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Book II

Book II is comprised of Psalms 42 through 72. Psalm 2 begins Book I by pointing out the intimate relationship between God and the Davidic king and Psalm 72 ends book II by reinforcing that point. But many of Book II’s psalms are personal laments that anticipate the national crisis which Psalm 89, at the end of Book III, laments. Psalm 51, for example, gives us David’s all too-human confession of sin after committing adultery and engineering his faithful servant Uriah’s death. In other words, these psalms reveal the flawed and broken nature of the Israelites and their Davidic kings that would eventually demand God’s discipline in the exile and Jerusalem’s fall.

Why Yahveh?

Every translator of the Psalms must decide how to handle God’s personal name, YHWH, which occurs repeatedly in its Hebrew text. Translators of the King James Version usually translated it “LORD” (all caps) and occasionally transliterated it (badly) as “Jehovah.” Modern translations, likewise, either translate or transliterate it. While translating it aims to make it more accessible to readers, transliterating it is more faithful to the text since it’s not a word at all, but rather God’s uniquely personal name. I’ve chosen to transliterate it to root it more firmly in the biblical story as the name—meaning the “self-existent One”—that God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. This name set Israel’s God apart from all the gods of Israel’s neighbors.

Personal names are, well, very personal. Even the sound of a name can evoke strong emotion. One problem with YHWH is that we aren’t sure how it was pronounced since Jews long ago stopped saying it in order better to hallow it. In transliterating it, I follow the advice of my esteemed Hebrew professor, Raymond Dillard. He advocated transliterating it as Yahveh—pronounced yah·vay—arguing that following the modern Hebrew pronunciation of its third consonant makes the name sound more robustly Jewish than Yahweh.
May these psalms be a light to you in dark times. You can read more of Mark Robert Anderson's writings on Christianity, culture, and inter-faith dialogue at Understanding Christianity Today.