Page:Rural Hours.djvu/66

Rh Two versions of the 137th Psalm have been given to the Christian world by the Church of England, and they differ in some minor points of the translations. That in the Psalter of the Prayer Book was one of the earliest works of the Reformation, taken from the Septuagint, in the time of Archbishop Cranmer. It does not name the tree on which the Israelites hung their harps. The translation in the Holy Bible, made later, from the original, approaches still nearer to the simple dignity of the Hebrew: The two translations of this noble Psalm, also differ slightly in their last verses. In the Prayer Book, these verses stand as follows: The translation of the Holy Bible, by closer adherence to the original, in a single phrase becomes more directly prophetic in character: “O, daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed (or wasted), happy shall he be that rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.}}