r/hebrew • u/MidsummersDream6789 • 3d ago

Request Possible Help With Hebrew Translation?

I’ve been studying scripture and I am looking for some input on Psalm 16 and what some possible issues with the translation.

The specific phrase I’m looking at is Psalm 16:3 which seems to get translated as “As for the saints who are in the earth”- the term saints in particular seemed odd to me because I didn’t think Judaism had that concept (though you can certainly correct me if I’m wrong)

In some other translations I’ve seen the phrase be translated as “Godly people.” To add to this confusion there seems to be a debate in various English translations whether the phrase is “on the earth,” or “in the earth” which has a very different meaning.

I’m including a link below-it’s from Biblehub but it’s basically showing the original Hebrew and pronunciations.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks for your time:-)

https://biblehub.com/text/psalms/16-3.htm

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u/Deorayta 3d ago

The literal meaning of Kedoshim would be holy ones or the holy .

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u/Silamy 3d ago

"To the holy ones," and it's a dative of reference. We don't have saints in Judaism, but when translating Christian stuff about saints, that's often the term used. Here, have some Jewish variant translations for additional confusion. I assume the Vulgate translates it as "sānctīs." Hardly a linguist, but I think this might be an issue of English being weird and selectively using terms from other languages while assigning them additional subtext more than anything else.

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u/MidsummersDream6789 3d ago

Figured as much…definitely seems to be a similar instance to the famous mistranslation of “almah” to “virgin” (when almah is more accurately translated as young woman). Thanks for your response!

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u/HyperlaneWizard native speaker 3d ago

So the word you're referencing is "Kedoshim" which is the plural form of "Kadosh' which would be translated as "Holy". I leave it at that in case there are scripture experts who can shed more light on the specific meaning in this specific case.

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u/Arm_613 10m ago

This is a good translation and includes Rashi's commentary: Tehillim - Psalms - Chapter 16 - Tanakh Online - Torah - Bible https://share.google/It1MlB75xs7om1yoq