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Psalms 120 through 134 each begin שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת (shir ha-ma’alot, ‘A song of ascents’). However Psalm 121 begins שִׁיר לַמַּעֲלוֹת (shir la-ma’alot, ‘A song to ascents’)—a troubling variant that should have alarm bells going off in the minds of the manuscript-oriented. Were this small prepositional variation correct, it would be quite interesting, but what a shame it’s probably nothing more than a scribal error.

The Hebrew text that reads ‘to ascents’ for the beginning of Psalm 121 is the Masoretic Text and its manuscript tradition, and it is the reading that has filtered down to us today. But the Septuagint (LXX Ps 120) reads Ὠδὴ τῶν ἀναβαθμῶν (ōdē tōn anabathmōn, ‘A song of ascents’)—the very same formula used to begin the entire sequence of Psalms 120 through 134 in the Septuagint (translating the Hebrew construct state by the Greek genitive), without altering it as the Masoretic Text does. The apparatus to the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, the best Hebrew edition of the Masoretic Text ever compiled, notes rather cryptically, Q nonn Mss ‘הַמּ ut 122,1 etc, which essentially translates into ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls and some other manuscripts of the Masoretic Text read ‘of ascents’, like Psalm 122 verse 1 and the rest’. But it doesn’t tell you which Dead Sea Scroll—you have to look in more specific reference sources, which will tell you that 11QPs^a, one of the scrolls discovered in the eleventh cave at Qumrān, in its Psalter, uses the reading ‘of ascents’, in keeping with the pattern of the surrounding psalms.

Much has been made of this one letter’s difference in traditional and modern commentaries and in Jewish homiletics. I will provide but two small but representative examples. The ArtScroll Siddur, commenting on this psalm, says (emphases original), ‘This song differs from all others in this series because it is not called שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת, a song of ascents; but is dedicated לַמַּעֲלוֹת, to the ascents. It describes the means whereby Israel finds the strength to attain godly heights and ascend to His glorious Presence.’ However, we must keep in mind that the ArtScroll series is written by Orthodox Jews for other Orthodox Jews (and for more subliminal conversionary purposes, but that’s a separate rant), so we might look in the ecumenical Jewish Study Bible, which contains the (usually excellent) translation of the Jewish Publication Society along with a (usually excellent) modern commentary, for a more informed and balanced view. Yet they also make this one letter sing and dance: ‘Uniquely, the opening is A song for ascents rather than “to ascents.” It is unclear why the psalmist is looking to the mountains; some have suggested that this is a polemic against deities on the mountains (see esp. Ezek. 18.6), or this expresses the pilgrim as he moves toward Jerusalem in the Judean hills; more likely “it is the custom of anyone in straits to lift his eyes to see if help will come to repel the enemy” (Ibn Ezra).’ Not a word about the manuscript tradition—this is surprising given that the commentary on Psalm 145, which has a whole verse that has been deleted by the manuscript tradition, gives a rather thorough exposition of the fact that a verse has been dropped but exists in other manuscripts (though it hastens to add that its presence there is ‘most likely secondarily’).

One might raise an objection to the reading ‘of ascents’, even though it is apparently indicated in the older sources (the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint both precede the Masoretic Text by a good millenium), on the grounds of the old paleographic canard lectio difficilior preferenda est, ‘the more difficult reading is to be preferred’. Since the variant reading ‘to the ascents’ is definitely stranger and more difficult, one might be tempted to consider it the correct reading—especially since it is a quite noticeable deviation from a well-established pattern. However, I would argue that the overriding pattern of Psalms 120 through 134 is powerful evidence for the ‘of ascents’ reading; the Bible simply doesn’t like to deviate from its patterns, as much as we want to make hay out of a single mistranscribed letter. A better explanation, in my opinion, is that the reading we have is unsatisfactory and has been transmitted to us through a flawed manuscript tradition.

Do traditional Jews just not care about the manuscript tradition? Certainly they don’t. But why not? Is it so hard to conceive of the fact that scribes wrote things out and made mistakes doing it? Psalm 145, to which I alluded earlier, is a perfect example: its dropped verse begins with the letter nun, which is subsequently conspicuously missing from the psalm’s alphabetic acrostic scheme. Traditional Jews have made much out of it, e.g. claiming that the nun verse was intentionally left out because nun refers to n’filah, ‘downfall’, alluding to the possibility of Israel’s downfall. Never mind that in other alphabetic acrostics, such as Psalm 34, or chapters 1 through 4 of the book of Lamentations (despite the probable transposition of two verses in that book), or Psalm 119, all contain the letter nun: this one time it is left out, it could not possibly have been due to a scribal error. Never mind that every other source—the Greek Septuagint, the Syriac Peshitta, the Dead Sea Scrolls—include the verse. It has to not exist in the text because a homiletical point can be made. I suspect something similar has happened with Psalm 121’s ‘A psalm to ascents’—but don’t expect Jews to start changing the text around any time soon.

Good shabbos.