PSALM 5 HOW A TITLE INFLUENCES ONE’S TEMPORAL UNDERSTANDING: LOOKING BACKWARD or LOOKING FORWARD?
Is this Psalm all about Jesus, as He asserts, or is it about some other person or thing?
Title: For The End, on behalf of She Who Inherits,i a Psalm by David/the Beloved [Hebrew“David” translated = “The Beloved”].
The Septuagint superscription points towards a Messianic understanding. The feminine gender for “The One Inheriting” alludes to the Church, the Bride or Wife of Messiah. Does the text of the psalm support this hypothesis? The text of the psalm appears to portray the trials of Messiah Himself, especially in His final hours from Gethsemane to Golgotha.ii It could also be portraying the trials of the pilgrim church in this worldiii whether by persecutions and/or by seductions, as evidenced by:
1. The title: “…concerning her who is inheriting”; 2. the personal pronoun suffix “us” as found in the last verse of the LXX translation: “…You crowned us with the shield of Your goodwill.”
Remembering that Jesus said the Psalms are all about Him, we find His assertion easily substantiated by the title language, as follows:
1. “For the End” is looking forward to the ancient promise,iv still awaiting fulfillment when David lived, of the First Advent of Messiah, which constitutes the End or Consummationv of the Old Testament covenant, including the sub-administrations or dispensations, e.g., Adamic, Noahic, Patriarchal, Mosaic;
2. “She who inherits” has in view the bride of the promised Messiah, who is indeed the joint- heir with Jesus in the kingdom of God, corroborated multiple times in the New Testament. Who is this joint heir?vi She is the Church of Jesus Christ, from the first to the very last of the elect of God for whom Jesus accomplished redemption by His crucifixion. This was certified beyond a shadow of a doubt by His bodily resurrection from the dead on the third day, exactly as He predicted during His earthly ministry, exactly as Isaiah predicted approximately 750 years before the event: “after the suffering of His soul He shall be shown light…” Isaiah 53:11.
Taking seriously Jesus’ statement that the Psalms are all about Him,vii we then better understand that King David, just like the apostle Peter explained on Pentecost, was functioning as proxyviii for Messiah. That is, David was authorized by God to “stand in” for Messiah, just as Isaiah did, for example. These men served as channels for conveyance of prophetic revelation by the Holy Spirit, not only for the First Advent in the distant future, but also quite often for events that would be fulfilled temporally concurrent with or quite near the lifetime of David, Isaiah, et al.
Why Then Is the Title in the Masoretic Version of Psalm 2 So Different?
This question deserves the best, most honest answer of which this investigator is capable. As we answer, let us remember the following:
1. The written Hebrew originally consisted only of the consonants. Most of the Hebrew word roots, but not all, are of “tripartite” construction (3 consonants); 2. The vowel points were not in writing; they were orally transmitted within the cloister of the scribes and prophets. As a result, the average Israelite was unable to ascertain the meaning of Scripture even if he was literate. As evidenced by Nehemiah 8:8, after the return from the Babylonian exile in 536 B.C. ff, the common people still had to rely on “the sense” of Scripture given to them by the scribes. This is akin to being a “Wheel of Fortune” contestant struggling to puzzle out the meaning of letters on the board, since only Pat and Vanna know the correct missing letters; 3. The Septuagint, translated by Israelite scribes long before Jesus was born, captured in writing for the very first time in any language the sense of Scripture! If one could read Greek, the lingua francaix of the day, then one could understand what God was saying without being forced to trust a scribe who was functioning as a “middleman” between God and His people. The LXX in Jesus’ day was the Bible of the people, and was the primary Old Testament resource used by Jesus, His apostles, and other New Testament speakers and writers. What is the evidence for such a bold statement? A comparison utilizing the Greek text of both Testaments by this investigator disclosed that more than 95% of the quotations are verbatim from the Septuagint, including quotations made from Isaiah by Jesus Himself! 4. The Masoretes, descendants of those who denied that Jesus is Messiah, were commissioned by the rabbis in the second century A.D. to produce a Hebrew version of the Old Testament, complete with written vowel points, to invalidate the Septuagint’s role in the conversion and acceptance of Jesus as Messiah by hundreds of thousands of Jews by the end of the first century. Their version was not completed until approximately A.D. 1100. The written vowel points were not completed until approximately A.D. 700. Virtually every Old Testament Messianic passage in the Septuagint quoted in the New Testament by Jesus et al has been altered, rendering the passages non-Messianic, thus contradicting the New Testament citations. Of course, this discredits Jesus et al, making them appear at best to be incompetent scholars, or, at worst, intentional fraudsters. This gives aid and comfort to the enemies of Jesus who have betrayed the trust of millions of people over the centuries into perdition. This, of course, constitutes “another gospel” in the words of the apostle Paul, and is under the unmitigated curse and wrath of God.x 5. Specifically regarding the title of Psalm 5, the Masoretic version reads: “To the chief Musician upon Nehiloth, A Psalm of David” (King James Version). The New International Version follows in this path with slight modification: “For the director of music. For flutes. A psalm of David.” Here is how the altered title directs the reader away from a prophetic future Messianic orientation to a past 10th century B.C. temple liturgy orientation:
a. Change one vowel point to produce “chief Musician” (past temple liturgy orientation) instead of “for the End” (future orientation anticipating First Advent of Messiah concurrent with ending of Mosaic dispensation); b. Alter the three consonants constituting the tripartite root meaning for “inheritance” or “heir” (Nun/Cheth/Lamedh) by deleting the first consonant, Nun, leaving the second and third consonants Cheth and Lamedh alone. Another Lamedh is then placed after the original Lamedh so that a different tripartite root emerges: Cheth/Lamedh/Lamedh meaning “to wound/pierce,” from which is derived the word for “flute” (Chaleel). Matthew Henry more than 300 years ago in his comments at Psalm 5 expressed great skepticism that flutes were originally intended.xi Henry was well versed, by the way, in the Septuagint and was a first rate scholar in both Hebrew and Greek, including the classics as well as the Old and New Testaments. The King James translators more than 400 years ago, all highly educated Anglican clergy, must have also been quite skeptical, since they left the word Nehiloth untranslated. Henry comments that Nehiloth is not even a valid Hebrew word! The result is that the New Testament church of Jesus Christ, the joint heir with Him, is replaced by some very sketchy “flutes” or Nehiloth, which is self- evidently nonsensical.
Investigator conclusion regarding the psalm title: the LXX translator correctly derived the meaning from the Hebrew tri-lateral consonantal root N/CH/L, whose root means to inherit, while later Masorete translators [as late as A. D. 1100] chose the Hebrew tri-lateral consonantal root CH/L/L, whose root means to bore [as in boring holes, mp]. By linguistic manipulationxii the reader is directed away from a future messianic and church orientation towards a tenth century B.C. temple worship orientation despite Jesus Himself saying the Psalms are talking about Him!xiii Once the confusion has been cleared away, one can readily ascertain that the immediate speaker, David, is functioning as proxy for Messiah Jesus throughout the entire Psalm, speaking to the Father on behalf of both Himself and the elect of God, given to Him by the Father in eternity to be redeemed by Jesus in history in the crucifixion/death/resurrection event in A.D. 30 in Jerusalem. The angst expressed by the speaker in the Psalm finds fulfillment in the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ sufferings in body, soul, and spirit.
Last Verse of Psalm 5 Concerning “the Righteous”: Messiah and His People Considered as a Corporate Entity? Or, the People of Messiah Considered Apart from Him?
King James: “…with favor wilt thou compass him…” Septuagint [Brenton]: “thou hast compassed us…”
In English and in the Septuagint Greek, “him” and “us” are stand-alone personal pronouns. This is not so in Hebrew. Irrespective of whether it is “him” or “us,” what we have is a two consonant suffix attached to the Hebrew translated “will compass” or “compassed.” In our alphabet the two consonants are NU. What determines if we have “him” or “us” is the vowel placed underneath the last consonant of the basic word “compass/compassed.” If the vowel is tsere [two lateral dots {..}], it translates as “us,” as in the Septuagint. If the vowel is seghol [an inverted triangle consisting of two lateral dots and one lower dot between the two laterals to form the inverted triangle], it translates as “him” as in the King James. In Septuagint Greek, “him” = auton while “us” = hymas. While the difference of one little dot in Hebrew likely passes unnoticed by persons not steeped in that language, the difference is noted by the Septuagint translators. Thus they wrote hymas to intentionally convey the idea that Messiah is speaking for both Himself and His people as a unified entity. This comports well with the statement of the apostle Paul that we are joint heirs with Jesus. Paul also often states that the redeemed are “in Christ,”xiv and never speaks of the redeemed as apart from Christ. In fact Jesus, said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.”xv
To conclude: Psalm 5 is Messianic and includes both Messiah and His bride, the church, she who is the heir, “she who is inheriting,” laying the foundation for the multiple assertions to the same effect in the New Testament. This investigator concludes that the Masoretic version of Psalm 5 is a fraud, structured so as to reverse the original orientation away from the future advent of Messiah and His current heavenly session to the now defunct temple system and liturgy of the tenth century B. C. Or, to put it another way, the Masoretes orient the psalm to the ancient temple system which was intended to be a type of the future Messiah and His reign. The Septuagint is oriented to the antitype or fulfillment of the temple type, i.e., to Messiah. That includes this era of history all the way to the Second Advent and beyond, consummating in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
Other Old Testament writers agree The End is the passing away of the Mosaic Dispensation concurrently with the First Advent of Messiah. Immediate examples include Moses himself who predicted in Deuteronomy 18 that a Prophet like him would one day appear Whom Moses commanded Israel to heed.xvi The Israelites were seeking Messiah in the first century A.D., with some identifying Jesus of Nazareth as the Deuteronomy 18 Prophet.xvii Other Old Testament writers who similarly understood The End to include the first advent of Messiah concurrent with the passing away of the Mosaic dispensation include Daniel, Zechariah, and Malachi, among others.xviii
Rev. Marshall Pierson, Ph.D. Pilgrim Fellowship Bellefontaine, Ohio, U.S.A. 08/12/2021 i “The One Inheriting” is in the feminine gender, which points us towards the Church, the Bride of Christ. ii Matthew 26:36-39; Mark 14:34; Luke 22:41-44; Hebrews 5:7-8. iii John 15:18-16:3; Colossians 1:24; 1Peter 2:11-12; 20-21; 3:17; 4:12-19; Revelation 2:10, 13; 3:10. iv Cf. Genesis 3:15 for the first promise of Messiah immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve. vv Cf. the website article concerning vowel point changes for explanation how a change of merely one vowel shifts the title rendering from “for the Chief Musician” to “for the End/Consummation.” “For the Chief Musician points the reader to the 10 century B.C. temple worship system, while “for the End/Consummation” looks forward to the cessation of the Mosaic era concurrent with the First Advent of Messiah. vi Cf. Romans 8:17; Ephesians 1:22: “He has put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things for the sake of/benefit of the church.” Cf. William Symington, D.D., Messiah the Prince, p.266. Still Waters Revival Books, 1990 [1884]. vii Like 24:44. Cf. also John 5:39. viii Proxy: “1. The agency, function, or office of a deputy who acts as a substitute for another; 2a. authority or power to act for another…” [Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 688 [1963, G. & C. Merriam Co.] ix Lingua franca: “…2: any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among peoples of diverse speech. 3: something resembling a common language.” Op. cit., p. 492. x Galatians 1:6-12. xi Matthew Henry’s Commentary, vol. 3, “Job to Song of Solomon,” p. 207. Hendrickson Pubs., 1991. xii More politely referred to as “emendation” in academia. xiii Cf. Luke 24:44. xiv Cf. Ephesians 1:3, 6-7, 10, 22-23; 2:4-10, 13; 3:6, 17; Philippians 1:6; Colossians 1:2, 12-15. xv Cf. John 15:1-8. xvixvi Dt. 18:15. xvii John 1:21; Luke 2:25-35; Matthew 21:11;Acts 3:22; 7:37. xviii Daniel 12:1-4, 13; Zechariah 12:1-14:21; Malachi 3:1-5; 4:1-6.