PSALM 151
LXX	NETS	NRSV
1 οὗτος ὁ ψαλμὸς ἰδιόγραφος εἰς Δαυιδ καὶ ἔξωθεν τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ ὅτε ἐμονομάχησεν τῷ Γολιαδ μικρὸς ἤμην ἐν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς μου καὶ νεώτερος ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ τοῦ πατρός μου ἐποίμαινον τὰ πρόβατα τοῦ πατρός μου 2 αἱ χεῖρές μου ἐποίησαν ὄργανον οἱ δάκτυλοί μου ἥρμοσαν ψαλτήριον 3 καὶ τίς ἀναγγελεῖ τῷ κυρίῳ μου αὐτὸς κύριος αὐτὸς εἰσακούει 4 αὐτὸς ἐξαπέστειλεν τὸν ἄγγελον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἦρέν με ἐκ τῶν προβάτων τοῦ πατρός μου καὶ ἔχρισέν με ἐν τῷ ἐλαίῳ τῆς χρίσεως αὐτοῦ 5 οἱ ἀδελφοί μου καλοὶ καὶ μεγάλοι καὶ οὐκ εὐδόκησεν ἐν αὐτοῖς κύριος 6 ἐξῆλθον εἰς συνάντησιν τῷ ἀλλοφύλῳ καὶ ἐπικατηράσατό με ἐν τοῖς εἰδώλοις αὐτοῦ 7 ἐγὼ δὲ σπασάμενος τὴν παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ μάχαιραν ἀπεκεφάλισα αὐτὸν καὶ ἦρα ὄνειδος ἐξ υἱῶν Ισραηλ	1 This Psalm is autographical. Regarding Dauid and outside the number. I was small among my brothers and the youngest in the house of my father; I would shepherd the sheep of my father. 2 My hands made an instrument; my fingers tuned a harp. 3 And who will report to my lord? The Lord himself, it is he who listens. 4 It was he who sent his messengerd and took me from the sheep of my father and anointed me with the oil of his anointing. 5 My brothers were handsome and tall, and the Lord did not take delight in them. 6 I went out to meet the allophyle, and he cursed me by his idols. 7 But I, having drawn the dagger from him, I beheaded him and removed reproach from Israel’s sons.	1 I was small among my brothers, and the youngest in my father’s house; I tended my father’s sheep. 2 My hands made a harp; my fingers fashioned a lyre. 3 And who will tell my Lord? The Lord himself; it is he who hears. 4 It was he who sent his messenger and took me from my father’s sheep, and anointed me with his anointing oil. 5 My brothers were handsome and tall, but the Lord was not pleased with them. 6 I went out to meet the Philistine, and he cursed me by his idols. 7 But I drew his own sword; I beheaded him, and took away disgrace from the people of Israel.

Our Bible study at church last Sunday came from 2 Samuel 5-7. The curriculum we use drew upon a theme, “When Assessing One’s Work.” With that theme in mind, and because the chief figure in 2 Samuel is David, I thought that I might introduce my Bible study class to Psalm 151. As I suspected almost everyone in my class was unfamiliar with this Psalm as it is not accepted by Jews, Protestants or Catholics, but is considered canon by the Orthodox Church. Traces of this Psalm, found in the Septuagint, have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so its origin is probably Hebrew after all.

Unfortunately, my bright idea to use Psalm 151 was practically an afterthought to my preparation of the lesson from 2 Samuel. In fact, as I was walking out the door, I grabbed by copy of the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) and added it to the stack of volumes I was already carrying. I had not looked at Psalm 151 recently, but was merely drawing off my memory of its theme and content.

At our church we have our worship service before our time of Bible study. After getting a bit settled, I opened up my copy of the NETS that I had grabbed as I was leaving the house to take a look at its rendering of Psalm 151. The NETS, released only last year, is the most current English translation of the LXX. Everything seemed fine until I got to v. 6:

I went out to meet the allophyle, and he cursed me by his idols.

Allophyle? What’s an allophyle? I had not read Psalm 151 in a while, but I knew I didn’t remember seeing this particular word in other translations. Now, if you look above at my chart containing the Greek text, you’re better off than I was Sunday morning. I didn’t have a copy of the Greek text with me. And I couldn’t figure out what an allophyle was immediately from the context.

I pulled my iPhone from my pocket, and tried looking up the word in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app. No dice. The word allophyle was not to be found. I nudged Kathy and pointed to the word, asking if she knew what it meant. She asked for the reference, and I told her “Psalm 151:6.” She picked up her Bible, but then rolled her eyes, put her Bible back down and ignored me, realizing that Psalm 151 was not going to be in her copy of the New Living Translation.

I tried to figure out meaning based on the derivation of the word. I assumed it was created from two Greek words, and correctly guessed that allo- came from ἄλλος/allos, meaning “other” or “another.” But I went in the wrong direction with -phyle. I incorrectly guessed that perhaps somehow it came from φίλος/philos, meaning “beloved” or “dear.” We get words like bibliophile (lover of books) from this word.

But this made no sense. David went out to meet his other lover? And then cut off his head? Well, I knew from both memory and context that the individual in question was Goliath, so I knew something was off from my guess. I ran a search on my iPhone for Psalm 151 on the internet and found the NRSV translation of “Philistine.” That didn’t explain my immediate question, but it did give me another way to read the verse during our Bible study.

Once I was home and able to look up the passage in the Greek of the LXX, I realized that in using allophyle, the NETS essentially transliterates ἀλλόφυλος/allophulos, a word often translated Philistine or foreigner based on the context. I freely admit that I was not familiar with the word as it only occurs once in the New Testament:

“And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner (ἀλλόφυλος/allophulos) or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” (Acts 10:28, NASB)

How does one get foreigner, Philistine or even Gentile (as some translations render it) from the word? Well, as I said, I was wrong about my guess regarding -phyle. It didn’t mean “beloved” but rather came from the Greek word φυλή/phule (from which we get words like phylum), meaning “race” or “tribe.” So ἀλλόφυλος/allophulos literally means “other race” and thus foreigner.

On p. 246 of the NETS, there is passing reference to peculiar habit of the Old Greek to translate “‏פלשתים ‘Philistine’ as (ὁ/οἱ) ἀλλόφυλος/-οι ‘allophyle(s),’ first seen in the book of Judges (3.3, 31; for a total of 20x), rather than the transliteration φυλιστιμ (‘Phylistim’ ) found already in Genesis (8x), Exodus (2x), Iesous (Joshua) (1x), Judges (6x) and Sirach (3x).” However, there’s no explanation why the NETS chooses to transliterate the word in question as allophyle. My only guess is that this is done to designate when the the LXX is doing the same, although the word occurs many other times in contexts simply meaning “foreigner” and the NETS does not transliterate it in these instances.

So now there’s only one other question. How common is the English word allophyle? As mentioned earlier, it wasn’t in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and even now as I write it on my computer, a red line underscores it. I wondered if perhaps allophyle is used in biblical or historical studies so I ran a search for it in literally thousands of reference books and journals in Accordance. The only hits I received for the word came from the NETS. Even running a Google search, if limited to English hits, results in only 95 websites, and most of these are questionable regarding any solution to my curiosity.

So, help me out. Have you come across the word allophyle anywhere in English besides the NETS? If you have, please list the source in the comments.

Tags: LXX, NETS, Psalms