Robert Alter’s The Psalms

Last updated on: October 6, 2024 at 1:01 am by Ben Witherington

Robert Alter’s The Psalms 2024-10-04T15:23:00-04:00 Ben Witherington

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Robert Alter is a tour de force. He is emeritus professor who taught Hebrew and cognate literature at U.C. Berkley, but he had also taught American and European novels. Below is a brief interview with him after his translation of the Psalms had emerged. For me personally this translation is the most beautiful rendering of the Psalms ever, and the closest one can get in English to the original poetic nature of the Psalms. He is perfectly happy to render metaphors as metaphors, and to leave ambiguities (or multiple possible meanings–i.e. multivalency) in the text.

Alter’s Psalms was first published in 2009 by Norton and has long since been seen as a classic, as well as a provocation, by which I mean a rebuke to the assumption that the Hebrew metaphors and similes need to be dumbed down for the modern audience, or over-simplified. In other words, some translations insult the intelligence of the audience and forget that modern people too are immersed in metaphors. The. book is set up not just as a translation, but with textual notes as to why Alter made certain choices of words when various renderings were possible. And he is completely candid about how he could be wrong here and there, not least because we are not sure what some Hebrew terms really mean, not least some the musical instructions at the header of a psalm. There are 560 pages in the paperback edition I’ve been reading, and it pays to read through slowly and pay attention regularly to the notes. Some of the renderings are so beautiful and apt, you get caught up in the sheer poetry of the text. For example, consider the ending or benediction of the Psalm of Moses– Ps. 90—

Let your acts be seen by your servants

And your glory by their children

And may the sweetness of the Master our God be upon us

And the work of our hands firmly found for us,

and the work of our hands firmly found.

I’ve been working through his book slowly, reading a few psalms each night as my evening devotions, and I’m so glad I’ve done so. Robert Alter took his PhD at Harvard U. and his now 89 years old, and still going. I intend to read through his Genesis translation and commentary next. I highly recommend these to those who love the Bible and would like to hear it and see it in fresh ways. Here in the season of Rosh Hashanah, I can think of no better way to start the Jewish New Year.

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