Property: Notes
From Psalms: Layer by Layer
P
"even when they're old" +
"even when they're old" +
A (likely conventional) simile introducing a metaphor based on the same CM: enemies are chaff, the angel is to drive them away.
Driving them away on the wind is understood, because that’s how grain is winnowed." +
A common metaphor for a person or a nation to prosper, in this case, the king. HALOT prefers to view all such collocations as expressing metaphor instead of as lexical secondary senses. I should also note the resemblance of פרח ‘sprout’ to פָּרָה ‘blossom’. These are different verbs, but one can allude to the other. Moreover, there is heavy semantic overlap of the BH notion of sprouting and blossoming with the notion of joy (see Malul 2002:150 ftnt 98). +
All commentators acknowledge this to be a very difficult line. Ross translates, “Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns, both green and burning, they shall be whirled away.”
There is a possible allusion here to imaging the wicked as thorns. This is why I have cited this line. Prominence is set to 1, assuming the sense of ‘before their thorns ripen in bramble’ (Alter). +
Although v.7 only has the verb with attached pronouns, I’ve also included the mapped elements for the subject and object that are invoked by this metaphor +
Evening shadow brings out the ephemeral nature of the withering +
T
P
Is this really “prosperity” with children as one (key) component? +
Metaphorized simile, if this sense of וּ֝מִתְעָרֶ֗ה is accepted. It’s a difficult passage. +
Misleading English translation ‘in the house of YHWH’, tho. This suggests an olive tree in the structure of the Temple itself, whereas it’s really in the Temple precincts, the Temple gardens. +
Modern European translations disagree... +
My days are like an evening shadow. I wither away like grass. +
Never used elsewhere for tree in the Bible (אזרח). Assumed to mean native “tree” from רענן.
Native tree as opposed to transplanted tree (cf. Psalm 1)? Or wild tree vs cultivated tree? +
Note that this CM PEOPLE ARE PLANTS implicitly interacts with another CM, something like THE WIND IS IMPERMANENCE, which, in my humble view, is associated with THE WIND as a very common cultural model of impermanence. +
Note this verb is not lexically specific to the plant domain (usually for striking/killing people) +
S
P
Only other instance in Lam 4:21, “shamelessly exposing oneself” +
Opposite of flourishing +
Pair of images that express fleeting strength, waning hope. +