Psalm 32/Notes/Textual.v. 4.671109

v. 4 – Due to the paucity of לָשָׁד in the Bible (appearing only here and Num 11:8), the majority of the ancient versions (see the LXX—cf. Vulgate, Origen's Quinta, CPA Psalms—Jerome's Iuxta Hebraeos, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion) understand the ל to be an independent preposition followed by the noun שֹׁד "destruction, wretchedness," and provide a first-person verb. This interpretation involves the common construction נהפך ל "to become" (see, e.g., Exod 7:15, 17, 20; Lev 13:16, 17; 1 Sam 10:16; Isa 34:9; 63:10; Jer 30:6; Joel 3:4; Job 30:21; 41:20; Lam 5:15). Nevertheless, in this case, the MT's qatal נֶהְפַּ֥ךְ would need to be revocalized to a participle נֶהְפָּךְ in order to accommodate the first-person verb (as indicated in the alternative diagram above). Further, as pointed out by Barthélemy (2005, 186), the difficulty to account for the suffix ִי on the MT's לְשַׁדִּ֑י is highly problematic for this reading (see, e.g., Jerome's attempt with versatus sum in miseria mea "I was transformed in my misery"), as is the questionable function of a predicative participle נֶהְפָּךְ following YHWH as the agent of the previous clause—minimally we would expect a personal pronoun "I" to accompany such a predicative participle. Targum Psalms retains the MT's syntax, whose difficulty is more lexical than grammatical (see the lexical notes for full discussion).