תהלים כ״ט | Psalms 29, a mizmor by David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

Contributor(s):

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the Masoretic Text and David ben Yishai (traditional attribution)

Shared on:

4 July 2022 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Tehilim Book 1 (Psalms 1–41), Ḳabbalat Shabbat

Tags:

interpretive translation, hymns of creation, מזמור Mizmor, devotional interpretation, Psalms 29

TOGGLE COLUMNS (on/off):

ADJUST COLUMN POSITIONS: select the column header cell and drag it where you want. show me!

COPY INDIVIDUAL COLUMN(S): use CopyTables, a browser extension.

TABLE HELP

Source (Hebrew)	Translation (English)
מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד	A David Song
הָבוּ לַיהֹוָה בְּנֵי אֵלִים הָבוּ לַיהֹוָה כָּבוֹד וָעֹז׃	Godly children! Offer up to YaH, assign to YaH grandeur and might
הָבוּ לַיהֹוָה כְּבוֹד שְׁמוֹ הִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לַיהֹוָה בְּהַדְרַת־קֹדֶשׁ׃	Render to YaH the honor due to His character; in devout reverence bow down before Him.
קוֹל יְהֹוָה עַל־הַמָּיִם אֵל־הַכָּבוֹד הִרְעִים יְהֹוָה עַל־מַיִם רַבִּים׃ קוֹל־יְהֹוָה בַּכֹּחַ קוֹל יְהֹוָה בֶּהָדָר׃	YaH’s thunder rolls over the sea, storming over the vast expanse of water; YaH’s sound is forceful, YaH’s sound is majestic.
קוֹל יְהֹוָה שֹׁבֵר אֲרָזִים וַיְשַׁבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶת־אַרְזֵי הַלְּבָנוֹן׃	YaH’s thunder shatters cedars, the very mighty Cedars of Lebanon.
וַיַּרְקִידֵם כְּמוֹ־עֵגֶל לְבָנוֹן וְשִׂרְיֹן כְּמוֹ בֶן־רְאֵמִים׃	They leap about like calves; Lebanon and Siryon cavort as if they were young lambs.
קוֹל־יְהֹוָה חֹצֵב לַהֲבוֹת אֵשׁ׃ קוֹל יְהֹוָה יָחִיל מִדְבָּר יָחִיל יְהֹוָה מִדְבַּר קָדֵשׁ׃ קוֹל יְהֹוָה יְחוֹלֵל אַיָּלוֹת וַיֶּחֱשֹׂף יְעָרוֹת וּבְהֵיכָלוֹ כֻּלּוֹ אֹמֵר כָּבוֹד׃	YaH’s thunder splits firebrands; YaH’s crash makes the deserts tremble, the very desert of Kadesh. YaH’s din makes the gazelles give birth, protects the forests— while in His Palace all adore and honor Him.
יְהֹוָה לַמַּבּוּל יָשָׁב וַיֵּשֶׁב יְהֹוָה מֶלֶךְ לְעוֹלָם׃	YaH turns back the deluge and presides over all creation.
יְהֹוָה עֹז לְעַמּוֹ יִתֵּן יְהֹוָה יְבָרֵךְ אֶת־עַמּוֹ בַשָּׁלוֹם׃	This same YaH empowers His people. This same YaH blesses His people with Peace.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s translation of Psalms 29 was first published in Psalms in a Translation for Praying (Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Philadelphia: 2014), p. 45.

Reb Zalman was, in 2009, an early advocate of the Open Siddur Project and generously shared his liturgical and prayer work with the project following his vision of a common “Database Davvenen.” I have set his translation opposite the Masoretic Hebrew text of the psalm according to the phrasing he provided. –Aharon Varady

. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike . 4.0 . International .

“תהלים כ״ט | Psalms 29, a mizmor by David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

Rabbi Dr. Zalman Meshullam Schachter-Shalomi, affectionately known as "Reb Zalman" (28 August 1924 – 3 July 2014) was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement. Born in Żółkiew, Poland (now Ukraine) and raised in Vienna, he was interned in detention camps under the Vichy Regime but managed to flee the Nazi advance, emigrating to the United States in 1941. He was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi in 1947 within the ḤaBaD Hasidic movement while under the leadership of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, and served ḤaBaD communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He subsequently earned an M.A. in psychology of religion at Boston University, and a doctorate from the Hebrew Union College. He was initially sent out to speak on college campuses by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, but in the early 1960s, after experimenting with "the sacramental value of lysergic acid", the main ingredient in LSD, leadership within ḤaBaD circles cut ties with him. He continued teaching the Torah of Ḥassidut until the end of his life to creative, free and open-minded Jewish thinkers with humility and kindness and established warm ecumenical ties as well. In September 2009, he became the first contributor of a siddur to the Open Siddur Project database of Jewish liturgy and related work. Reb Zalman supported the Open Siddur Project telling its founder, "this is what I've been looking forward to!" and sharing among many additional works of liturgy, an interview he had with Havurah magazine in the early to mid-1980s detailing his vision of "Database Davenen." The Open Siddur Project is proud to be realizing one of Reb Zalman's long held dreams.

the Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Karaite and Rabbinic Judaism. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the Masorah.

David ben Yishai (traditional attribution)

David ben Yishai was the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, reigning ca. 1010–970 BCE. While almost half of the Psalms are headed "l'David" and tradition identifies several with specific events in David’s life (e.g., Psalms № 3, 7, 18, 34, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 63 and 142), most scholars consider these headings to be late additions and that no psalm can be attributed to David with certainty. 1 Samuel 16:15-18 describes David as a skillful harp (lyre) player and "the sweet psalmist of Israel."

Pocket Pinterest Reddit 𝕏 Facebook Telegram WhatsApp SMS Email

Works of related interest:

Kunstformen der Natur (1904), plate/planche 49: Actiniae (Ernst Haeckel)

תהלים ח׳ | Psalms 8, a mizmor of David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

"Star trails, night, long exposure" (credit: n/a, license CC0)

תהלים י״ט | Psalms 19, a mizmor by David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

A Malmström: Kung Heimer och Aslög (August Malmström, 1856)

תהלים ג׳ | Psalms 3, a mizmor of David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

Synagoga Kupa - instrumenty muzyczne 04 (credit: Sławomir Pastuszka, license: CC BY-SA)

תהלים ד׳ | Psalms 4, a mizmor of David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

Le Roi David, huile sur toile par Domenico Zampieri (Domenichino). Musée national des musées de Versailles et de Trianon : Inventaire MV5359 (ca. 1620)

תהלים ה׳ | Psalms 5, a mizmor of David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

תהלים כ׳ | Psalms 20, a mizmor by David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

תהלים כ״ב | Psalms 22, a mizmor by David translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi

prev next

Comments, Corrections, and QueriesCancel reply

Stable Link: https://opensiddur.org/?p=45438

Associated Image:

“Trees, Landscape, Stormy, Storm (credit: JACLOU-DL, license: CC0)

(This image is set to automatically show as the "featured image" in shared links on social media.)

Source Data: XML | JSON

Re-formatted: HTML | ODT

Terms of Use: Be a mentsch (a conscientious, considerate person) and adhere to the following guidelines:

Properly attribute the work to Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the Masoretic Text and David ben Yishai (traditional attribution).
Clearly indicate the date you accessed the work and in what ways, if any, you modified it. (If you have adapted the work, let us know so that the contributor might consider endorsing your revision.)
Provide the stable link to this resource: <https://opensiddur.org/?p=45438>.
Indicate that the original work was shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license. (To redistribute or remix this work in any format, modified or unmodified, you must refer to the terms of the license under which the work is shared.)

Additional Notes:

The views expressed in this work represent the views of their creator(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Open Siddur Project's developers, its diverse community of contributors, patrons, or institutional partners.
We strongly advise against printing sacred texts and art containing divine names as these copies must be regarded with reverence, complicating their casual treatment and disposal.
If you must dispose of a printed sacred text (one containing Divine Names), please locate the closest genizah (often established by a synagogue) and contact its custodians for further instructions. We also recommend using Morah Yehudis Fishman's Prayer for Adding a Work to the Genizah.

Support this work: The Open Siddur Project is a volunteer-driven, non-profit, non-denominational, non-prescriptive, gratis & libre Open Access archive of contemplative praxes, liturgical readings, and Jewish prayer literature (historic and contemporary, familiar and obscure) composed in every era, region, and language Jews have ever prayed. Our goal is to provide a platform for sharing open-source resources, tools, and content for individuals and communities crafting their own prayerbook (siddur). Through this we hope to empower personal autonomy, preserve customs, and foster creativity in religious culture. If you like what you've found here, please help keep our project alive and online with your financial contribution.

ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17