Evensong

 Evensong is the only service I attend these days since the pandemic has eased a bit.

This evening the psalm was 88. I was very disappointed in the translation that was sung. I compared it with mine and I was disappointed that I had not preserved more of the Hebrew word order. Psalms were my first exercise in translation before I knew the music. 

Now I have two psalms to set - must do 88 and discover what it sounds like and must do 51 for the Bethsheva project - just beginning.

I think I know what I should do before I die - complete as much of the music with English and Hebrew lyrics as I can. My closest friend died yesterday - without warning - much as my brother-in-law died in January 1, 2020 from his sudden fall a few weeks earlier while he was on holiday. 

Act now while the moment is present. So many even musicians have not heard any of the music that is embedded in the text of the First Testament. Here's my intro.

And here's Psalms 88. Verse 1 for the record.

Psalms 88:1

I have marked the glosses that are confusing to the liturgical version. E.g. gbr = man - many other Hebrew words are rendered as man - so the sense is diluted. Wound in the psalms is mkx (Ps 110:5). But there we are - it took me 10 years to unwind the overlaps in the Scripture. And it would do with even more work. Probably the saddest psalm in the Psalter, a good preparation for the lament of 89.

	My translation	The liturgical translation.
1	A song. A psalm of the children of Korah. For the leader in illness to jam. An insight of Heyman the Ezrahite.	The liturgy leaves off singing of the inscription. Everything is marked with hand-signals to be sung. Note too how the verses do not agree with the Hebrew. The music fully defines a verse from the 10th C CE.
2	Yahweh the God of my salvation, day I cry out and in the night before you.	O Lord God of my salvation I have cried day and night before thee:
3	Let come to your presence my prayer. Bend your ear to my shout.	O let my prayer enter into thy presence incline thine ear unto my calling.
4	For sated with evil is my being, and my life the grave has touched.	For my soul is full of trouble: and my life draweth nigh unto hell.
5	I am reckoned with those going down into a pit. I have become as a valiant one without potency.	I am counted as one of them that go down into the pit: and I have been even like a man that hath no strength.
6	Among the dead free, as the profaned lying in a tomb whom you remember no longer, and they from your hand are parted.	Free among the dead like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave: who are out of remembrance and are cut away from thy hand.
7	You have set me in a low pit, in darknesses in depths.	Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit: in a place of darkness and in the deep.
8	On me your heat is supported, and you have inflicted all your breakers. Selah.	Thine indignation lieth hard upon me: and thou hast vexed me with all thy storms.
9	You have distanced my acquaintances from me. You have set me as an abomination to them. I am restrained and do not come out.	Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me: and made me to be abhorred of them. I am so fast in prison: that I cannot get forth.
10	My eye droops from poverty. I call you Yahweh every day. I unfold to you my palms.	My sight faileth for very trouble: Lord, I have called daily upon thee I have stretched forth my hands unto thee.
11	For the dead will you do wonders? If the shades arise, will they give you thanks? Selah.	Dost thou shew wonders among the dead: or shall the dead rise up again and praise thee?
12	Will they recount in the tomb your kindness, your faithfulness among the perished?	Shall thy loving-kindness be shewed in the grave: or thy faithfulness in destruction?
13	Will your wonders be known in the darkness, and your righteousness in the land of oblivion?	Shall thy wondrous works be known in the dark: and thy righteousness in the land where all things are forgotten?
14	But I, to you Yahweh I cry, and in the morning my prayer will confront you.	Unto thee have I cried O Lord: and early shall my prayer come before thee.
15	Why Yahweh do you reject my being, hide your face from me?	Lord why abhorrest thou my soul: and hidest thou thy face from me?
16	Jammed I am and expiring from my youth. I bear up your horrors. I am distracted.	I am in misery and like unto him that is at the point to die: even from my youth up thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind.
17	Over me pass through your burnings. Your alarms annihilate me.	Thy wrathful displeasure goeth over me: and the fear of thee hath undone me.
18	They surround me like waters all the day long. They encompass me as one.	They came round about me daily like water: and compassed me together on every side.
19	You have distanced from me lover and friend, those I know, from darkness.	My lovers and friends hast thou put away from me: and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight.

I am late with this post. Unavoidable in the time I have had.