to which Rashi refers in Psa 45:10, but in his treatment of the Old Testament text shows himself to be unfettered by its established punctuation. His translation is the first scientific work on the Psalms in the synagogue. The translation of Jerome is five hundred years older, but only the translation of Luther has been able to stand side by side with it and that because he was the first to go back to the fountain head of the original text.
The task, which is assigned to the translator of the sacred Scriptures, was recognised by Luther as by no one before him, and he has discharged it as no one up to the present day since his time has done. What Cicero said of his translation of the two controversial speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines holds good also of Luther: Non converti ut interpres, sed ut orator, sententiis iisdem et earum formis tanquam figuris, verbis ad nostram consuetudinem aptis: in quibus non verbum pro verbo necesse habui reddere, sed genus omnium verborum vimque servavi; non enim ea me adnumerare lectori putavi oportere, sed tanquam adpendere - he has lived in thought and feeling in the original text in order not to reproduce it literally with a slavish adherence to its form, but to re-mould it into good and yet spiritually renewed German and at the same time to preserve its spirit free and true to its deepest meaning. This is especially the case with his translation of the Psalms, in which even Moses Mendelssohn has thought it to his advantage to follow him. To deny that here and there it is capable of improvement by a more correct understanding of the sense and in general by greater faithfulness to the original (without departing from the spirit of the German language), would indicate an ungrateful indifference to the advance which has been made in biblical interpretation - an advance not merely promised, but which we see actually achieved.
9. History of the Exposition of the Psalms
If we now take a glance over the history of the exposition of the Psalms, we shall see from it how late it was before the proper function of scientific exposition was recognised. We begin with the apostolic exposition. The Old Testament according to its very nature tends towards and centres in
