Psalm 144:2:
My strength. The Masoretic Text has ḥasdi, “my
kindness,” which seems unlikely. This translation reads instead, with many
scholars, ḥosni, “my strength.” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew
Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:326)
Psalm 144:4:
The human is like unto breath.
The Israeli scholar Gershon Brin has made the ingenious proposal that the
previous verse and this one allude punningly to the first three generations of
humankind: ʾadam (“the human,” or “Adam”), hevel (“breath,” or
“Abel”), and ben ʾenosh (“the son of man,” or “Enosh”). In a
pattern of intensification, this line moves from mere breath to something still
more insubstantial, a passing shadow. (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3
vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:326)
