As Simple as ABC

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Acrostics are alphabetical texts.
Bible scholars disagree on their purpose.
Consequently, translations differ.
Despite differences in emphasis,
Every translator acknowledges that
Form and meaning are connected.
Given the strictures of acrostics, however,
Holding on to both is impossible.
If the acrostic in a poem is
Just an ornament or aid to memory,
Keeping it intact is not necessary.
Leave it with the detritus of translation.
Meaning is what matters.
Nothing has been lost.
Or has it? Some critics say
Poetry is a unique wedding of form and meaning,
Quite different from artless prose.
Rather than being mere bangle,
Structure is meaning.
Translations must convey this unity.
Unable to mirror the original exactly,
Versions must choose which aspect to favor.
Whatever they do, though,
Xerography is not one of the choices.
You try: Is alpha to omega “A to O” or “A to Z”?

In the difficult work of translation, words are relatively easy. Style is hard. Especially troublesome is the problem of determining how form contributes to meaning. Hardest of all to translate is a text that consciously calls attention to its language. How, for example, should a translation into English treat biblical acrostics—poems built on the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet?

Elegant acrostics appear throughout the Hebrew Bible—in Psalms, Proverbs and Lamentations. Their alphabetical structure presents vexing problems for the translator: What is the function of the acrostic? If it contributes meaning, what does it contribute and how? If the translator retains the acrostic form, how should the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet be “translated” into the 26-letter English alphabet?

In biblical acrostics the successive letters of the alphabet may begin each half-verse, as in Psalms 111 and 112. More commonly, they head full verses, as in Psalms 25, 34 and 145, Lamentations 1 (see the sidebar to this article), 2 and 4, and Proverbs 31:10–31. In Psalm 37 successive letters usually begin every other verse. Lamentations 3 applies each letter to three verses in succession. Psalm 119 contains 22 eight-verse stanzas, each verse of a stanza beginning with the required letter: eight aleph verses, eight beth verses, and so on.¹

Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that chapter 51:13–30 of the apocryphal Book of Ben Sira was originally a Hebrew acrostic.² And Song of Songs 4:9–11, which begins in Hebrew with l-m-n respectively, may be part of a larger acrostic.³

Most biblical acrostics are carefully wrought poems, containing sophisticated poetic techniques. For 028example, parallelism, pervasive in all Hebrew poetry, occurs in acrostics as well:

Every day will I bless thee;
I will praise Thy name for ever and ever.

Psalm 145:2 (the beth verse)

She opens her mouth with wisdom;
On her tongue is the law of kindness.

Proverbs 31:26 (the pe verse)

Musical effects such as alliteration and assonance are common; even rhyme is found sporadically. In Psalm 37 every word in verse 35 (the first half of the resh stanza) contains the letter resh, as do the eight preceding words in verse 34. In the shin stanza (verses 37–38), seven of the eight metrical phrases contain a shin. In Psalm 111 the two parts of verse 1 each end with the vowel rhyme e-a; the three parts of verse 9 end –mo/-to/-mo.⁴

Self-consciously literate, acrostics lend themselves naturally to wordplay. The letter-names yod and kaph mean “hand.” In Proverbs 31:19–20 the yod and kaph verses begin with these letter-names as words: “Her hand she sets to the distaff…Her hand she extends to the poor…” In Psalm 145:14–15, the samekh line begins with the word somekh, “He supports (those who stumble),” and the ayin line with the word aynei, “The eyes (of all).” In this same psalm, each of the k-l-m verses extols the divine kingship using the root m-l-k, “king.”

Unlike other types of poetry, which can exist in nonliterate societies, acrostics presuppose an alphabet, a set alphabetical order, and a literate poet and audience. Because of this and the sophisticated wordplay just illustrated, some scholars have concluded that the biblical acrostics must be of late origin.⁵ But the evidence does not support this conclusion.

Despite their obvious differences, the alphabets that are used today for English, Hebrew, Greek and many other languages come from the same source. Not only can the names and shapes of letters be traced to a common ancestor but also such striking similarities in sequence as k-l-m-n and r-s-t. Archaeological evidence proves that the ancestor of this alphabetic order was already established in Ugarit, on the coast of Syria, by 1300 B.C.E. at the latest.⁶

In addition, complex acrostics based on names and phrases were popular in several Semitic literatures during that period. As Mitchell Dahood observes, “The acrostic pattern, commonly taken as a sign of lateness, appears in Pss. ix-x, which can scarcely be termed late poems, and the several Ugaritic tablets with the letters arranged in alphabetical order suggest that the acrostic pattern may have been used in the Late Bronze Age.”⁷

But what was the significance of an acrostic? What does the acrostic structure contribute to Lamentations 1–4, for example, or Proverbs 31:10–31 or Psalm 145?

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Not very much, according to some critics. Dahood suggests that the acrostic “provided a framework, like the sonnet, within which the poet could work.”⁸ And Wilfred G. Watson notes that the acrostic gave the poet “the first letters of at least 22 lines,” and while setting “a restriction on his free-ranging talent,” provided a stage for “virtuoso performances” of writing skill.⁹

Another popular view is that acrostics serve a mnemonic function. If, for example, the psalms were sung by choirs in procession or by choirs and pilgrims responsively, the alphabetical order would assist memory. Likewise, a work like Lamentations, which was used liturgically at a time when manuscripts were expensive and therefore not distributed to congregants, might well benefit from aids to memory.

Since deliberate variation would subvert the mnemonic purpose, this view implies that deviations from alphabetical order indicate textual corruption. Editors, therefore, frequently emend such deviations. But given our imperfect knowledge of biblical poetics as applied to acrostics, emendation risks the danger of replacing the poem’s originality with a theoretical, homogenized norm. What David Noel Freedman says about metrics is true for poetry in general: While errors in transmission certainly occurred, “deviations and irregularities are part of the larger pattern, and not aberrations to be corrected or emended away.”¹⁰ Moreover, a broad-brush explanation such as textual corruption does not clarify why similar deviations occur in Lamentations 2, 3 and 4, and in Psalms 25 and 34.

A more provocative answer brings the insights of literary criticism to biblical poetry. Robert Alter, for example, shows how seemingly ornamental elements like rhythm and parallelism can highlight contrasts and are therefore integral to the message in many psalms.¹¹ And while we should not expect a single “meaning” for each poetic technique, once a framework has been established, deviation from it also becomes potentially meaningful. For 031instance, while most biblical poetry has balanced lines, such as those divided into 3 + 3 beats, Lamentations regularly has a shorter second half-line. This has been recognized as a special “dirge” rhythm, as if replicating how choking emotion cuts off speech.

Nonetheless, instead of finding meaning in the acrostic form, many Bible commentaries dismiss acrostics as detractions from the true outpouring of emotion. Typical comments are “The sequence and substance of the thought are subordinated to the necessities of the formal structure”;¹² “Being acrostic in form, the psalm offers a sequence of sentiments whose logical connections are not always immediately evident”;¹³ “Such a method of composition was a literary fad, and it made for considerable artificiality in the psalmist’s achievement.”¹⁴

The introduction to Psalm 119 in the Interpreter’s Bible shows ambivalence. It calls the psalm “the greatest tour de force in the Psalter” because of the eightfold acrostic, but adds, “The highly artificial structure of the poem…necessarily restricted the literary achievement of the psalmist.”¹⁵

Such comments may reflect a taste for “Romantic” poetry—poetry emphasizing emotion and pretending to be spontaneous, poetry whose apparent lack of control is part of its meaning.

But there is also poetry whose structure emphasizes control, rationality and coolness. Sonnets and rhymed couplets are not spontaneous; they are meant for readers who appreciate how hard the poet had to work to stay within strict conventions.

The acrostics in Lamentations, for example, may help the poet master his emotions (see the sidebar to this article). Rather than screaming wildly about the destruction of his country, he gives shape to intense feeling.

Samuel R. Driver made the point well: “Exquisite as is the pathos which breathes in the poetry of these dirges, they are thus, it appears, constructed with conscious art: they are not the unstudied effusions of natural emotion, they are carefully elaborated poems, in which no aspect of the common grief is unremembered…And hence, no doubt, the acrostic form…secures the orderly and systematic expression of the emotions with which the poet’s heart is filled.”¹⁶

So, too, the ideal wife of Proverbs 31 is praised for her domestic organization and control. By covering her responsibilities from A to Z, she brings pride to her family. The alphabetic structure seems to reflect her completeness and is a sign that the subject has been covered from aleph to taw, from 046A to Z, from alpha to omega.¹⁷

Because the acrostic creates a framework that the audience is expected to recognize, deviations, too, may carry meaning. Several acrostics contain idiosyncracies: Psalms 25 and 34 lack verses beginning with the Hebrew letter waw and add an extra pe verse at the end. Psalm 25 also omits the qoph verse and duplicates resh. Psalm 37 leaves out the ayin verse; Psalm 145 lacks one for nun; Lamentations 2, 3 and 4 reverse the order of ayin and pe. Patrick Skehan has suggested that the extra pe at the end of Psalms 25 and 34 creates an elaborate wordplay within the acrostic. With this twenty-third letter, the first, middle and last letters of the alphabet now spell aleph, the name of the first letter and a verb meaning “teach.”¹⁸

Likewise, the rabbis of the Talmud explicated the variations in several acrostics. In Sanhedrin 104b the transposed ayin and pe verses in Lamentations are explained by reference to their names. As Hebrew words, ayin means “eye” and pe means “mouth.” The reversal of the letters is thus said to symbolize the behavior of certain evil people who put their mouths before their eyes, that is, they talk about what they have not seen to be true. Support for this interpretation is found in the verses themselves, which also put mouths before eyes, as in the pe verse of Lamentations 2: “Your enemies have opened their mouths wide against you…They say…‘We have seen it.’”¹⁹

Even though poetic form contributes to meaning, most English Bible translations simply ignore the acrostics or mention their existence in a footnote. But some do more. The Authorized Version labels each stanza of Psalm 119 with the relevant Hebrew letter and its name spelled out in English. The New Jewish Publication Society version places the Hebrew letter in the margin for all the acrostics. The Jerusalem Bible gives the names aleph, beth, etc., in the margins. Otherwise, however, the acrostic does not seem to figure in the meaning of the poems.

In what can only be called a tour de force, the translation of the Old Testament by Ronald Knox creates English acrostics for all the Hebrew acrostics—with added titles like “An Alphabet of Gratitude” (Psalm 145 [Knox’s 144]), “An Alphabet of Good Housewifery” (Proverbs 31), “An Alphabet of Jerusalem Bereaved” (Lamentations 1). The acrostic psalms are set as prose, however, rather than poems.²⁰

The flavor of the Knox translation can be sensed from the opening verses of Psalm 112 [his 111]:

A blessed man is he, who fears the Lord, bearing great love to his commandments. Children of his shall win renown in their country: do right, and thy sons shall find a blessing. Esteem dwells with such a man, and great prosperity; fame shall ever record his bounty.

These acrostics are especially striking because Knox’s mandate was to translate the Latin Vulgate—and the Vulgate ignores the acrostic form. Thus, even though Knox follows the Latin where it differs from the Hebrew, he looks to the Hebrew behind the Latin for the poetic structure.

Of course, because the English alphabet has four more letters than the Hebrew, accommodations had to be made. One psalm ends at the letter v; another skips v and ends with w; another skips q and ends at w; the acrostics in Lamentations end at v.

Also ending at v are the English acrostics for Lamentations in The Five Scrolls, a more recent work by Herbert N. Bronstein and Albert H. Friedlander.²¹ By highlighting the alphabet in bold type and setting out the text in poetic lines, this translation of Lamentations calls attention to the acrostic and thus gives a sense of the Hebrew structure, as in this excerpt from chapter 1:

Alas, how solitary does the city sit that was so full of people…
Bitterly does she weep at night, and her tears are on her cheeks…
Captivity is Judah’s fate because of affliction, and because of great servitude…

Ironically, however, if the 22 lines of a Hebrew acrostic show that the subject has been covered from aleph to taw, then these 22-line English translations, while adhering to the outer form, convey the wrong meaning. Instead of covering the topic from A to Z, they cover it from A to V or A to W.

But these omissions are not a problem if the acrostic form conveys a different meaning, as Bronstein and Friedlander believe: “The tightly organized acrostics…marshall the reality of anguish into lines of formal expression…Our translation maintains this, so that we ourselves can read these five elegies…as formal mourning texts.” In addition, they see the acrostic as a symbol of rebuilding: “After destruction there must be an opportunity to express anguish and pain…there must be the reassertion of the self, the rediscovery of hope.”²²

This may seem like a lot of meaning to derive from a poetic technique. But as David Noel Freedman has said about exegesis in general, “It is difficult if not impossible to draw the line between the conscious intention of the poet and what the attentive reader finds in a poem. On the whole, I think we have given insufficient credit to the poet for subtleties and intricacies in his artistic creation.”²³

Acrostics are alphabetical texts.Bible scholars disagree on their purpose.Consequently, translations differ.Despite differences in emphasis,Every translator acknowledges thatForm and meaning are connected.Given the strictures of acrostics, however,Holding on to both is impossible.If the acrostic in a poem isJust an ornament or aid to memory,Keeping it intact is not necessary.Leave it with the detritus of translation.Meaning is what matters.Nothing has been lost.Or has it? Some critics sayPoetry is a unique wedding of form and meaning,Quite different from artless prose.Rather than being mere bangle,Structure is meaning.Translations must convey this unity.Unable to mirror the original exactly,Versions must choose which aspect to favor.Whatever they […]