Book of Common Prayer
40 (40:2)(For the one directing, Of Dovid. Mizmor) I waited patiently for Hashem; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2 (3) Hashem brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
3 (4) And He hath put a shir chadash in my mouth, even tehillah (hymn of praise) unto Eloheinu; many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Hashem.
4 (5) Ashrei is that man that maketh Hashem his trust, and looketh not to the proud ones, nor such as turn aside to lies (false g-ds).
5 (6) Many, O Hashem Elohai, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to us-ward; they cannot be recounted unto Thee; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
6 (7) Zevach and minchah Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou pierced [cf Psa 22:17]; olah (burnt offering) and chata’ah (sin offering) hast Thou not required.
7 (8) Then said I, Hinei, I come; in the megillat sefer it is written of me [cf MJ 10:5-7],
8 (9) I delight to do Thy will, O Elohai; yea, Thy torah is within my heart.
9 (10) I have preached tzedek in the kahal rav (great congregation); hinei, I have not restrained my lips, O Hashem, Thou knowest.
10 (11) I have not hid thy tzedek within my lev; I have declared Thy emunah (faithfulness) and Thy teshuah (salvation); I have not concealed Thy chesed and Thy emes from the kahal rav.
11 (12) Withhold not Thou thy rachamim from me, O Hashem; let Thy chesed and Thy emes continually preserve me.
12 (13) For innumerable evils have compassed me about; mine avonot (iniquities) have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head; therefore my lev faileth me.
13 (14) Be pleased, O Hashem, to deliver me; O Hashem, make haste to help me.
14 (15) Let them be ashamed and mutually confounded that seek after my nefesh to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.
15 (16) Let them be appalled because of their boshet (shame) that say unto me, Aha, aha.
16 (17) Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee; let such as love Thy teshuah say continually, Hashem be magnified.
17 (18) But I am poor and needy; yet Adonoi thinketh upon me; Thou art my ezer and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O Elohai.
54 (For the director. With stringed instruments. A maskil. For Dovid, when the Ziphim came and said to Sha’ul, Dovid is in hiding among us.) Hoshieini (save me), O Elohim, by Shimecha, and vindicate me by Thy gevurah (might, power).
2 (4) Hear my tefillah, O Elohim; give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 (5) For zarim (strangers) are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my nefesh; they have not set Elohim before them. Selah.
4 (6) Hinei, Elohim is mine Ozer (helper); Adonoi is with them that uphold my nefesh.
5 (7) He shall recompense the rah (evil) unto mine enemies; in Thy emes cut them off.
6 (8) I will sacrifice a nedavah (freewill offering) unto Thee; I will praise Shimecha, Hashem; for it is tov (good).
7 (9) For He hath delivered me out of all my tzoros; and mine eye hath looked in triumph upon mine oyevim (enemies.)
51 (For the one directing. Mizmor Dovid. When Natan HaNavi confronted him after he went into Bat- Sheva—2Sm. 11:2) Have mercy upon me, O Elohim, according to Thy chesed; according unto the multitude of Thy rachamim blot out my peysha’im (transgressions, rebellions).
2 (4) Wash me thoroughly from mine avon (iniquity), and cleanse me from my chattat (sin).
3 (5) For I acknowledge my peysha’im (transgressions, rebellions); and my chattat (sin) is ever before me.
4 (6) Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done the rah in Thy sight; that Thou mightest be found just when Thou speakest, and be blameless when Thou judgest.
5 (7) Surely, I was brought forth in avon; and in chet did immi conceive me [i.e., I was a sinner from conception].
6 (8) Surely Thou desirest emes in the inward parts; and in the inmost place Thou shalt make me to know chochmah.
7 (9) Purge me with ezov (hyssop), and I shall be tahor; wash me, and I shall be whiter than sheleg (snow).
8 (10) Make me to hear sasson and simchah; that the atzmot which Thou hast broken may rejoice.
9 (11) Hide Thy face from my chatta’im, and blot out all mine avonot.
10 (12) Create in me a lev tahor, O Elohim; and renew a ruach nekhon (steadfast spirit [i.e., regeneration Ezek 36:26; Yn 3:3,6]) within me.
11 (13) Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Ruach Hakodesh from me.
12 (14) Restore unto me the sasson of Thy salvation; and uphold me with a ruach nedivah (a willing spirit; see Jer 31:31-34).
13 (15) Then will I teach poshe’im (transgressors) Thy drakhim; and chatta’im (sinners) shall be converted [have a spiritual turnaround; see Isa 6:10] unto Thee.
14 (16) Save me from damim (bloodguiltiness), O Elohim, Thou Elohei Teshuati; and my leshon shall sing aloud of Thy tzedakah.
15 (17) Adonoi, open Thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Thy tehillah (praise).
16 (18) For Thou desirest not zevach (sacrifice); else would I give it; Thou delightest not in olah (burnt offering).
17 (19) The zivkhei Elohim are a ruach nishbarah (broken spirit); a broken and contrite lev, O Elohim, Thou wilt not despise.
18 (20) Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Tziyon; build Thou the chomot Yerushalayim.
19 (21) Then shalt Thou be pleased with zivkhei tzedek (true sacrifices, sacrifices of righteousness), with olah (burnt offering) and whole burnt offering; then shall they offer parim (bulls) upon Thine Mizbe’ach. [T.N. This Psalm, Ps 51, teaches the doctrine of Chet Kadmon from which comes the seminal corrupting human condition necessitating hitkhadshut for all fallen Bnei Adam]
5 O Ashur, the rod of Mine anger, in whose yad is the mateh of My wrath.
6 I will send him against a Goy Chanef, and against the people of My wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the plunder, and to tread them down like the chomer chutzot (mire of the streets).
7 But he intendeth not so, neither doth his mind so consider; but it is in his lev to make an end of Goyim not a few.
8 For he saith, Are not my sarim altogether melachim?
9 Is not Calno like Carkemish? Is not Chamat like Arpad? Is not Shomron like Damascus?
10 Just as my yad hath found the mamlechot haelil, whose pesilim (molten images) did excel them of Yerushalayim and of Shomron;
11 Shall I not, as I have done unto Shomron and her elilim, so do to Yerushalayim and her atzabim (images)?
12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when Adonoi hath performed His whole work upon Mt Tziyon and on Yerushalayim, I will punish the fruit of the proud lev of Melech Ashur, and the tiferet of his haughty eyes.
13 For he saith, By the ko’ach of my yad I have done it, and by my chochmah; for I have binah; and I have removed the boundaries of the nations, and have plundered their treasures, and like the mighty I have subdued those on thrones;
14 And my yad hath found like a ken (nest) the riches of the nations; and like one gathereth beitzim (eggs) that are left, have I gathered kol ha’aretz; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the beak, or peeped.
15 Shall the garzen (axe) boast itself against Him that cuts therewith? Or shall the masor (saw) magnify itself against Him that useth it? As if the shevet (rod) should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the matteh (staff) should lift up itself, as if it were not etz.
16 Therefore shall HaAdon Hashem Tzva’os send among his fat ones leanness; and instead of his kavod there will be kindled a burning like the blazing of eish.
17 And the Ohr Yisroel shall become an eish, and His Kadosh a flame; and shall burn and consume its thistles and its thorns in Yom Echad;
18 And shall consume the kavod of his forest and his fertile land, even to nefesh and basar; and shall be as a sick man wasting away.
19 And the remnant of the etz of his forest shall be few, that a na’ar could record them.
17 These men are mikva’ot without mayim and mists being driven by storms, for whom has been reserved the gloom of choshech (darkness).
18 Using high sounding words of hevel, they entice, with licentious ta’avot of the basar, the ones barely escaped from those living in toyus (error) and delusion.
19 They offer them the havtachah (promise) of cherut (freedom), but they themselves are avadim (slaves) of shachat (corruption), for whatever defeats a man also enslaves him.
20 For if, having escaped the tumot (defilements) of Olam Hazeh by da’as of Adoneinu and Moshieinu Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua, they are again entangled in these, then their last state is worse for them than their first.
21 For better it was for them not to have da’as of the Derech HaTzidkanut (the Way of Righteousness) than, having known it, to turn away from the mitzvah hakedosha handed down to them.
22 The word of the true mashal (proverb) has overtaken them: KECHELEV SHAV AL KE’O ("As a dog having returned to its own vomit"), and a "chazir (swine) is washed only to wallow in the mud" (MISHLE 26:11).
2 Now when Yochanan, in the beit hasohor (prison), heard of the maasei haMoshiach (works of Moshiach), he sent his talmidim to Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach.
3 They asked him, Tell us. Are you Hu Habah (He who comes) or is our chikiah (wait) to be for the Bias (Coming) of another?
4 And Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach answered them, saying, Go give the report of what you see and hear to Yochanan:
5 The ivrim (blind people) see, the pisechim (lame people) walk, the metzoraim (lepers) are cleansed, the chereshim (deaf people) hear, the mesim are made to stand up alive, and the aniyim (poor) have the Besuras HaGeulah preached to them. [Isa 35:5f; 61:1]
6 Ashrey (Happy) is the one who does not find a cause of michshol (falling, stumbling) in me [as Moshiach].
7 As they were leaving, he began to speak to the multitudes about Yochanan, What did you go out into the midbar (wilderness) to see? A reed being shaken by the wind?
8 What did you go out to see? Someone shtats (imposing, impressive) in appearance, attired in soft raiment? Hinei, the ones wearing soft raiment are in houses of melachim (kings).
9 But what did you go out to see? A Navi? Ken, I tell you. And one greater than a Navi.
10 This is he about whom it has been written, HINNENI SHOLEIACH MALACHI (Behold, I will send my messenger) before your face, UPINNAH DERECH LEFANAI (and he will prepare the way before me, [SHEMOT 23:20; MALACHI 3:1]).
11 Omein, I say to you, of those born of women, there has not appeared one greater than Yochanan of the tevilah of teshuva, yet the person with the least chashivut in the Malchut HaShomayim is greater than he.
12 From the days of Yochanan of the tevilah of teshuva until now, the Malchut HaShomayim has been under violent attack and the violent seize it with coercion.
13 For all the Neviim and the Torah prophesied until Yochanan.
14 And, if you are willing it to be mekabel (accept, receive), he is the “Eliyahu,” who is to come [MALACHI 3:23].
15 The one having ears, let him hear.
Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2011 by Artists for Israel International