These three verses, as rendered by the king’s translators, read: "1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: 2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; 3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence [2 Samuel 22:1 - 3].”
In writing of the LORD in the first- and third- persons, David’s poetic license itself leaves some degree of clarity desirable. After all, the original text was written right- to- left, in block letters without upper- and lower- cases, and devoid of punctuation and spaces between words: which, in- and- of- itself is confusing. In addition to this muddle, the LORD is, in David's “voice,” both “him” and “thou.” Perhaps this murkiness infected the translators’ diction and punctuation.
Either way, the following corrections to the translation seem prudent, if not altogether necessary:
Three words are added by the translators which serve no purpose to the text if not to obfuscate it. These three words are the italicized “that” in verse one and the (likewise italicized) “he is” in verse three. The text is cleaner and clearer without them.
Next, the punctuation should be adjusted so the passage reads sensibly. It's understandable perhaps that poetry doesn't have to follow conventional rules of punctuation; but, on the other hand, when punctuation comes as an imposition upon an extant text which may be properly punctuated, it seems a faux pas– at best– to slop the punctuation. Therefore– and because the text is supposedly “the word of God”-- it seems reasonable to expect full sentences, complete thoughts, and no run- ons in a translation which unabashedly editorializes to the extent the King James Version does.
The adjustments the translators' punctuation of the first three verses in Second Samuel chapter twenty- two cry out for are as follows: The semi- colon in verse two should be a colon, and verse two should end with a period after “rock.” Verse three should begin with “In him.” Also the commas in verse two are unnecessary, given that all of the items listed before the proposed colon (the translators' semi- colon) are separated by an “and.” Next, the colon in verse three should be after “refuge”; not after “trust”, where the translators put it; and all the commas in verse three should be removed, inasmuch as they were preceded by a colon, and one of them should be replaced by a semi- colon. Again, the twice- used “and” in the text of verse three separates two sets of things in the text. Also, there should be a period after “saviour,” in verse three, and the final five words in the passage should be their own sentence.
With the proposed corrections, the text of the first three verses of Second Samuel twenty- two read thusly: "1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: 2 And he said, The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer: the God of my rock. 3 In him will I trust my shield and the horn of my salvation; my high tower and my refuge: my saviour. Thou savest me from violence [2 Samuel 22:1 - 3]." This makes much more sense, to me.
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