James M. Hamilton on Letting the Psalms Be Ancient

Interview with James M. Hamilton

Why do we need a fresh translation of the Psalms? 

I became convinced through my close and repeated reading of the Psalter in Hebrew that the reused words and phrases from one psalm to the next establish continuity in the whole book. The trouble is that this continuity is not always preserved in English translation. The same phrase might be rendered two different ways in successive psalms. I wanted to produce a translation that preserved these repetitions as much as possible so that readers could get a sense for the coherence and connectedness from one psalm to another.  

What inspired you to translate the Psalms for yourself?  

As I taught the psalms in class, trying to point out relationships between the psalms, I kept having to say things like, “even though different English words are used, the same words are in the original Hebrew.”  

So, when I got the opportunity to write on Psalms for Evangelical Biblical Theological Commentary series, I knew I would need a translation that rendered these repeated words and phrases consistently, and I knew I would have to produce it. I was eager to undertake the challenge, as it forced me to think through exegetical questions and possible meanings.   

We’re not short on Bible translations. Why a new translation, and what is distinct about your translation philosophy? 

As Mortimer Adler says in How to Read a Book, readers must “come to terms with” the authors whose work they read. That is to say, we have to be able to discern when an author is taking an ordinary word and using it in a technical way. I think there are words in the Psalter that resonate with earlier Scripture. The psalmists intentionally re-use key terms, and they do this on purpose. Some of these words slide right over us in English translation, but there are ways for translators to slow readers down to try to draw attention to these kinds of statements.  

 I would describe my translation philosophy as a quest to preserve formal equivalence, as much as possible, in the hopes of preserving all the biblical theological resonance the biblical authors themselves intended. I think the more paraphrastic a translation is, the harder it is to see resonance with other passages. The more literal the translation, the easier it is to see how earlier Scripture is being evoked. I’m trying to enable readers of this translation to see all the ways the psalmists engage earlier Scripture.  

Can you give us one familiar psalm that reads differently in your rendering and why it matters?  

Psalm 1 speaks of the blessed man who meditates on the Torah day and night. Psalm 2:1 is normally translated “Why do . . . the peoples plot in vain?” But the word “plot” here is the same Hebrew verb translated “meditate” in Psalm 1:2. I think translating that same Hebrew verb “meditate” in Psalm 1:2 and 2:1 preserves the intended contrast between the blessed man and his enemies. He meditates on Scripture, while they meditate on vanity.  

This sets us up to read Psalms 1 and 2 in light of one another, in keeping with the intentions of the psalmist. As the blessed man meditates on Torah, he sees things like God’s promises concerning the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15) and the future king from Judah’s line (Gen. 49:8–12). The enemies of God and his messiah (Ps. 2:2) are meditating on vanity (2:1) as they contemplate freeing themselves from the reign of God and Christ (2:3). Anyone who thinks he can “free himself” from God’s reign and rule is meditating on vanity.  

Reading the Psalms Unsoftened 

You make readers a striking promise: “I will not soften what the psalmists say.” What specifically did you refuse to soften, and why does the church need the Psalms unsoftened? 

The Psalms were composed in an ancient culture, and they are sophisticated poetry. I once heard a member of a translation committee say their translation aimed to put everything at a seventh grade reading level. If you are trying to make everything comprehensible to a seventh-grade reader of the English language, there are going to be all kinds of things that are softened.  

Sometimes translators and commentators will also explain that they have abandoned expressions like “son of man” in Psalm 8:4-5 because of their own egalitarian commitment to avoid excluding women. This is a softening that does not represent the concerns of the psalmist.   

The psalter is a demanding book, and it comes to us from an ancient and very foreign culture. I want this translation to preserve the masculine, brute force energy of the psalmists’ devotion to the one true and living God.  

How do you hope readers will use your translation alongside others? 

Readers of Hebrew can use this translation as a help and guide as they puzzle through the meaning of difficult Hebrew expressions. Because I am trying to be extremely literal, I translate words and phrases that other translations paraphrase. I do this because I think that the words and phrases that the psalmists actually use encode the way they see the world and think about it.  

People who don’t have Hebrew but who are studying the Psalms can use this translation to get closer to what the Hebrew says.  

Pastors and Bible teachers will hopefully use this translation as they think through various interpretive decisions they face, hopefully putting them in position to think through how they will preach and teach the Psalms.  

And naturally I want everyone to see the continuity of theme, message, setting, characters, and conflict from the consistent translation choices that preserve the interconnectedness of the individual psalms, because these are the features that make the collection a Psalter, a unified literary whole that is more than a mere anthology of disconnected poems.  

Letting the Psalms Sound Ancient 

You render the divine name as “Yahweh” rather than “LORD.” Walk us through that decision. What does a reader gain by seeing “Yahweh” on the page? 

God doesn’t say, “My name is the Lord.” “Lord” is a title, not a name. His name is Yahweh. There are so many places where it’s helpful to see the name.  

And having said that, we are so blessed to have a cultural familiarity with the Psalms. It is beautiful that God’s people know in their bones Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  

If you’re reading the Bible aloud to someone who is sick or dying, reading Psalm 23 to them can be powerfully comforting, and in many cases people will be brought to tears over the goodness of God’s word to them. In such a circumstance, when people know so well the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd,” I think it would not be a good move, pastorally speaking, to say “Yahweh is my shepherd.”  

What’s a common misconception about Bible translation that you resist? 

One of our cultural values is stylistic variation. We are taught, as we learn to write, not to repeat words. So we avoid using the same word in the same paragraph, or even in the same chapter. But this is a value from our culture that the psalmists do not share. They are happy to repeat themselves, and they do so deliberately, with intent, seeking to create continuity, signal structure, and communicate meaning.  

I think we should let the psalmists “sound like” ancient Israelites rather than trying to make them “sound like” one of us.  

Tell us something about you that only your friends or family would know. 

I hate canned peas. Mush. Yuck. 

James M. Hamilton’s book The Book of Psalms: A Transparent Translation for Daily Meditation is a fresh translation of the Psalms that lets the structure of the Psalter show through, allowing readers to encounter the psalms’ language and form in ways most English translations don’t permit. 

James M. Hamilton Jr., is professor of Old Testament interpretation and biblical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and senior pastor of Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of several books including a two-volume commentary on the Psalms in the Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary series.