The scripture reading in church on Sunday was from Psalm 24. Since the invention of the iPad made it so much more convenient to do so, I've been trying to read along in the original languages whenever possible.
I was really struck when I saw that in the midst of a psalm with many mentions of Yahweh in the third person, there is what most naturally seems to be a second person address to Jacob: מְבַקְשֵׁי פָנֶיךָ יַעֲקֹב
While most translations find some way to avoid this meaning, I wonder what most scholars think. Could it be that the patriarchs in ancient Israel's narratives were either worshiped in some sort of ancestral cult at some point in Israel's history, or alternatively, represent the turning of divine figures or demigods into something more mundane in the form in which we now encounter them?
Or is the Septuagint, which renders it “God of Jacob,” best understood as evidence that that phrase was what originally appeared here? Or is that best seen as a “correction” that attempts to improve the sense of what was and is a difficult text?
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