Although my to-do list is very far from to-done, I just couldn’t wait any longer to join the Psalm 68 parade. Most of you will be interested in this topic have probably already been following the discussion on the other biblioblogs, but tracing at least some of the developments here will help me make my own way through the various strands of this unplanned online exegetical colloquium.

Suzanne started things off with a post focused mostly on the divine name יָהּ, well known to Rastafarians but familiar to most other Bible readers only through the word “hallelujah,” which reflects the Hebrew phrase הַלְלוּ יָהּ halləlû-Yāh, “y’all praise Yah.” Suzanne offered a few comments on the non-pronunciation of the divine name in Jewish tradition. Bob offers some statistics on the appearance of divine names in Ps 68. Since I’m only just working my way through the Ps 68 blogabout, I don’t know whether Suzanne or the others return to this theme much, but in my quick survey I didn’t see it jumping out at me.

Biblical proper nouns naming Israel’s (chief) national deity—mainly יה and יהוה, not so much אל—are always a problem for me, because I encounter them with contradictory impulses. On the one hand, I don’t want to be outright offensive to Jewish audiences, especially my students, by verbalizing God’s name(s). On the other hand, I’m not Jewish myself, and I don’t find verbalization of the name(s) theologically problematic. Quite the opposite, in fact; biblical characters seem to speak the name all the time with no evident worries about it, and I find it just plain awkward to talk to or about someone with using his or her name. Perhaps more importantly, from a translator’s perspective, I think that substituing titles for proper nouns obfuscates things for readers not cognizant of the substitutions, and readers who are cognization of the substitutions shouldn’t need printed clues to swap in the Qere perpetuum if they feel the need to do so. Also, I find it very difficult to talk about Israel’s (chief) national deity in relation to other ancient Near Eastern deities without using proper nouns all around. Talking about the contest for Israel’s affections between partisans of “the LORD” and partisans of “Ba‘al” is really quite awkward for me, especially since I know full well that “LORD” is a circumlocution for יהוה, while בעל actually translates to “lord”!

Okay, so that maybe didn’t have terribly much to do with the text of Psalm 68 after all. I trust you will forgive me as I play catch-up and lag weeks behind the others who are blogging this fascinating Psalm.