Psalm 119:129-144
Psalm 119, Day 9. Thinking again about those synonyms for the Law… Here they are again, the ones that I listed on Day 1: “commands” / “commandments”, “decrees”, “judgments”, “precepts”, “statutes”, “testimonies”, (Your) “ways”, (Your) “word”. What I did not say back on Day 1 is that each of these words has a different Hebrew word, so it’s not just a translator who decided to grab some synonyms for the Law – it’s the psalmist who made that decision. And he made that decision at least six times in each eight-verse stanza! One editorial note – the ESV translates “decrees” as “rules” while the NASB uses “ordinances”. So how different would it be if we substituted all of those synonyms with just one of them? For example, if we read “precepts” wherever we see the Law or any of the other seven or eight synonyms. Yes, it would be boring, but would we lose anything in the meaning? I think not. So we give the psalmist “poetic license” here!
Don’t forget the other interesting tidbit about Psalm 119 – it is an “alphabetic acrostic” poem. Each of the eight verses in each of the 22 stanzas begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so that all 22 letters are highlighted in the Psalm. No doubt that would help with Bible memory! Again we give the psalmist “poetic license”!
I’m afraid I need to again voice some (mild) disagreement with Fred. (Sorry Fred!) He suggests that using only one word for “the Law” instead of the multiple synonyms might be boring, but that we wouldn’t lose any meaning. I don’t think so.
Suppose we were looking at some other bit of poetry, perhaps something by William Shakespeare or Walt Whitman or Emily Dickenson or Robert Frost. Which of us would take the liberty to replace any words in such poems with synonyms — even synonyms that the poet him/herself uses within the same poem? I think most of us would feel like we were treading where we ought not, regardless of whether we like, love, dislike, or hate the poem at hand. It just would not be ours to change. If we would be reluctant to make such edits to secular poetry, should we not be even more reluctant to alter Scripture?
But beyond my reluctance to fiddle with Scripture, I think the use of a variety of synonyms in Psalm 119 is instructive and enlightening. Each synonym casts a little different light on the subject and adds to the overall understanding. If the psalmist used only “decrees” (“rules” in ESV; “ordinances” in NASB), for example, I might very well be tempted to think that the psalm is only about “dos and don’ts”, resulting in a very legalistic outlook. But if the psalmist used only “judgments”, I might simply conclude that God makes excellent decisions, without any real sense of the need for obedience on my part. The psalmist’s use of all the synonyms gives us a more complete understanding than any single word would on its own.
Now, all that said, let me be clear that I don’t think that Fred is in any way advocating fudging Scripture. At the same time, I think it can indeed be very instructive and helpful to plug any of the synonyms in for one or all of the others to see how that might affect our understanding. Try it! It’s a good exercise. I just don’t think that we could permanently make any such substitutions without losing something in the process.
I agree that it is more interesting reading for the writer to have used synonyms, but they also add shades of meaning to the poetry.
I looked up the differences in some of these words. For example, the difference between statutes, laws, ordinances, and decrees. The differences can be difficult to identify and are not very clear overall (and overlap on different websites). However, in general the “Law” is more indicative of a total system of governance. “Statutes” indicate laws enacted to further the keeping of the Law (state laws as opposed to federal laws, for example). Ordinances are locally enacted, but cannot conflict with state or federal law (so again they further the keeping of the overall Law). Decrees are oral pronouncements not necessarily written into law but nevertheless intended as rules to be obeyed.
And so on…
I had fun with this, but the above is not completely definitive.