"Spirit of your Holiness" in Psalm 51:13

Trinity Journal, Spring 1998 by Marlowe, W Creighton

IThe versification of Psalm 51 differs in the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text (hereafter MT) and English Bibles (hereafter EB). Throughout this paper the Hebrew versification will be given.

2G. Lewis, trans., St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit (Christian Classics Series; London: Religious Tract Society, n.d.) 52.

3Lewis, St. Basil the Great on the Holy Spirit, 52. 4A related issue that muddies the water is the question whether an OT believer could experience the temporary and occasional indwelling of the Holy Spirit, usually in relation to obedience or repentance (which most believe is impossible for a Christian, who is permanently indwelt).

5A mechanically literal rendering of the Hebrew 7np nan, which is open to several interpretations syntactically and a number of translations theoretically, especially out of context: Your holy Spirit, Your Holy Spirit, Your holy spirit, etc. "Your," capitalized or not, has to refer to God.

6The corresponding passage in the LXX is Ps 50:10-12. Cf. AV, ASV, RSV, NASB, NIV, NKJV.

7Cf. Appendix A for a chart displaying a historical overview of the translation of Ps 51:12-14 and Appendix B for a selective interpretational summary. Commentaries that include personal translations are listed in both charts. All translation involves some degree of interpretation, and the two cannot cleanly and neatly be separated; however, one can distinguish between Bible versions that give only a finished translation with little or no commentary, authors' personal translations provided in interpretive commentaries, and commentaries that provide exegesis and exposition of a Bible book or passages without giving a full, private translation of the texts involved. These latter often include a copy of some standard Bible version, upon which the commentary is based.

sCf. Appendices A and B. The use of upper-case letters in the non-English versions and commentary translations of Psalm 51 is not as much an issue as with the English renderings since often capital letters are not employed in the same manner as in English. The use of upper-cases is of interest, however, when these non-English versions and commentaries do use capitals in a manner similar to English and as observed in the English versions of these translations and interpretations of the original in languages such as Greek, Latin, French, and German. Neither the Septuagint nor the Vulgate capitalize "spirit" in any of these three verses. Cf. n. 45 below.

9Cf. A. Cohen, The Psalms (Soncino Books of the Bible Series; ed. A. Cohen; London: Soncino, 1945) 163.

lCf. W. O. E. Oesterley, The Psalms: Translated with Text-critical and Exegetical Notes (London: S.P.C.K., 1953) 273.

31Cf. M. Dahood, Psalms ll: 51-100 (AB; ed. W. F. Albright and D. N. Freedman; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968) 8; and p. 36 below.

12Cf. C. Westermann, The Living Psalms (reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989) 98; and p. 43 and n. 53 below.

l3Cf. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1969) 405.