Greetings and welcome to Word Magazine. This is Jeff Riddle. I'm the pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Louisa, Virginia. And in this episode of Word Magazine, I'm going to be reading through and reviewing an article, an article that was written by Larry Brigden, who is a consultant for the Trinitarian Bible Society. And this article is titled The Supposed Missing Noon Verse in Psalm 145. This article appeared in the January-March 2013 issue of the Quarterly Record, a publication of the Trinitarian Bible Society, issue 602. And this addresses questions about modern texts and translation, changes that have been made to Psalm 145 and verse 13. as modern scholars and modern translators have suggested that there is a corruption, an error in the traditional Hebrew text, and it needs to be corrected by the addition of a half verse or a verse in Psalm 145. And I got started thinking about this. Well, I've used this as an example when I spoke at the Reformation Bible Society last summer, last August. on the New Testament use of the Septuagint and the whole theme of the conference was the Reformation text in the Septuagint. I gave this as one example of a place where modern scholars and modern translations are attempting to change or supposedly correct the traditional Hebrew Masoretic text. And of course I was arguing that was unwise. And this was one example of several that I gave that I think are unwise changes in some modern translations, departures from the traditional texts and traditional Protestant translation tradition. So let me go ahead and pull up this article. I was saying, I was thinking about it because of that. And also here recently, Of course, there was a lot of discussion about the English Standard Version, the 2025 updated text. And I was involved on X in several conversations. And there was one person that I saw who said, I'm glad that they're changing Psalm 145 and correcting it. And I thought, oh, wow, I bet he's probably making that statement without really knowing what the issues are. Because I think if you look at it closely, as Larry Brigden did in this article, I think you'll see that there are very strong arguments against any attempt to change the traditional text. Just to illustrate a little more before we start reading through the article, let me pull up a comparison here from Bible Gateway of this verse. So you can look in the King James Version based on the traditional text, It simply reads thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. But then when you look at the new international version, in addition to the parallel there, your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures through all generations. It adds without brackets. This is the disputed section. This is the extra half verse or the extra verse. The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. Now you notice there's a footnote and it says one manuscript of the Masoretic texts. There's just one Hebrew manuscript and it's a medieval manuscript. It doesn't come from the first century or the second century. It's from the medieval era. And then it mentions also the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Syriac, and then puts in parentheses here indicating, I think, secondary value, see also Septuagint. And then it adds, correctly, most manuscripts of the Masoretic text do not have the last two lines of verse 13. Again, only one medieval Hebrew manuscript has this. This is an example where they make the change based on the support of Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient translations like the Syriac and the Septuagint. And in the English Standard Version, again, has the parallel as in the authorized version. This is the traditional text. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations. And then it adds the disputed half verse, at least it's in brackets, indicating some questions of whether or not it's dubious, spurious or not. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. It's interesting, we see a little difference in translation philosophy. The ESV is a little more literal, faithful in all his words, whereas the NIV has a little bit more of a dynamic equivalent, trustworthy in all he promises. ESV, kind in all his works. NIV, faithful in all he does. So you can see a little of that. But it's interesting also in the notes, whereas they both acknowledge only one Hebrew manuscript, The NIV lists the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Syriac, and the Subtuagent is in parentheses, whereas the ESV mentions the Subtuagent as a primary issue or witness. Syriac, and it puts the Dead Sea Scrolls, seems to be on a secondary level. As we're going to see, one of the arguments against making any change is that these manuscripts that offer alternatives suggest an alternative. They don't agree with one another. And so it's going to be a big argument against the authenticity of this change. So let's go back to the article and we're going to get started. And as we're going to see, Psalm 145 is what is called an acrostic. It's an acrostic poem. And that's the issue with this line, the noon line, corresponding to the noon letter in the Hebrew alphabet. But Brigden will point this out. And so let's go ahead and get started reading through the article. And I'm just going to read it. I'll stop from time to time and make a few observations, offer some explanations, but we're just going to try to power through it because it's a good article. It stands on its own. and I would encourage you to read it. He starts, as many of our readers will know, several of the Psalms and other passages in the Old Testament are acrostics. That is, in the Hebrew, each verse or group of verses begins with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. If you've ever studied Hebrew before and you've read any of the poetic literature, you know that Hebrew poetry, unlike, say, English, doesn't rely on rhyming but it relies on parallelism. And so one of these devices is to have a poem where there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, where each line or a group of lines will begin with the same letter, and it'll go in consecutive order. Aleph corresponding to letter A is the first letter. Beit corresponding to B is the second letter. Gimel corresponding to C. And so they'll have a line with, It begins with the first letter, a line beginning with the second letter, a line beginning with the third letter, and consecutively on through the 22 letters. He continues, probably the most famous of these is Psalm 119, in which each of the first eight verses starts with Aleph, the second group, the second eight verses with Beit, and the third group with Gimel, and so on through the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119, you probably know, is also the longest of the Psalms. So there are 22 sections of eight verses. And in each section, each of those eight verses start with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet again, and it moves consecutively through the Hebrew alphabet. And it's an amazing Psalm 119. Its theme is the doctrine of scripture. And so it's a very effective poetic device. Psalm 145 is another such Psalm, but this one has a difference. In the Masoretic text, it appears to skip the letter noon, which would occur after verse 13, leaving the Psalm with only 21 verses. So if you look at Psalm 145 in the King James Version, you'll find there are 21 verses, and there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, but one, a line or a verse that begins with one of those letters is missing, and so there are only 21 verses. The lack of the noon verse has caused some to question whether the verse may have fallen out of the Masoretic text of the Psalm due to scribal error. And see, here is where the modern critical approach is making a hypothesis, and their hypothesis is Psalm 145 originally had 22 verses, and a scribe omitted one when he was writing out verse 13, that begins with mem. He skipped to verse 14, which begins with samech, and he omitted a verse that would begin with nun. And now what he is going to do is correct this corrupted text which hasn't been kept pure in all ages and now needs in the 21st century to be corrected. They seek to justify this view on the basis that the new universe is found in one medieval manuscript, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, and the Syriac. So they justify this decision based on the fact that there are one Hebrew manuscript meant for the medieval era, Dead Sea Scrolls, which are earlier than that, certainly second century, are for the first century BC, rather, or the second century BC. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the Syriac translation of the Old Testament. Again, I would just point out one of the things they leave out, though, is the consideration that there may have been ancient Jews and certainly Hellenistic Jews, who also were bothered by the fact that Psalm 145 was a broken, or as they saw it, incomplete acrostic. And so there were people very early on who tried to correct this psalm by adding a line to it. But the mainstream of ancient Jews rejected that as did the mainstream of ancient Christians who embraced the Masoretic texts, particularly in the Protestant era. They said this psalm is fine as it is. It was not written this way erroneously. It was not corrupted. The psalm with 21 verses and not 22 is what was originally intended by the author. And there were ancient people who tried to correct that inappropriately. It continues, indeed, some modern versions such as the ESV and the NIV add the supposed noon verse to Psalm 145 because of its presence in these witnesses. However, we believe that the omission of the noon verse is intentional and not at all due to scribal error and that the evidence for the proposed noon verse is insubstantial and the verse is rightly omitted. So Brigden's going to present the case for the traditional reading that it was intentionally written this way, it wasn't corrupted, and the evidence in support of trying to correct it is unsubstantial. And with respect to internal evidence, the external evidence is overwhelming in support of the traditional view. In terms of the internal evidence, that it makes sense for it to be omitted in the literary goal of the author. So he's going to begin with a survey of the acrostic Psalms. And I think this is a really interesting observation he starts with, which I think itself represents a defeater for the approach of modern textual criticism. So he starts off, other acrostic Psalms in the Hebrew Old Testament are Psalms 9 and 10. 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, and 119. The last three of these Psalms, 111, 112, and 119, are all complete and show no irregularities in the acrostic pattern. So they all follow the 22 Hebrew letters. They are full. They are complete. There are no omissions of letters. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is present, beginning a half-verse in the Hebrew in Psalms 111 and 112, and a set of eight verses each. We talked about this in Psalm 119. But it's the next point that's really important. The other acrostic Psalms, 9 and 10, 25, 34, 37, 145, all except 10 definitively ascribed to David, show irregularities in the acrostic pattern. And so the point he's making is that the idea of a broken or irregular acrostic is not unique to Psalm 145, but it is a regular pattern in canonical Psalms. Psalms 9 and 10, 25, 34, 37 are also like Psalm 145, irregular or broken acrostics. And he points out that all of these Psalms except for Psalm 10 are Davidic Psalms. They are attributed to David. And so this would mean it may well be an intentional pattern used by David in the creation of these Psalms. He points out Psalms 9 and 10 display the greatest degree of irregularity, omitting seven letters. Psalm 25 omits two letters, doubles up on another letter, and adds an extra letter at the end. Psalm 34 omits a letter and adds an extra letter at the end. And Psalm 37 omits a letter. So Psalm 37 would be like most like Psalm 145, just one letter missing. Hence, the irregularity in Psalm 145 is not at all unusual. As is evident, the psalmist in choosing the acrostic pattern does not necessarily bind himself absolutely to it but does at times vary from it. It's as though that the modern attempt as in the ESV and the NIV to correct this supposedly corrupted Psalm is going on the assumption that the psalmist, the author had an absolutist view of the use of the acrostic and would not have created an irregular or broken acrostic But as we've seen, that was a pattern in the canonical Psalms. It was an accepted motif in the canonical Psalms. He's going to talk a little bit more about Psalm 25 as an example of this. In Psalm 25, for example, there are two verses which begin with the Hebrew letter Resh. It should be borne in mind when reading this that Hebrew reads from right to left. Thus, the first letter of a word would appear to be the last English readers. And so he's pointing that out so that you, if you don't, not that familiar with Hebrew, by knowing the Hebrew letter Resh, you can see, uh, the duplication of the, of a word that begins with this letter in verses 18 and 19 of Psalm 25. So in verse 18, it says, look upon my deflection and it starts off, with the verb re'eh, look or consider. And then next in verse 19, it starts with the same word, also beginning with a resh, re'eh, look or consider. In verse 18, it's look upon mine affliction. In verse 19, consider mine enemies. Why did the psalmist double up on the use of the letter resh? and even the same word, re'eh, look, consider. It is natural to suppose that the earnestness of his entreaty to God regarding his affliction on the one hand, and the enemies on the other, who were no doubt in large part the cause of that affliction, impelled him to do so. Thus, the psalmist modifies the form when his purpose requires it. He has chosen the literary form of the acrostic, but he does not absolutely bind himself to it. When the need of his subject matter impels him, he freely modifies the form, and in fact, uses the variation in the set form for an intended effect. The psalmist pauses, so to speak, on the letter reish, and on the Hebrew word that best expresses his present afflicted condition, re'eh, look, consider. The subject matter impels a variation from the normal acrostic form, while that normal form itself gives the variation all the greater impact. So he's making the point in Psalm 25, at the point where the acrostic is broken in verses 18 and 19, it has a literary effect of pausing the poem and bringing attention to the repetition of this word, look, look, consider, consider. And so there's intentionality to it. It's not a corruption, not a scribal omission, but an intentional use, playing with, riffing off this acrostic pattern. And Brigden argues Psalm 145 does something similar. He says Psalm 145 shows the same deliberate variation from the normal form of the acrostic pattern for an intended purpose. The psalm is one of praise to God. The acrostic pattern is probably chosen to bring to bear the full resources of the Hebrew language upon this expression of praise. It is to be full or praise where every letter of the Hebrew alphabet evokes a Hebrew word, which strikes a new chord in that praise. So verse three, The leading letter is Gimel, and the psalmist thinks of Gedol, great, great is the Lord, great is Jehovah. Verse nine, it's the letter Tet, and the psalmist thinks of Tov, good, the Lord is good, and so on. When he comes to verse 13, the letter is Mem, and the psalmist thinks of the word for Kingdom which begins with a mem thy kingdom thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom This verse completes a distinct section of the psalm and is a climax point in the psalm the last part of psalm 145 begins at verse 14 and continues to the end of the psalm in which David praises the Lord for his condescending love so the point is that as in Psalm 25, when there was a pause between verses 18 and 19. In Psalm 145, there's an intentional pause between verses 13 and 14, and that's created by the omission of the noon. The psalmist had to decide how to begin this section, that is the second section beginning in verse 14. The next letter in the alphabet is noon. That word, What word would this evoke for the psalmist? And he suggests maybe the word nephal, which means fall or fail. But the Lord does not fall or fail. It is men who fall and fail. So what does the psalmist do? He makes a striking point by omitting the noon verse and then writing the next verse, the psalmic verse, as the Lord upholdeth all that fall. And you can see that the first letter here is one that begins with the Samech. And so it is the statement here that Jehovah upholds. And you also have he upholds all the fallen. And it uses that word base, root base, from Nafal. Every Hebrew reader of the psalm will notice something striking at this point. It is the psalmist himself who falls in the omission of, or fails rather, falls in the, no, he says falls, yes, in the omission of the noon verse. What more graphic way to highlight the frailty of men and the condescending love of God than by omitting the noon verse? And following with a verse that speaks of the Lord upholding all that fall, the structure of the psalm chimes, as it were, to the thought expressed by the words of the psalm. And that's a really interesting observation. The intentionality of taking out the noon, not having the word that the Lord, Jehovah, fails, but Jehovah upholds those who fall, and the alteration here in the acrostic draws attention to this new poetic emphasis. Thus, the omission of the new verse is deliberate and for an intended effect, an effect that relies on a slight variation from an otherwise closely followed acrostic form. The purpose of the variation or apparent irregularity from the normal acrostic form is not the same in all acrostic Psalms, but Psalms 25 and 145 plainly demonstrate that such variation is a deliberate literary device employed for a particular purpose. Clearly, if the psalmist chooses the acrostic pattern for a purpose, any variation from that pattern is also likely to be for a purpose. He goes on now, he's going to talk about the textual witnesses that give witness to the addition, the variation, and he's going to argue that these witnesses do not justify making any changes to the text. He continues, some, however, would argue that there is sufficient textual evidence for the inclusion of the supposed missing noon verse. First, he says, there is evidence of one medieval Hebrew manuscript. The noon verse appears in this manuscript as, and there you have it, it's translated as the Lord is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works. And so, There's evidence here of at least one Hebrew manuscript that attempted to alter or change this broken acrostic. And I see that for some reason my video has failed. I'm going to correct that. Again, sorry about that. Technical difficulties. And I'm just looking here, I just picked up my copy of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. And this line from that medieval manuscript is printed there in the apparatus. And the first word is ne'eman. Ne'eman. Faithful is the Lord. You can see in all. You can see the word for words. beginning from the root Devar and holy in all of his works. However, this verse does not appear where it might reasonably be expected in the body of the text, but rather at the bottom of the manuscript page, he's talking about in the apparatus as if it were a suggested correction of the text. Additionally, the proposed verse is similar in its first part and identical in its second part, to verse 17. And so he's saying, you know, somebody came along and tried to correct this and they invented this extra verse, but they also made it parallel in the second part of it to an existing verse in verse 17. Thus, the inclusion of the verse introduces a repetition into the psalm which otherwise does not contain any repetition. So if you go through the rest of Psalm 145, it does not repeat any lines, but this fabricated edition offers a repetition with the content of verse 17. So again, that wouldn't fit on the base of internal evidence for the remainder of Psalm 145. Secondly, he says there is evidence of the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls. The verse appears as follows, and you've got the same beginning as you did in the medieval Hebrew manuscript, where it starts with Ne'eman faithful, but instead of Jehovah, it's the word Elohim. And you also don't have it saying, in all his words, instead it says, in his ways. And you see the root there, Derek. And holy in all his works. There are a number of differences, Brigden continues to explain, between this verse in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the one found in the medieval Hebrew manuscript. So his point is, The one Hebrew medieval manuscript does not agree with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The name of God is different, being God, Elohim, rather than Lord. The Tetragrammaton rendered sometimes as Jehovah. This is significant since the name of God, which is used throughout the psalm in similar expressions, is Lord. So ordinarily, in Psalm 145, God is given the Tetragrammaton. and not Elohim, God. Great is the Lord. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. The Lord is good, indeed. In the very next verse, after the supposed missing noon verse, the reading is the Lord upholdeth. Other differences between the manuscript and the Dead Sea Scrolls reading are his ways in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as opposed to the Hebrew manuscript, his words, and the omission in the Dead Sea Scrolls of the word all, which the Hebrew manuscript includes. The rendering of the noon verse in the Stuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament dating from the second century, is, and here you see it, pistos, pereos, the Lord is faithful, intois, lagois, in his words, ihasios, in pasi, tois, ergois, altou, and holy in all his works. The Septuagint differs in the first part of the verse from the Hebrew manuscript, simply having his words rather than the Hebrews, all his words. In addition, the Septuagint has his words as opposed to the Dead Sea Scrolls, his ways. The Syriac translation of the noon verse has the Lord's faithful in his words and righteous, not holy, in all his works. There is a significant difference between this version and the Hebrew manuscript, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Subtuagint in the second part of the verse. The Syriac has righteous, whereas the other three witnesses have holy. As seen from this survey of the witnesses to the supposed missing noon verse, it is evident that there is no consistent testimony about the reading. but clear disagreement among themselves. This is commonly an indication that a verse is spurious. And I want you to think for a second, go back and read that note in the NIV and in the ESV. Do they tell you when they call forth these witnesses, the one Hebrew manuscript, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, the Syriac, that none of these witnesses agree with one another as to what this verse should read? And in these additions that are made by the NIV and the ESV, they generally are choosing one or a conglomeration of three or four to try to create this supposed missing verse. It's not consistently reproduced in these other sources. So let's go to the conclusion. It may therefore be concluded that there is positive evidence that the noon verse is intentionally omitted from Psalm 145. The inspired authors of the Old Testament used the Hebrew language with great skill, and they sometimes employed literary devices to enhance their message. Let me just think about, did the Mazarites feel like this was an error and so they had to correct it? No, they transmitted the text as it is, and so they recognized a skillful use of of acrostic poetry. It may also be concluded that the evidence for a supposed missing noon verse is very dubious. The witnesses to the verse do not agree among themselves, but give an inconsistent testimony to the wording of the verse. The proposed verse looks like an addition by a scribe who merely noticed a superficial deficiency in an acrostic psalm, but looked no further nor considered that the omission might be intentional. If the verse had indeed been dropped from the psalm, it is remarkable that more scribes did not attempt to discover the missing verse and restore it to the psalm, since the deficiency in the acrostic must have been obvious to all. So why are the witnesses of the verse so few and inconsistent? A reasonable explanation is that most scribes knew that the verse was never originally present, the noon verse. Despite the inconsistency of omitting the verse, they had sufficient reverence for the text not to boldly supply what they could not be certain was authentic. However, a less cautious scribe, supposing the verse to have dropped out, perhaps supplied his conjectured version of the missing verse in the margin of the manuscript on which he worked, which was picked up in a pair of ancient translations. This explains both the paucity of witnesses and the inconsistency of their testimony. And then Brighton makes one final point about an overall inconsistency in modern textual criticism. It may be asked why. If the evidence for the supposed missing noon verse is slight, the ESV and NIV and other modern versions should include the verse. Why? It's only in one extant Hebrew manuscript. He says, in the case of other verses, such as 1 John 5, 7, and 8, the modern versions readily exclude the verses on the basis of the supposed paucity of manuscript and early version evidence. The Coma Ionaeum is in 10 verses. It's in the Latin, extensively in the Latin translations, of the New Testament. And yet they say, no, we can't have the Koma Yonam. It has too little supporting evidence. But then the modern versions readily exclude, it continues, they readily exclude verses on the basis of the supposed apostate manuscript and early version evidence. Why then should there be a difference in the case of the supposed missing verses in Psalm 145? They're being inconsistent. A possible explanation is that the inclusion of the verse in the modern versions is simply an implicit aspersion of the complete reliability of the traditional Masoretic text. So he says, why do they do that? Maybe it's because they have an overarching agenda to downplay, degrade the reliability of the Masoretic text, which underlies the Old Testament of the Authorized King James Version and other Reformation era translations. Is there simply a spirit, an anti-authoritarian spirit that would want to overthrow the traditional texts and the traditional process of translations that are based upon it? Or it's just the spirit of modern textual criticism or modern academia that we always want to look for something new that's innovative, that's different. So I hope that this article, looking at this article, has been helpful. I hope you'll go back and read more closely Larry Brigden's work here, thoughtful work on this. And I think this just demonstrates that there's no need to abandon the traditional text of Psalm 145. It is a broken acrostic. Broken or irregular acrostics are normal for the canonical Psalms, and we can see intentionality in it, and we can also understand that witnesses to correct this were ones that were probably presented in a misguided effort to correct what they superficially saw simply as a broken acrostic without seeing the intentionality in how Psalm 145 was being written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the pediment under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So there's every reason to uphold the traditional text and to reject modern innovations at Psalm 145 verse 13. I hope that this episode has been helpful to those who are listening. I'll look forward to speaking to you in the next episode of Word magazine. Till then, take care and may the Lord richly bless you.