle) Deo (for the God)  Jacob (of Jacob).

The first phrase does not appear in the MT, and so the Neo-Vulgate assumes it is nothing more than a duplication that has slipped into the text; some scholars interpret it as Theodoret’s translation of the previous phrase.  But it may in fact have been in the manuscript tradition used by the Septuagint translators, and the New English Translation of the Septuagint, which is based on the oldest available manuscript principle, includes it.

tabernaculum, i, n.  tabernacle, God's dwelling

donec, conj., till, until

locus, i, m. (in the hymns also loca, orum), a place.

requiesco, quievi, quietum, ere 3, (1) to rest, be at rest. (2) to sleep

tempus, oris, n.  time;  the time of youth;. the temples of the head.  

invenio, veni, ventum, ire,  to find,

DR	or rest to my temples: until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
Brenton	nor rest to my temples until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
MD	Nor repose to my temples, until I have a place for the Lord, a dwelling for the God of Jacob
RSV	until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob."
Cover	neither the temples of my head to take any rest, until I find out a place for the temple of the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.

Cassiodorus provides the Christological explanation of these verses, setting them firmly in the context of Christ's public mission:

"In this and the next two verses, we must interpret the words recorded by the prophet as those of the Lord Christ speak­ing in His human capacity. He says that He will not enter the taberna­cle and mount the bed wherein He lies until He is seen to fulfil the promises which He made to the Father. The tabernacle, if I am not mistaken, signifies the heavenly dwelling to which after His resurrec­tion He mounted in the flesh before the eyes of the apostles. He says that He will not enter there before He finds a place for the Lord Father in the hearts of religious persons. This was why he added: Of my house, to denote the heavenly dwelling; as He says elsewhere: Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. Next comes: If I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie. We observe that after His fashion He denotes things heavenly by means of human practices. The bed on which we lie accords us rest and an end to our toils; so His bed, denoting His rest, must be interpreted as the completion of His most blessed passion. His words, if I shall go up, denote His ascension, when He mounted to heaven and took His seat at the right hand of the Father. Then the vows which He swore, which He promised, were fulfilled. As He Himself said at His passion when He had drunk."

 St Robert Bellarmine teaches us how to apply the lessons Christ offers to ourselves:

Now, these were all types and figures of Christ, the true David, who, in his desire of raising a living temple, and an everlasting tabernacle to God, spent whole nights in prayer, and, truly, neither entered his house, nor went up into his bed, nor gave slumber to his eyelids nor rest to his temples, and pre­sented to himself "a glorious Church, not having spot nor wrin­kle, nor any such thing," nor built "with corruptible gold or sil­ver," but with his own precious sweat and more precious blood; it was with them he built that city in heaven that was seen by St. John in the Apocalypse, and "was ornamented with all man­ner of precious stones." Hence, we can all understand the amount of care, cost, and labor we need to erect a becoming temple in our hearts to God.

Psalm 131 (132) – Memento Domine

Vulgate	Douay-Rheims
Canticum graduum.	A gradual canticle.
1 Meménto, Dómine, David, * et omnis mansuetúdinis ejus :	O Lord remember David, and all his meekness.
2  Sicut jurávit Dómino, * votum vovit Deo Jacob	2 How he swore to the Lord, he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob:
3  Si introíero in tabernáculum domus meæ, * si ascéndero in lectum strati mei :	3 If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house: if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie:
4  Si dédero somnum óculis meis, * et pálpebris meis dormitatiónem :	4 If I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids,
5  Et réquiem tempóribus meis : donec invéniam locum Dómino, * tabernáculum Deo Jacob.	5 or rest to my temples: until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
6. Ecce audívimus eam in Ephrata: * invénimus eam in campis silvæ.	6 Behold we have heard of it in Ephrata: we have found it in the fields of the wood.
7  Introíbimus in tabernáculum ejus: * adorábimus in loco, ubi stetérunt pedes ejus.	7 We will go into his tabernacle: we will adore in the place where his feet stood. .
8  Surge, Dómine, in réquiem tuam, * tu et arca sanctificatiónis tuæ.	8 Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified
9  Sacerdótes tui induántur justítiam: * et sancti tui exsúltent.	9 Let your priests be clothed with justice: and let   your saints rejoice.
10  Propter David, servum tuum: * non avértas fáciem Christi tui.	10 For your servant David's sake, turn not away the face of your anointed.
11  Jurávit Dóminus David veritátem, et non frustrábitur eam: * de fructu ventris tui ponam super sedem tuam.	11 The Lord has sworn truth to David, and he will not make it void: of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne
12  Si custodíerint fílii tui testaméntum meum: * et testimónia mea hæc, quæ docébo eos.	12 If your children will keep my covenant, and these my testimonies which I shall teach them:
13  Et fílii eórum usque in sæculum: * sedébunt super sedem tuam.	Their children also for evermore shall sit upon your throne.
14  Quóniam elégit Dóminus Sion: * elégit eam in habitatiónem sibi.	13 For the Lord has chosen Sion: he has chosen it for his dwelling.
15  Hæc réquies mea in sæculum sæculi: * hic habitábo, quóniam elégi eam.	14 This is my rest for ever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it.
16  Víduam ejus benedícens benedícam: * páuperes ejus saturábo pánibus.	15 Blessing I will bless her widow: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
17  Sacerdótes ejus índuam salutári: * et sancti ejus exsultatióne exsultábunt.	16 I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall rejoice with exceeding great joy.
18  Illuc prodúcam cornu David: * parávi lucérnam Christo meo.	17 There will I bring forth a horn to David: I have prepared a lamp for my anointed
19  Inimícos ejus índuam confusióne: * super ipsum autem efflorébit sanctificátio mea.	18 His enemies I will clothe with confusion: but upon him shall my sanctification flourish.

And you can find the next set of notes on the verses of Psalm 131 here.

The Septuagint and the contest between Judaism and Christianity in the early years of the Church

As it has been a while since I said anything about my reasons for preferring the Septuagint over the Hebrew Masoretic Text for the interpretation of the psalms, and the basis of some of my comments on the differences between the two versions, I thought it might be helpful to make a few comments here, and draw my readers attention to some recent books and articles on this subject.

The Jewish reaction to Christianity

The early tensions between the infant Church and the early Judaism are no secret: they are chronicled in the Book of Acts and the letters of St Paul, and attested to at length by the Fathers.

The combined forces of the existence of Christianity and above all the destruction of the Temple forced Judaism to change, leading to the development of the rabbinical Judaism we know today.

In Acts, we are told of the gradual process of discarding Jewish practices as requirements for Christian converts.  The early Church Fathers took this much Father, actively condemning the continuing use of Judaic practices by Christians.

But the Jewish faith, too, embarked on a process of reassessment in this same period, one of the results of which was the discarding of the Septuagint at first in favour of new translations into the Greek, and then their gradual replacement by the exclusive use of Hebrew instead.  There was also a process, at this time, within Judaism, of definition of which books of Scripture were considered canonical that excluded any thought not to have been written in Hebrew.

Texts and prayers on both sides of the divide attest both to ongoing tensions between the two religions, and ongoing Christian attempts to convert Jews to Christianity. Indeed, contemporary sociologist Rodney Stark has argued that a majority of converts up until the fifth century AD were in fact Jewish, and that the often harsh sounding denunciations of each other reflect an attempt by the respective hierarchies to put a stop to a certain permeability on the part of the laity, with some people drifting between the two camps!

The Septuagint's importance to Christianity

The importance of the Greek translation of the Old Testament has largely been neglected until recently in the Western Church, due in no small part to the legacy of St Jerome, who successfully campaigned for the adoption of translations based on the Hebrew instead of the ancient Greek.  The one book on which he was not successful is the psalms, where Latin versions based on the Greek were too entrenched liturgically, even at that early date, to change.

Recent scholarship, stimulated in no small part by the Dead Sea Scrolls, is changing all that.

For much of the twentieth century, the prevailing view of the Latin Vulgate was that it was based on a Septuagint that was often badly translated, and reflected an often corrupt text.  In contrast, it was thought that the Hebrew Masoretic Text, even though the earliest surviving manuscripts date only from the eighth century AD, represented, in the main, a faithfully transmitted version of 'the original text'.

Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, however, has lead to the realisation that in fact there were several different text traditions of Scripture prevalent at the time of Our Lord; that  the Greek Septuagint, and not the Hebrew was widely used at this time, and the exclusive basis for the quotes from the Old Testament cited in the New.  Far from being corrupt or badly translated, modern scholarship is beginning to realise that the Septuagint often preserves an older and at least equally legitimate version of the text.

A useful and easy to read summary of the case for the Septuagint can be found in Timothy Michael Law's When God Spoke Greek The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible (Oxford University Press, 2013).  Law's book is primarily directed at Protestants, making the case for a rethink of Luther's rejection of the apocrypha and preference for translations directly from the Hebrew.  Accordingly, it spends rather more time than a Catholic reader will find necessary on the case for the apocrypha, and rather less time on the role of the Magisterium in the formation of the modern Bible.  Nonetheless, it is a useful popular presentation of some of the key results of recent research, particularly in making the case that the New Testament relies exclusively on the Septuagint, rather than the precursors to the Masoretic Text (MT), in its quotes of the Old Testament.

Law also draws out the understanding in the early Church that the commissioning of the Septuagint in the centuries before Christ was seen as a providential event, a necessary foundation for the Gospel to be preached to the whole (known) world, which was at that time was essentially Greek-speaking.  A recent article by Dawn Eden in Pastoral and Homiletic Review explores the way that Pope Benedict XVI advocated for a recovery of this view of the Septuagint as a monument of tradition (though she doesn't use that terminology) whose theological perspective should be respected as part of revelation in his theological work and Magisterial teaching.

Text manipulation?

A more controversial question is whether the Hebrew Masoretic Text as it exists today reflects deliberate manipulation by early Jewish editors in reaction to the use of certain texts by early Christians, as a number of the early Church Fathers, such as Justin Martyr, claimed.

One contemporary school of thought argues that in the main, the Dead Sea Scrolls show that many of the differences between the MT and the Septuagint reflect different text traditions, or families of manuscripts, rather than deliberate edits to the text.  The critical change, in this view (subscribed to, for example, by Law, cited above), was not text manipulation, but rather the decision to move away from tolerating a plurality of text possibilities and settle on one definitive, and ultimately Hebrew version.   This school of thought acknowledges that the Septuagint's readings often reflect a theology more congenial to Christianity, and that this may have influenced choices, but goes no further than that.

A second school of thought, however, points out that the differences between the proto-Masoretic Text manuscripts discovered this century, and the received (medieval) version of the Hebrew of the MT may be relatively small in number, but they are extremely significant in theological import.  One of the key advocates of this school of thought is Dr Margaret Barker.

Personally, I think that the view that there was some deliberate text selection and manipulation at work in direct reaction to Christianity is extremely plausible, and some of the posited examples of it in the literature are compelling.  It certainly wouldn't be the first time that faced with a text that seemed to support one side of the debate, the other sought to find and even create support for its view through its own!  Nonetheless, it has to be acknowledged that Septuagint studies in the light of the Dead Sea Scrolls are still at a relatively underdeveloped stage, and much more work remains to be done in this area.

It should also be noted that the adoption by the Church of St Jerome's translations from the Hebrew did have one positive benefit in providing an agreed text to facilitate dialogue between Christians and Jews, and a number of key works by the Fathers and Theologians reflect that ongoing evangelizing project.

Nonetheless, the latest research is stimulating a rethink of much of the twentieth century scholarship around Bible translation.  At the very least, the Neo-Vulgate, a product of the period before the impact of Dead Seas Scrolls scholarship, seems likely to be deemed at some point in the not too distant future, a product of its time, rather than a lasting monument of the Church.

Psalm 131: Verses 1-2

King David in Prayer, by Pieter de Grebber (c. 1640)

The opening verses of Psalm 131 set the scene of David's commitment to building the Temple.

Verse notes

1	V/NV	Meménto, Dómine, David, * et omnis mansuetúdinis ejus :
	JH	Memento, Domine, Dauid  et omnis adflictionis eius;
		μνήσθητι κύριε τοῦ Δαυιδ καὶ πάσης τῆς πραΰτητος αὐτοῦ

Memento (Remember/Be mindful ie future imperative of memini) Domine (O Lord) David et (and) omnis (all) mansuetudinis (meekness) ejus (his)

The speaker here could be David himself, in the third person, or perhaps his son King Solomon who actually built the Temple. The Masoretic Text Hebrew reading of his verse (attesting to David’s devotedness/labours/piety rather than his meekness) verse may reflect a desire to avoid giving any credit to the Christian reading of the psalm: meekness is of course one of the virtues claimed for Christ, and advocated by him in the beatitudes, so unsurprising that the early Jews would seek to avoid  its use in a psalm accepted as Messianic by both religions.  That said, the underlying Hebrew is ambiguous, so the two competing interpretations of the second phrase, meekness (Septuagint) or labour (Masoretic Text) respectively, are both theoretically possible readings. 

memini, nisse  to remember, be mindful of;

omnis, e, all, each, every; subst., all men, all things, everything.

mansuetudo, inis, f  meekness, mildness, clemency; weakness, inactivity, 

DR	O Lord remember David, and all his meekness.
NETS	O Lord remember David and all his meekness
Brenton	Lord, remember David, and all his meekness
MD	O Lord remember David, and all his devotedness
RSV	Remember, O LORD, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured;
Cover	Lord, remember David, and all his trouble

Verse 1 lauds David’s meekness, foreshadowing that of Our Lord.  But what does meekness really mean?  Certainly not a reluctance to speak up strongly and act when necessary, as St Robert Bellarmine points out:

“Nor is it inconsistent with the meekness of David or Moses to have taken the lives of so many, nor with that of Christ to have turned the buyers and sellers out of the temple, and to upset their tables; for meekness is not inconsis­tent with justice, it is rather sister to zeal for the honor of God; and they who readily put up with a personal offence, which is the office of meekness, are the more fit to punish one offered to God or to the neighbor, because it is evident to all that they are not influenced by any private pique or selfish motive, but by a pure love of justice; as, also, because they seem to forget them­selves altogether, and to be entirely absorbed in seeking and extending God's honor and glory.”

You can read St John Chrysostom's exposition of this verse presenting meekness as being about 'tough love' here.

2	V/JH	Sicut jurávit Dómino, * votum vovit Deo Jacob :
	NV	quia iuravit Domino, votum vovit Potenti Iacob:
		ὡς ὤμοσεν τῷ κυρίῳ ηὔξατο τῷ θεῷ Ιακωβ

Sicut (as)  jurávit (he swore an oath) Dómino (to the Lord) votum (a vow) vovit (he vowed)  

Deo (to the God) Jacob (of Jacob).

There are no other Scriptural allusions to David’s oath on this subject, but 2 Samuel 6&7 record his decision to build a dwelling for God.  The Neo-Vulgate follows the MT here in making the vow to ‘the Strong One’ or ‘Hero’ of Jacob, rather than just the God of Jacob.  The Navarre commentary points out that the name "Mighty One of Jacob" (vv. 2, 5) is the same as "Protector of Israel".

sicut, adv., as, just as, like, how

juro, avi, atum, are, to swear, take an oath

votum, i, n. a vow votum vovere, to vow a vow, make a vow, to vow.

voveo, vovi, votum, ere 2, to vow, to promise solemnly or sacredly.

DR	How he swore to the Lord, he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob:
Brenton	how he sware to the Lord, and vowed to the God of Jacob
Cover	how he swore unto the Lord, and vowed a vow unto the Almighty God of Jacob

It is often claimed that Churches are not much needed any more, that any ‘worship space’ will do.  Increasingly, the great cathedrals of the world are being dwarfed by skyscrapers, or replaced by architectural monstrosities.  Yet this psalm testifies to just how important churches really are. 

The Old Testament records that just as God is especially present in reserved Eucharist in the tabernacle of the Church, so God was especially present to his people first in the Arc of the Covenant, and subsequently in the Temple itself.  

David vowed to replace the tents and tabernacle set up by Moses with a proper Temple – but God refused to allow him to do so because of his many sins, and instead gave the task to his son Solomon to complete. Nonetheless, the importance of David’s intention, and the blessings that flowed from it, are attested to in this psalm. 

The final destruction of the Temple in 70 AD effectively ended the Jewish religion as it was then understood, with its animal sacrifices and annual pilgrimages.  But this psalm should remind us that the destruction of the Temple, far from abolishing the need to honour God through buildings devoted to him, rather made at least theoretically possible the spread of God’s Real Presence to every village, town and city throughout the whole world.  Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI has commented in relation to this psalm that:

“…it shows that at the heart of the social life of a city, of a community, of a people there must be a presence that calls to mind the mystery of the transcendent God, a proper space for God, a dwelling for God. Man cannot walk well without God; he must walk together with God through history, and the task of the temple, of the dwelling of God, is to point out in a visible way this communion, this allowing God to guide.”

Psalm 131 (132) – Memento Domine

Vulgate	Douay-Rheims
Canticum graduum.	A gradual canticle.
1 Meménto, Dómine, David, * et omnis mansuetúdinis ejus :	O Lord remember David, and all his meekness.
2  Sicut jurávit Dómino, * votum vovit Deo Jacob	2 How he swore to the Lord, he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob:
3  Si introíero in tabernáculum domus meæ, * si ascéndero in lectum strati mei :	3 If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house: if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie:
4  Si dédero somnum óculis meis, * et pálpebris meis dormitatiónem :	4 If I shall give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to my eyelids,
5  Et réquiem tempóribus meis : donec invéniam locum Dómino, * tabernáculum Deo Jacob.	5 or rest to my temples: until I find out a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.
6. Ecce audívimus eam in Ephrata: * invénimus eam in campis silvæ.	6 Behold we have heard of it in Ephrata: we have found it in the fields of the wood.
7  Introíbimus in tabernáculum ejus: * adorábimus in loco, ubi stetérunt pedes ejus.	7 We will go into his tabernacle: we will adore in the place where his feet stood. .
8  Surge, Dómine, in réquiem tuam, * tu et arca sanctificatiónis tuæ.	8 Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified
9  Sacerdótes tui induántur justítiam: * et sancti tui exsúltent.	9 Let your priests be clothed with justice: and let   your saints rejoice.
10  Propter David, servum tuum: * non avértas fáciem Christi tui.	10 For your servant David's sake, turn not away the face of your anointed.
11  Jurávit Dóminus David veritátem, et non frustrábitur eam: * de fructu ventris tui ponam super sedem tuam.	11 The Lord has sworn truth to David, and he will not make it void: of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne
12  Si custodíerint fílii tui testaméntum meum: * et testimónia mea hæc, quæ docébo eos.	12 If your children will keep my covenant, and these my testimonies which I shall teach them:
13  Et fílii eórum usque in sæculum: * sedébunt super sedem tuam.	Their children also for evermore shall sit upon your throne.
14  Quóniam elégit Dóminus Sion: * elégit eam in habitatiónem sibi.	13 For the Lord has chosen Sion: he has chosen it for his dwelling.
15  Hæc réquies mea in sæculum sæculi: * hic habitábo, quóniam elégi eam.	14 This is my rest for ever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it.
16  Víduam ejus benedícens benedícam: * páuperes ejus saturábo pánibus.	15 Blessing I will bless her widow: I will satisfy her poor with bread.
17  Sacerdótes ejus índuam salutári: * et sancti ejus exsultatióne exsultábunt.	16 I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall rejoice with exceeding great joy.
18  Illuc prodúcam cornu David: * parávi lucérnam Christo meo.	17 There will I bring forth a horn to David: I have prepared a lamp for my anointed
19  Inimícos ejus índuam confusióne: * super ipsum autem efflorébit sanctificátio mea.	18 His enemies I will clothe with confusion: but upon him shall my sanctification flourish.

For the next part in this series of notes on Psalm 131, continue on here.