Translation of the Psalms

I wish the Psalms were translated afresh; or, rather, that the present / version were revised. Scores of passages are utterly incoherent as they now / stand. If the primary visual images had been oftener preserved, the / connection and force of the sentences would have been better perceived.[1]

[Footnote 1: / Mr. Coleridge, like so many of the elder divines of the Christian church, / had an _affectionate_ reverence for the moral and evangelical portion of / the Book of Psalms. He told me that, after having studied every page of the / Bible with the deepest attention, he had found no other part of Scripture / come home so closely to his inmost yearnings and necessities. During many / of his latter years he used to read ten or twelve verses every evening, / ascertaining (for his knowledge of Hebrew was enough for that) the exact / visual image or first radical meaning of every noun substantive; and he / repeatedly expressed to me his surprise and pleasure at finding that in / nine cases out of ten the bare primary sense, if literally rendered, threw / great additional light on the text. He was not disposed to allow the / prophetic or allusive character so largely as is done by Horne and others; / but he acknowledged it in some instances in the fullest manner. In / particular, he rejected the local and temporary reference which has been / given to the 110th Psalm, and declared his belief in its deep mystical / import with regard to the Messiah. Mr. C. once gave me the following note / upon the _22d_ Psalm written by him, I believe, many years previously, but / which, he said, he approved at that time. It will find as appropriate a / niche here as any where else: -- / "I am much delighted and instructed by the hypothesis, which I think / probable, that our Lord in repeating _Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani_, really / recited the whole or a large part of the 22d Psalm. It is impossible to / read that psalm without the liveliest feelings of love, gratitude, and / sympathy. It is, indeed, a wonderful prophecy, whatever might or might not / have been David's notion when he composed it. Whether Christ did audibly / repeat the whole or not, it is certain. I think, that he did it mentally, / and said aloud what was sufficient to enable his followers to do the same. / Even at this day to repeat in the same manner but the first line of a / common hymn would be understood as a reference to the whole. Above all, I / am thankful for the thought which suggested itself to my mind, whilst I was / reading this beautiful psalm, namely, that we should not exclusively think / of Christ as the Logos united to human nature, but likewise as a perfect / man united to the Logos. This distinction is most important in order to / conceive, much more, appropriately to _feel_, the conduct and exertions of / Jesus. " -- ED.]