Tafsīr Tehilim (Persian Translation of Psalms)

Unknown

1740

In your merciful, compassionate name.¹ In the Arabic language they say, “in the name of God, merciful and compassionate.”² And in the Persian tongue they say, “in the name of God, generous and compassionate.” Now with God’s help and deliverance, I will begin to write. The five books of Psalms—just as they were written in Isfahan for the great king, the qibla³ of the world, the king of kings, his highness—in the end I will illuminate and interpret them, and have rendered them according to and in the likeness of the Hebrew tongue in which they were written, and God is most wise.

This Is the First Book, Psalm 1

The First Group for the First Day of the Week

“Happy is the man”—Happiness is for that person who has not gone after the prudence of wicked, and not stood on the sinners’ path, and not sat in the place of jokers. But rather his wish should be in God’s Torah.⁴ And he should be busy with His Torah day and night. He can be likened to a tree that is set by streams of water, which gives its fruit at its time. And its leaves do not fall. And whatever fruit it bears reaches fullness. Not so are the wicked. Rather they are like the husk⁵ of straw that the wind takes it away. On just that account, the wicked will not be resurrected⁶ on the Day of Judgement,⁷ nor the sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For God knows the path of the righteous. And the path of the wicked will be lost.

Translated by

Samuel

Thrope

Notes

[Aramaic—Trans.]

[Arabic, but not a direct transliteration of the common formula Bi-ism Allah al-rahman al-rahim.—Trans.]

[I.e., the qa‘aba in Mecca, the direction of Muslim prayer. Alternative, more idiomatic translations might be “the orientation,” “the rock,” “the direction of all prayer.”—Trans.]

[Arabic, tawrat.—Trans.]

[Literally, “skin.”—Trans.]

[Literally, “arise.”—Trans.]

[Ruz-e jaza, a less common name for the Day of Judgment.—Trans.]

Credits

Author Unknown, “Tafsīr Tehilim (Persian Translation of Psalms) (Judeo-Persian)” (Manuscript, Isfahan, 1740). Published in: Tafsir tehilim bi-leshon Yehude Paras (Tafsīr of the Psalms in Jewish Persian), ed. Melamed Ezra Zion (Jerusalem: Yeshivat “Shaʻare raḥamim,” 1967 or 1968), 1–2.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

Among Jews, the Arabic term tafsīr indicates a translation of holy texts; Se‘adya Gaon’s Arabic translation of Hebrew Bible is known as the Tafsīr. The Judeo-Persian tafsīr tradition likely began with biblical books and was later extended to include other texts, most written by anonymous translators. Within this tradition, tafsīrs of Psalms were particularly popular. Some remain close to the source text, even utilizing the original Hebrew syntax without regard for Persian sentence structure, while others are paraphrases, and some even incorporate commentary. A critical edition of this tafsīr of the book of Psalms was published in the late twentieth century based on five surviving manuscripts, the earliest of which dates from 1796/7. The translation is not literal and does not mirror the biblical syntax. Moreover, in some places the translator incorporated commentary, drawing on the Aramaic Targum, midrashim, and the commentaries by Rashi and Abraham Ibn Ezra. Some scholars have suggested that this tafsir was written by one Bābā’i Nuri’el of Isfahan with the help of a Muslim scholar around the year 1740.

Details

Tafsīr Tehilim (Persian Translation of Psalms)

This Is the First Book, Psalm 1

The First Group for the First Day of the Week

Notes

Credits

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