Biblica_1_Layout 1 20/01/12 11:44 Pagina 493 493 THE INTERPRETATION OF PS 144,14 III: Unity Preserved: Martial Orientation One method of maintaining a consistent theme within v. 14 and preserving the Masoretic parallel between wnytwcwxb and wnytbxrb is to convert the situation described in v. 14 from agricultural and mar- tial to entirely martial. Thus @wla could be understood as the well-at- tested noun, “chief”, and the entire expression as “our chiefs are loaded with booty” 51. (But here ~ylbsm, with its evidently unpleas- ant connotations, creates even more difficulties than it did when it modified oxen.) Alternatively, Ziegler restores WnypeWLa; to Wnypel'a]*, “our thousands”, from which he then distils the sense “districts” (“Gaue”, “Bezirke”) 52. Ziegler’s option requires another alteration as well, though not to the consonantal text: the Pual participle ~yliB'sum. is to be regarded as the noun lb,so, “burden”, to which the privative !mi is at- tached: ~yliB'Sumi*, “without burdens”. This combination then produces the translation, “Unsere Gaue ohne Lasten” 53. The modification of i'u ~ylBsm. to ~yliB'Sumi* is compatible with the previous proposal as well: “our chiefs are without burdens”. Against a strictly martial interpretation of the verse is the pres- ence of wnnwac, “our sheep”, in the previous colon; !ac becomes a factor because it sometimes partners with @la — of which @wla is a (putative) variation — to form a collocation occurring numerous 51 ZORELL, Psalterium, 355. Similarly Rashi, “The great princes among us are borne by those smaller than they”; W. E. Barnes, “When our princes … bear their burden of government”; A.F. KIRKPATRICK, “Our chieftains firmly established”; and S. R. Hirsch, “Unsere Führer meistbelastet”. A.J. ROSEN- BERG (trans.), Psalms (New York 2001) III, 534; BARNES, Psalms xlii-cl, 658; A.F. KIRKPATRICK, The Book of Psalms with Introduction and Notes (London 1901) 812; HIRSCH, Die Psalmen, 344, 344-345, n. 14. 52 ZIEGLER, “Ps 144”, 197. Ziegler follows Herkenne, E. A. Leslie, and A. B. Ehrlich in altering the text. Unlike Ziegler, however, these commentators do not interfere with ~ylbsm but take it as a reference to civilian employment for the militia, after the hostilities of war have ceased. Thus, there emerges Herkenne’s improbable “Unsere Mannschaften arbeiten”, Leslie’s “Our re- giments are peacefully occupied”, and Ehrlich’s “Unsere Landwehr ist frie- dlich beschäftig”. HERKENNE, Das Buch der Psalmen, 446; E.A. LESLIE, The Psalms. Translated and Interpreted in the Light of Hebrew Life and Worship (New York 1949) 431; EHRLICH, Die Psalmen, 382. 53 ZIEGLER, “Ps 144”, 197. His translation did prove appealing to F. VAN DER VELDEN, Psalm 109 und die Aussagen zur Feindschädigung in den Psal- men (SBB 37; Stuttgart 1997) 158.