Translating and Exegeting Hebrew Poetry: Illustrated with Psalm 70

Abstract

Biblical Hebrew (BH) poetry poses unique challenges to translators and exegetes because of its often complex textual development, its defamiliarized mode of communication, and its understudied relationship to its co-text. While a comprehensive analysis is welcomed for any discourse type, the unique challenges of BH poetry call for a holistic approach that marshals insights from the extra-linguistic setting, co-text, and multifaceted discourse features. The method of discourse analysis proposed by Wendland (1994) seems to provide a helpful framework for such investigation. Applying this approach to Psalm 70—a short, but incredibly multifaceted text—reveals the value of this sort of comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis. Additionally, following the application of Lambrecht’s (1994) theory of information structure (IS) to BH by Van der Merwe et al. (forthcoming), I propose that the Psalms may use parallel word order variation patterns beyond their IS purposes to create coherence relations at the discourse level.