Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1159

212 166 Jahve, I hope for Thy salvation, And do Thy commandments. 167 My soul keepeth Thy testimonies, And I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep Thy precepts and Thy testimonies, For all my ways are before Thee. Thav (Tav). 169 Let my cry come up before Thee, Jahve; Give me understanding according to Thy word. 170 Let my supplication come up before Thee, Deliver me according to Thy promise. 171 My lips shall utter praise, That Thou dost teach me Thy statutes. 172 My tongue doth speak of Thy word, For all Thy commandments are righteousness. 173 Let Thy hand be a help unto me, For I have chosen Thy precepts. 174 I have longed for Thy salvation, Jahve, And Thy law is my delight. 175 Let my soul live and praise Thee, And let Thy judgments help me. 176 If I should go astray—as a lost sheep seek Thy servant, For I do not forget Thy commandments.

To the Hodu Ps 118, written in gnome-like, wreathed style, is appended the throughout gnomico-didactic Psalms 119, consisting of one hundred and seventy-six Masoretic verses, or regarded in relation to the strophe, distichs, which according to the twenty-two letters of the alphabet fall into twenty-two groups (called by the old expositors the ὀγδοάδες or octonarii of this Psalmus literatus s. alphabetites); for each group contains eight verses (distichs), each of which begins with the same consecutive letter (8 x 22 = 176). The Latin Psalters (as the Psalterium Veronense, and originally perhaps all the old Greek Psalters) have the name of the letter before each group; the Syriac has the signs of the letters; and in the Complutensian Bible, as also elsewhere, a new line begins with each group. The Talmud, B. Berachoth, says of this Psalm: “it consists of eight Alephs,” etc.; the Masora styles it אלפא ביתא רבא; the Midrash