The Psalter According to the Seventy of Saint David the Prophet and King

Several years ago I acquired a copy of The Psalter According to the Seventy of Saint David the Prophet and King, a lengthy title describing an English translation from the Greek Septuagint translation of the Psalter for liturgical use. Published in 2007, it was originally released in 1974 and is available in a newer edition also containing the Nine Odes familiar to Orthodox Christians.

The Septuagint was the first translation of what we call the Old Testament into a foreign language, in this case Greek. The Septuagint, often abbreviated to LXX, would have a massive influence among Jews in the Hellenistic world in the centuries before Christ and among Christians, beginning with the apostles themselves. When the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, virtually all such quotations are from the LXX, which sometimes varies from our extant Hebrew texts.

Tradition has it that 72 translators were summoned to Egypt to translate the Hebrew Bible. Here's one account of what happened:

It is commonly called the 'Septuagint' version (from the Latin for 'seventy') because according to the traditional account of its origin, preserved in the so-called Letter of Aristeas, it had seventy-two translators. This letter tells how King Ptolemy II commissioned the royal librarian, Demetrius of Phaleron, to collect by purchase or by copying all the books in the world. He wrote a letter to Eleazar, the high priest at Jerusalem, requesting six elders of each tribe, in total seventy-two men, of exemplary life and learned in the Torah, to translate it into Greek. On arrival at Alexandria, the translators were greeted by the king and given a sumptuous banquet. They were then closeted in a secluded house on the island of Pharos close to the seashore, where the celebrated 110 m. high lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, had just been finished.

According to the Letter of Aristeas, the translation, made under the direction of Demetrius, was completed in seventy-two days. When the Alexandrian Jewish community assembled to hear a reading of the new version, the translators and Demetrius received lavish praise, and a curse was pronounced on anyone who should alter the text by addition, transposition or omission. The work was then read to the king who, according to the Letter of Aristeas, marveled at the mind of the lawgiver. The translators were then sent back to Jerusalem, endowed with gifts for themselves and the high priest Eleazar.

Later generations embellished the story. Philo of Alexandria, writing in the first century AD, says that each of the seventy-two translators were shut in a separate cell, and miraculously all the texts were said to agree exactly with one another, thus proving that their version was directly inspired by God.

Indeed the Orthodox Churches regard the LXX as the canonical form of the Old Testament, prefering it even to the Hebrew and Aramaic originals. Thus it is not surprising that Orthodox Christians pray from the LXX version of the biblical Psalms. The most obvious difference between the Hebrew and LXX Psalms lies in the numbering, with most of the Psalms in Greek falling one number behind the Hebrew. Here is a table showing the differences:

Both systems of numbering add up to a total of 150 Psalms, but the LXX adds another, so-called supernumerary psalm, on whose canonical status the Orthodox appear to disagree.

The Orthodox divide the Psalter into 20 kathismata, or sittings, during each of which a portion of the Psalter is read and prayed. This volume shows the start of each kathisma at its appropriate place, as shown below:

 

Each kathisma is read during the regular canonical hours of prayer such that the entire Psalter is prayed each week.

I've not done an exhaustive comparison between this translation, done by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery (HTM) in Brookline, Massachusetts, and the recent NET. However, I noticed one oddity. The RSV renders Psalm 17:14b as follows: "may their children have more than enough; may they leave something over to their babes." The NET has it: "they were fed with their sons and left the remnants to their infants." The HTM inexplicably runs: "They have satisfied themselves with swine [!] and have left the remnants to their babes."

One difference between the Hebrew and LXX renderings is found in Psalm 131(130 LXX), each of which puts a quite different slant on its meaning. The RSV renders verse 2: "But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul," an expression of serene trust in God. However the HTM puts it thus: "If I were not humble-minded but exalted my soul, as one weaned from his mother, so wouldst Thou requite my soul," which adds an element of fearfulness absent in the Hebrew.

This is a beautiful and sturdy volume that is handsomely bound. Those using it may be put off by the attempt of the translators to replicate the Jacobean English of the Authorized Version, but given that English-speaking Orthodox Christians seem to prefer to worship in an archaic form of the language, this collection is undoubtedly appropriate for them. Other Christians will likely gravitate to other collections in more easily comprehensible language.