Thinking about Psalm 22:26

 Lately I've been dipping into some different Bible translations, having grown a little dissatisfied with the ESV. One that I've been testing lately is the Christian Standard Bible. Sometimes I like its plain language very much, especially for the narrative passages, but not so much for the poetic passages.

Here's an example from Psalm 22 that has me wondering. Now this Psalm seems to foreshadow the crucifixion of Jesus, especially in verses 16-18 I suppose (Matthew 27:35 forces us to recall Psalm 22:18). Anyway, I have a little niggling gripe with the CSB's rendering of verse 26. Here the one who just moments before described himself surrounded by dogs and villains, his hands and feet pierced (!), then goes on to say that nevertheless he will praise the name of God "in the assembly." The Psalmist is confident that his fate will not be left in the hands of  his enemies, but that he will be rescued. That's when we come to verse 26:

The humble will eat and be satisfied [CSB]

First of all you see here how the Psalmist is connecting his own rescue with something much broader, perhaps the rescue of the whole people of God. Not just the man who was surrounded by dogs and villains, but all who "seek the Lord."

Now "humble" is a perfectly fine word and I have no grounds to suggest it is an inappropriate translation, but it's interesting to note how other translations have rendered the word:

• ASV, KJV -- "the meek"
• ESV -- "the afflicted"
• NET -- "the oppressed"
• NIV, NLT -- "the poor"
• CSB -- "the humble"

Now I realize that all these things have plenty of overlap. A Bible reader should take for granted that "the humble" isn't so much talking about a spiritual condition or a personality trait ("he's such a humble man") as a situation of need, a condition of helplessness. The humble ARE the poor, the afflicted, etc.

This puts us in mind of Matthew 5:5, famously rendered by the King James translators, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." This is meant to be a startling statement. We're supposed to think, "The meek? You gotta be kidding me! The meek don't ever get anything in this life! Meekness is for losers!"

The key here is that the meek, the humble, ARE in fact afflicted and oppressed. It is sort of the natural order of this world. This is why I like the NIV/NLT translation of 22:26, for its plain earthy directness:

The poor shall eat and be satisfied.

You see? This is supposed to be a startling, maybe even a shocking verse (much like Matthew 5:5). We all know that the poor only gets the scraps normally. But in this vision the Psalmist sees an alternative reality, one that is almost unimaginable. The poor shall eat and be stuffed! Shall eat and not want for more! 

And strangely, it all has something to do with a man whose feet and hands have been pierced, and yet who, surrounded by enemies, sings the praises of his God!

I think, therefore, that "the poor" is the right choice (as opposed to the humble or meek) because it makes clearer that we are speaking here not of a spiritual condition that we might think we should aspire to (humility) but of the people the world has despised, people who in fact are in a condition quite similar to the man surrounded by enemies, so hungry he can count all his bones, dogs snarling at his heals, punished for something he did not do. With this in mind, the afflicted, oppressed, and poor are all better choices, carry more weight, than "the humble."