1. grace and peace in Christ to all pious Christians. Around this Easter of the 1531st year, we have again gone over our German Psalterlein, and have improved it for the last time, thereby
we intend to let it remain henceforth. How the same Psalter will please the master Klüglinge is not our concern. But because perhaps some in our time, and even more,
*) On August 31, 1532, Veit Dietrich wrote to Justus Menius (Kolde, Analecta, p. 182): "Wittenberg brings
now nothing new other than the Summaries, which I hope will go out next Michaelmas, together with Christ's Sermon on the Mount, which Cruciger has copied [According to this, Aurifaber's information, Eisleben edition, vol. II, p. 145 would have to be corrected. See Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. VII, 346. note], and the corpse-.
**) This superscription is found in the German Wittenberg edition.
Good, pious hearts, who also know the languages and yet are untrained in interpreting, may be offended and annoyed that we have so freely departed from the letters in many places, sometimes also following a different understanding than that taught by the Jewish rabbis and grammarians, we hereby want to
We will show the causes and explain them with some examples, so that they may see how we have not interpreted in this way out of ignorance of the language, nor out of ignorance of the rabbis' glosses, but knowingly and willingly.
2. as, in the 58th Psalm we have interpreted the 10th verse thus: "Before your thorns become ripe-.
sermons that the doctor held at the prince's funeral. The first I have copied, the other, I hope, Cruziger will add." At the beginning of the year 1533, Justus Menius testifies in a letter to Luther his joy that the Summaries are completed (Kolde, Analecta, p. 183). On January 5, 1533, Melanchthon writes to Herzheimer (Oorp. ILol. II, 627), "I send you Luther's Summaries on the Psalms." In this letter he remarks: there is at present no commentary, no matter how great, that sheds more light on the Psalms than the Summaries (Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 252). That Luther had already dealt with the Summaries in 1531 is proven both by the first sentence of the preface to our writing: "We have around this Easter of the 1531st year" etc., as well as the last sentence of the postscript to the Psalter translation of 1531 (in this volume p. 1): "From this further, if God wills, in the Summaries." The first single edition, which appeared in Wittenberg with Hans Lufft under the title: "Summarien vber die Psalmen, Vnd Ursachen des dolmetschens. Mart. Luther. Witlemberg. 1531.", has on the title page the year 1531, but at the end the year 1533. To the year "1531" the German Wittenberg edition (1559), vol. XII, p. 376 makes the marginal note: For anno 1531. the dear Father in Christ D. Mar. Luth. began to write such a work, but in 1533. it went out of print." Only the smaller part of the Summaries Luther wrote down in the summer of the year 1532, the larger, as Veit Dietrich reports (Köstlin I. e.), in the four last days of November 1532. Mathesius (Luthers Leben, St. Louiser Ausg., p. 170), on the other hand, writes: "In the 32nd year also go out the Summaries about the Psalter, which beautiful and useful booklet the Doctor produced in four days, on which he wrote four Seiger hours of the day, two before the meal, two after the meal." These statements of Mathesius are supplemented and corrected by what has been said before. Spengler waited for the Summarien even on 20 Sept. 1531 (Köstlin 1. o., vol. II, p. 659 sä p. 252). - Walch places the Summaries according to the year on the title of the first edition in the year 1531; Luther, however, began the Summaries in 1531, continued to work on them in the summer of 1532 and completed them in the last days of November 1532. The printing of the same was then finished at New Year's Day 1533. - In the same year 1533, a second edition was published by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, which also has the year 1533 on the title page; likewise a reprint in Erfurt and a Low German edition under the title: "Lurnnaurien aver de Psalmen un de Orsake des verdütscbens. M. Luther. Witt. In his preface, Walch mentions another Lower Saxon edition, which was published by Hans Walther in Magdeburg in 1533. Furthermore, many editions appeared in which the Psalter and the Summaries are found: "Der Psalter mit den Summarien Doct. Martin Luther" (aum praolationidris Kmtlwri) came out without the
In 1537, an edition in Low German: "De nye putsche Psalter, mit den Summarien" at Wittenberg; likewise in Low Saxon at Magdeburg in 1541. Then: "Der verteutschte Psalter mit Summarien, Glossen und Vorrede Lutheri. Witt. 1538." Further by Georg Rhaw at Wittenberg 1541: "Der Deutsche Psalter Mit den Summarien. D. M. Luther." At the end is the year 1542. At the beginning is Luther's preface to the Psalter: "Es haben viel heiliger Väter" etc.; then the preface to the Summarien with the alteration "um diese Ostern des 1541. Jahres" (instead of 1531). Each psalm is preceded by its summarium; the glosses are in the margin. At the end, Luther's postscript: "Ob jemand klügeln wollte" etc., followed by a register of the psalms signed by M. Georg Rörer, in which it is indicated to which of the five parts indicated in the preface "Von den Summarien" each psalm belongs. Another edition was published in 1544 in Wittenberg by Hans Lufft: "Der Psalter Deudsch mit den Summarien. Auffs uew zugericht. D. Mart. Luther"; likewise in 1557 at Nuremberg by M. Joachim Heller: "Der Psalter mit den Summarien. There, Mart. Luth. Ein Register von vnterscheid der Psalmen." Finally, an edition at Leipzig "by Jacobum Verwalt, resident in the Nickelstraßen," without indication of the year, which has the title: "Psalter Deudsch, Mit den Summarien, D. Mar. Luth." The only Bible in which the Summaries were printed during Luther's lifetime is the Bible ordered by Bugenhagen and printed in Lübeck in 1534. After Luther's death, the Summaries were included in many Bibles. - In the course of 1533, Justus Jonas translated the Summaries into Latin and added a dedicatory inscription, which is dated Dec. I, 1533 (Erl. Ausg., vol. 37, p. 251). This translation was published in 1534 in Wittenberg by Johannes Weiß under the title: 8umirmria O. Illar. Outlwri in?8u1iuo8, Oaviüis 6 K6rma. lutiue reclüita per ^ustum 4onarn." In the collections our writing is found: in the Wittenberg (1559), vol. XII, p. 376; in the Altenburg, vol. VI, p. 133; in the Leipzig, vol. IV, p. 401 and in the Erlangen, vol. 37, p. 250. The Latin translation is in the Latin Wittenberg edition (1549), Dom. Ill, col. 398d. In it, the first part of the preface "Vom Dolmetschen" is missing. On the other hand, as already noted in the previous edition, Luther's preface to the Psalter has been added: "Nulti ex veteridus et sauetis putridus" ete. After the Summaries and Luther's postscript, there follows a postscript by Jonas, in which he says that Luther allowed him to express himself somewhat more expansively (prolixius) in the translation. Jonas made ample use of this permission; for example, the Summarium to the 109th Psalm, which in German consists of only a few lines, takes up an entire folio page in Jonas. The Latin Summaries in the Wittenberg edition are thirty folio verses thicker than the German ones. We give the text according to the Wittenberg edition, which reproduces the first printing, with comparison of the Erlangen.
The thorns on the bush will be snatched away by a wrath so fresh" etc.; know well that the Jewish rabbis read and interpret differently, and, make pots out of the word XXX; and fire out of the word "wrath", and shall have the opinion: Before your pots become aware of the thorns, and the flesh in them is still raw, the wrath (fire) will have burned them; that is, when the wicked rage, they are like the thorns that are put under pots, and are to cook the flesh (that is, the pious perish), they burn in themselves before such flesh is cooked.
(3) This opinion we leave well, and it is also ours, but we have given it thus: "Before the thorns ripen" or are to be respected "on the thorn bush, the wrath comes", that is, an axe or axe, and cuts into them, because they are still so green and fresh.
4 So the wicked with their raging are like young thorns on the bush, which grow up and threaten to prick; but a farmer comes in with a hatchet before they are hard and ripe to prick, and throws them down like a thunderstorm. For God lets the wicked rage, but they do not have to carry out their raging and raging; he sends them to perish before they carry it out, as happened to Saul, Absalom, Pharaoh and all the tyrants.
5. Psalm 68 in the 31st verse we have thus interpreted: "Those who have desire for money"; know well that the Nabbini here use the word "money" differently.
However, we are of the opinion of almost one thing, namely, that the Psalm asks God to rebuke and ward off the beast in the reed that has a lust for money, that is, runs and does everything against God's word for the sake of money.
But what such a beast is, he says himself: "the herd" or bunch "of oxen among the calves"; that is, they are the cowardly, rich herds of the great Hansen, who graze in the country, like the oxen, in good pasture, or large grass, and have many followers, as the oxen have many cows and calves next to them, which also graze with them. Such tyrants (and especially he means the priests of the Jewish people) fight and run against God's word only for the sake of money, because they worry that if God's word were to be fulfilled, their splendor and wealth would be destroyed.
(7) This is what we mean when we say: "Those who have a desire for money"; the Nabbini, that is, that runs with the trampling for the sake of money; that is, such a beast runs with the tyrants who trample the pious for the sake of money. 1)
8th Psalm 63 in the 6th verse, since we interpreted the words before: "Let my soul be filled as with lard and fat, that my mouth may boast with glad lips. Since no German understands this, we have left out the Hebrew words ("lard" and "fat", so that they mean joy; just as a healthy, fat animal is joyful, and again, a joyful animal becomes fat, a sad animal loses weight and becomes lean, and a lean animal is sad), and have clearly given German, thus: "That would be my heart's joy and delight, if I were to praise you with a joyful mouth."
9 For this is David's opinion, since he had to stay outside the city and flee from Saul, that he could not be at the service, nor hear the joyful word of God, which comforts all sorrowful hearts etc.
Psalm 6ö in the 9th verse, since we previously interpreted: "You make merry those who go out, both early and late", we have made it clearer: "You make merry those who weave, both in the morning and in the evening".
(10) That is, it is your gift that all animals, both men and cattle, rise early in the morning with good peace, and each one goes cheerfully to his food and to his work; then the birds sing, then the cattle bleat, servants and maids go to the field with a little song; likewise at evening they all come home again with singing and bleating. In sum, the psalm praises God for peace and good times, for where there is peace and good times, everything sings and is joyful, and mountains and valleys stand merrily. This is a great blessing and gift of God, who gives such joy. For in time of war, and other evil times, no one can give such joy, nor have it.
1) In the first edition is added here: Although my printers have left out this little piece, "Those who have a desire for money," in this last little Psalter, which we had made with special diligence and great disputation. So no diligence is sufficient in the printing shop.
(11) Whether in this, and such like things, we sometimes deviate from the grammarians and rabbis, let no one be surprised; for we have kept the rule: Where words may suffer and give a better understanding, we have not allowed ourselves to be forced to a lesser or different understanding by the grammatica made by the rabbis; just as all schoolmasters teach that not the meaning should serve and follow the words, but the words the meaning. So we also know, and St. Paul 2 Cor. 3, 15 teaches us, that Moses' face is hidden from the Jews, that they meet the opinion of the Scriptures, especially in the prophets, little and seldom; just as in this place they interpret "the joyful goers forth early and late" the sun that rises in the morning and the stars that rise in the evening; which understanding, though it may be good, has not pleased us here.
(12) But once in Psalm 68 we have dared much, and often given the meaning, and let the words go; therefore, of course, many clever ones will master us, and perhaps also some pious ones will be offended by it. But what is it that keeps words so stiff and strict without need, from which nothing can be understood? Whoever wants to speak German does not have to use the Hebrew words in a certain way, but must see that when he understands the Hebrew man, he grasps the meaning, and so think: Dear, how does the German man speak in such a case? If he now has the German words that serve for this, then he leaves the Hebrew words, and speaks out the meaning freely in the best German, if he can.
Here, in the 14th verse, we could have interpreted stiffly according to the Hebrew: "When you lie between the marks, the wings of the doves are covered with silver, and their wings with glittering gold" etc. But which German understands this? But since the next verse before it sings of kings who are warring and commanding the spoil to the housewife, this verse means that such kings have a fine, beautiful, well-equipped army in the field, which is to be seen from afar like a dove, whose feathers glisten white and red (as if they were silver and gold). These kings are the apostles, who now and then, in the world, through various
The beautiful gifts and miraculous deeds of the Holy Spirit, gloriously shining, were at war against the devil, and won many people over from the devil, whom they commanded the matron, the church, to govern and teach as a spoil.
(14) And in the 16th verse after that we might have interpreted with the rabbis thus: The mountain of God is a mountain of Bashan, or a fat mountain (as we have also interpreted it before); but it is said more finely and more clearly: "A fruitful mountain", that is, in Christianity, which is the mountain of God, much good always happens, and if the trees are fruitful, that is, the Christians do great works and miracles. For God's word does not go out empty, and a good tree brings forth good fruit. For in German we also call a good fertile land a fat land and a pit of lard, not that which is smeared with lard or dripping with fat.
(15) So that which follows, "a hill, a fat mountain," we have now rendered, "a great mountain. Since the opinion is that, as a great mountain is and is called, there are many hills, and always one above the other, up to the highest hill: so the church is put together, since always one saint and little group hangs on the other, and one group, or one Christian, is more gifted and does more than the other; as Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:4 ff. that there must be a difference of works, gifts and offices in the church. And 1 Cor. 15, 41: "One star always has a different clarity than the other."
But that the rabbis here quarrel about the word from it make some, humps on a back, some the eyelashes over the eyes, we let happen; we have it neither like nor want such words after German. Likewise, in the 16th verse, we would have liked the same word XXXXX to be German: What do you bounce bumpy or eyelash mountains? But who would have called that spoken German? But because the Psalm speaks of the world's power, wisdom and holiness, especially of the Jews, it punishes them for laying themselves against this mountain of God, defying that they are great, mighty and many, and wanting to defend their power, holiness and wisdom against the mountain of God, when God is not with them,
than they think, but dwells on this mountain, which they despise with pride, and call it the devil's mountain, and a vain heretic's mountain.
(17) Again, we have sometimes interpreted straight from the words, although we could have given it differently and more clearly, because there is something in the same words; as here, in the 19th verse: "Thou hast gone up on high, and hast caught the prison."
18 Here it would have been good German: Thou hast redeemed the captives; but it is too weak, and does not give the fine, rich sense which is in the Hebrew, saying, "Thou hast caught the prison," which not only signifies that Christ hath done away with the captives, but also that the prison is so led away and caught, that it can never catch us again, nor shall, and is so much as an eternal redemption.
In this way St. Paul feels like speaking when he says Gal. 2, 19: "I died to the law through the law. Item, Rom. 8, 3: "Christ condemned sin through sin." Item, Hos. 13, 14.: Death is put to death through Christ. These are the prisons which Christ has caught and put away, so that death can no longer hold us, sin can no longer guilt us, the law can no longer punish our conscience; as St. Paul teaches such rich, glorious, comforting doctrine everywhere. Therefore, in honor of such teaching, and for the comfort of our conscience, we must keep and accustom such words, and thus leave room for the Hebrew language, where it does it better than our German can do.
20 Thus we have Psalm 91, verses 5 and 6, written in Hebrew: "Lest thou be afraid of the terror of the night, of the arrows that fly by day, of the pestilence that creepeth in darkness, of the pestilence that wasteth in the midst of the day" etc.
(21) These four plagues or calamities, which a righteous man must suffer for God's sake, because they are spoken in obscurity and with hidden words, may be interpreted differently by one and not by another. Therefore, we have given each one his due according to the gifts of his spirit.
I) Wittenberg and Erlangen: am.
and measures to understand the same; otherwise we would probably have translated them so that our understanding might have been recognized.
(22) Namely, the first evil that the righteous must suffer is "fear of the night," that is, fretting, fretting, envying and harming; for God's word always arouses danger and enmity; such enmity he calls here "fear of the night.
The other evil is "arrows that fly by day," which is obviously blasphemy, contradiction, scolding, reviling, cursing, banishing, 2) as papal bulls, imperial edicts, princes and lords forbid, the sermons and books of the sophists, and the writings of the perverse do now.
(24) The third is "pestilence" or fever, "creeping in darkness"; these are the secret wiles, stratagems, plots, practices, alliances, so that the adversaries consult and unite among themselves in their chambers and corners, which no one should notice nor understand, how they want to suppress the word of God, and exterminate the righteous.
The fourth is "the pestilence" or 3) "the pestilence that destroys in the midday"; this is the manifest persecution, because they want to kill, drown, strangle, burn, chase away, rob etc. with the deed, so that they manifestly disturb the word, and ruin everything to the ground.
Such is my mind in this place, but I know well that St. Bernard has another, which I let be good, although it seems to me to be too much monasticism, and too little for the Christians or Christian church, which is contested more for the sake of word and faith than for the sake of life or work. Others may interpret it differently, but we let them be sure of their meaning. Our understanding is also good, where it is not supposed to be the best. For we see, and experience daily, that God's word is attacked with such four pieces. Therefore the Holy Spirit comforts our faith that it should not be afraid of this, even if it has to suffer it.
27. item, in the same psalm we have in the
2) Wittenberger: "condemn".
3) Thus the first edition; in the Wittenberg and in the Erlangen: the.
In the 9th verse, the pronoun mea is changed to tua, and "my" is changed to "thine," so that the verse is obscure when it is said, "For the Lord is my refuge," although the word "thine" is used throughout the psalm, and speaks to another, or of another; as also in the same verse: "The Most High is your refuge"; 1) and the common German man cannot well notice the sudden change of persons in speech.
(28) Therefore we have given it clearly and plainly, because one is not so accustomed to speak in this way in German as in Hebrew, where it often happens that one speaks now: "You" and "The"; if he speaks with the same person, as the Hebrews know well; we have done this several times more. Whether this may not please Master Klügling, who does not ask how a German should understand the text, but keeps the words stiff and exact, so that no one can understand him, does not matter to us; we have not taken anything away from the sense, and have given the words clearly.
29. item, Psalm 92, 15.: "When they become old in a moment, they will still blossom, be fruitful and fresh", we know well that [it] reads from word to word thus: They will still blossom in the gray hair, be fat and green. What is this saying? The Psalm had compared the righteous to trees, as palm trees and cedars, the same have no gray hair, are also not fat (which a German understands by lard, and thinks of a fat belly).
030 But the prophet saith, The righteous are such trees as flourish, and are fruitful and fresh, when they wax old, and must abide for ever. For God's word abides forever, which they learn. 2) Ps. 1, 3: "His leaves do not wither"; for they increase the longer, both in word and life. But all other trees decrease at last when they grow old, especially the rotten ones, so God has not planted them; as Christ Matth. 15, 13. says: "All plants, which my heavenly Father has not planted, must be uprooted."
1) Thus the first edition. In the Wittenberg, Erlangen and Walch (incorrectly): Zuversicht.
2) Erlanger: teach.
31 Item, Psalm 118 in the 27th verse we knew well that the Jewish rabbis read thus: Bind the paschal lamb with ropes, even to the horns of the altar; since we thus read, "Adorn the feast with may." They make the word (which actually means a feast or holiday) into a paschal lamb, by their own thurst; and even if it were invented elsewhere in this way, as they pretend, they may not prove it here. And where is it written that the Jews were to lead the paschal lamb to the altar with ropes, which each one had to roast at home in his house and eat with his servants? as they still do, even though they have no altar.
32 Because this is a Jewish misconception in the text, and we know that this psalm sings of Christ and His kingdom, and the words of this verse, by the nature of the language, give this meaning: Bind up the feast with may; we have made it clear thus: "Adorn the feast with may" (which is the spiritual feast of leaves, or feast of tabernacles, which was the model of the Jews' feast of leaves), "unto the horns of the altar."
33 By the altar he indicates that if it is to be a spiritual feast, it must be an altar. In the case of the Jews, there had to be no altar, but only in Jerusalem; and the opinion is that at the time of Christ, all festivals should be a daily feast, in which one preaches joyfully in the faith, and thus offers thanksgiving to God. That is, to adorn the feast with maybes up to the altar, to be joyful in word and faith, and thus to praise and glorify God in Christ, who is our altar.
34 Item, in the twelfth verse, when we thus say: "They dampen like a fire in thorns", the rabbis make it thus: They extinguish, or are dampened, like fire in thorns; and shall be the opinion: The wicked persecutors are like thorns under a pot, and flash and burn horribly, but before the flesh is cooked in the pot, the thorns are burned out, and go out, leaving the flesh raw; so the persecutors perish before the righteous clean them up. So the rabbis everywhere, where they can, draw the scripture on their pots and sacrifices, as those on
such sacrifice and work build their holiness the most.
35 But because it follows in the text: "In the name of the Lord I will smite them" (as the same words are in the two verses before), by which words it is signified how the wicked shall perish, we hold the sense given by our text to be expressed by this the great wrath of the adversaries against the righteous. Just as he compares them to the angry bees in the same verse, so also here to those who run and quench when a hedge or forest burns, which also the Hebrew Grammatica gives, where they do not mend their spots without cause. Even if the thorns are burned and extinguished, how does it rhyme with wanting to cut them down in the name of the Lord? Should the ashes be hewn? or should the wicked, who are no more, first be put to death?
And what is the need to give such an account of all words? We have truly spared neither diligence nor effort. Whoever can do it better is welcome to it; but I hope that he will not use our Psalter to translate the Psalter so that neither German nor Hebrew remains much in it. You will notice this when you find our Psalter compared to his, and his own art, or our words stolen.
(37) It is a disgraceful, disgruntled man, Master Klügling, if he can find a little word that we would have provided (for who would be so presumptuous that he, as if he were Christ and the Holy Spirit himself, would not have missed a word?), then he is master and lux mundi, whether he knows well that we would otherwise have well Germanized the whole Psalter, and he would not have found one verse in the whole Psal-
1) Erlanger: in.
ter could rightly translate; they are Schnudler and calumniatores, that's what they remain.
(38) And how is it that we alone are sought so carefully, when the old Psalter, St. Jerome, and many others, have, out of the measure, lacked much more than we, both in Greek and Latin? Or, can they be so patient and kind there, since they find much lack, why are they so poisonous and merciless here, since they find much good, which they have found nowhere else?
39 But it is the tiresome court life and the great envy of Master Klügling. Because he sees that he can do nothing good, he wants to hunt for honor with it and be a master, so that he can blaspheme and desecrate other people's good work. But time will bring it. What God plants will remain.
40 So they will no doubt also try their art in that, since we have praised the rule, that we have at times kept the words stiff, at times given the sense alone. Here they will first of all puzzle and quarrel, as I have not used such a rule rightly nor at the right time, although they never knew of such a rule before; but, as is their way, what they hear, they can do better than anyone.
41 However, if they were so highly and deeply learned and wanted to prove their art, I would like them to take the few and yet almost common words before them and give me good German on them. I will procure fifty guilders for the one who actually and certainly translates such a word for me through and through in writing. And let all masters and clever ones do all their art together, so that they may see how even interpreting is a much different art and work than blaming and mastering another interpreter. Whoever does not want to have our interpreting, let it be; with it I serve ours and those who like to have it.