1 A song of ascents.
O come, bless the LORD,
all you servants of the LORD.
You who stand in the house of the LORD
throughout the nights.
2 Lift up your hands toward the sanctuary,
and bless the LORD.
3 May the LORD bless you from Zion,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
--NABRE
1 A Song of Ascents.
O come, bless the LORD,
all you servants of the LORD,
who stand by night in the courts
of the house of the LORD
2 Lift up your hands to the holy place,
and bless the LORD.
3 May the LORD bless you from Sion,
he who made both heaven and earth.
--Revised Grail Psalms
NABRE Notes:
[Psalm 134] A brief liturgy exhorting all those who serve in the Jerusalem Temple during the night (cf. Is 30:29) to praise God with words and gestures. Although he is the Creator of the whole universe, God’s blessings emanate in a unique way from Zion, the city of Jerusalem.
(This concludes our comparison between the NABRE and Revised Grail translations of the 'Songs of Ascents.' What are your overall thoughts? Stay tuned, I will begin another series of comparisons between the two in the coming weeks.)
6 comments:
I think the NABRE takes this one.
My total score is something like 11 Grail, 3 NABRE, 1 tied.
This one was close again, the NABRE won by one sentence. In verse 1 of the Grail Psalms, 'who stand by night in the courts' broke up the rhythm of the verse for me, but otherwise they were close.
So my count was: NABRE 8, Grail 6, Tie 1. This for me shows that the NABRE are much improved over the 1991 version and that I would be confident using either of these two versions of the Psalms in prayer or any liturgical type setting!
This one goes to the NABRE in my book. Leaving my final tally at: Grail 12 - NABRE 3.
Out of curiosity, I decided to see how the 63 Grail rendered it. And IMO thier version is the best of the three.
Psalm 134
O come, bless the Lord,
all you who serve the Lord,
who stand in the house of the Lord,
in the courts of the house of our God.
Lift up your hands to the holy place
and bless the Lord through the night.
May the Lord bless you from Zion,
he who made both heaven and earth.
Pax,
John
Another one where the two are almost identical. It would be a tie, but the use of "sanctuary" over "holy place" gives the nod to the NABRE.
My scorecard:
NABRE-8
Grail-5
tie-2
This is perhaps my favorite psalm to have in mind when walking into church before the start of worship.
"Bless the Lord" feels odd to me, almost out of place, especially compared to similar nearby psalms. I'm inclined to favor translations that render this as "Praise the Lord" in the first and second verses, and then verse 3 would make sense that the Lord would respond with a blessing.
Sanctuary implies a location in the temple, whereas holy place implies where God is. In context, sanctuary is probably the right choice, but holy place grants the psalm some universality.
I'm not a fan of either rendering of the third verse here.
Given only the two options of NABRE or Grail, I'd favor the NABRE.
Of course, if I had three options, my score would be something like KJV 15, NABRE 0, Grail 0, or, with more options, KJV 14, Orthodox Study Bible Psalms Translation 1.
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