Log24

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Numbered

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:37 pm

This post was suggested by a detail, the number 777, on the cover of the
American edition of the novel discussed in yesterday morning's post Punctum.

Saturday May 3, 2008

m759 @ 11:07 PM

“Teach us to
 number our days.”

– Psalm 90, verse 12

The New Yorker,
issue dated Oct. 1, 2007 —

James Wood on Robert Alter’s
new translation of the Psalms
:

“At any time, God can cancel a life. ‘So teach us to number our days,’ as the King James Version has it, ‘that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.’….

The ancient Hebrew word for the shadowy underworld where the dead go, Sheol, was Christianized as ‘Hell,’ even though there is no such concept in the Hebrew Bible. Alter prefers the words ‘victory’ and ‘rescue’ as translations of yeshu’ah, and eschews the Christian version, which is the heavily loaded ‘salvation.’ And so on. Stripping his English of these artificial cleansers, Alter takes us back to the essence of the meaning. Suddenly, in a world without Heaven, Hell, the soul, and eternal salvation or redemption, the theological stakes seem more local and temporal: ‘So teach us to number our days.’”

Today’s numbers from the
Pennsylvania Lottery:

PA Lottery Saturday, May 3, 2008: Mid-day 510, Evening 724

which, being interpreted,
is 5/10 and 7/24.

Selah.

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