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. Probably the most famous of these is Psalm 119, in which each of the first eight verses starts with א (aleph), the second group with ב (beth) the third group with ג (gimel) and so on through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. 

Psalm 145 is another such Psalm, but this one has a difference: in the Masoretic Text it appears to skip the letter נ (nun), which would occur after verse 13, leaving the Psalm with only twenty-one verses. 

The lack of the נ verse has caused some to question whether the verse may have fallen out of the Masoretic Text of the Psalm due to scribal error. They seek to justify this view on the basis that the נ verse is found in one medieval Hebrew manuscript, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint and the Syriac. Indeed, some modern versions, such as the ESV and NIV, add the supposed missing נ verse to Psalm 145 because of its presence in these witnesses. However, we believe that the omission of the נ verse is intentional and not at all due to scribal error, and that the evidence for the proposed נ verse is insubstantial and the verse is rightly omitted.

A survey of the Acrostic Psalms

Other acrostic Psalms in the Hebrew Old Testament are 9 and 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119. The last three of these Psalms, 111, 112 and 119, are all complete and show no irregularities in the acrostic pattern. 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 in Psalm 119. The other acrostic Psalms, 9 and 10, 25, 34, 37, 145 (all except 10 definitely ascribed to David), show irregularities in the acrostic pattern. 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. 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. 

In Psalm 25, for example, there are two verses which begin with the Hebrew letter ר (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 to English readers.) The first is ראה עניי ('Look upon mine affliction’, v18) and the next is ראה איבי ('Consider mine enemies’, v19). Why did the Psalmist double up on the use of the letter ר? It is natural to suppose that the earnestness of his entreaty to God regarding his affliction on the one hand and his 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 ר and on the Hebrew word that best expresses his present afflicted condition, ראה’ 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.

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-orbed praise where every letter of the Hebrew alphabet evokes a Hebrew word which strikes a new chord in that praise. So verse 3 is ג and the Psalmist thinks of גדול ('great’), ‘great is the LORD’; verse 9 is ט and the Psalmist thinks of טוב ('good’), ‘the LORD is good’, and so on. When he comes to verse 13, the letter is מ and the Psalmist thinks of מלכותך ('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. The Psalmist had to decide how to begin this section. The next letter in the alphabet is נ; what word would this evoke for the Psalmist? נפל ('fall’ or ‘fail’) perhaps? 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 נ verse and then writing the next verse, the ס (samekh) verse, as:

סומך יהוה לכל הנפלים
(‘The LORD upholdeth all that fall’) 

Every Hebrew reader of the Psalm will notice something striking at this point: it is the Psalmist himself who ‘falls’ (נפל)in the omission of the נ verse. What more graphic way to highlight the frailty of men and the condescending love of God than by omitting the נ verse and following with a verse that speaks of the Lord upholding ‘all that fall’ (לכל הנפלים)? The structure of the Psalm ‘chimes’, as it were, to the thought expressed by the words of the Psalm. 

Thus, the omission of the נ 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. 

Textual witnesses

Some, however, would argue that there is sufficient textual evidence for the inclusion of the supposed missing נ verse. First, there is the evidence of one medieval Hebrew manuscript. The נ verse appears in this manuscript as:

נאמן יהוה בכל דבריו וחסיד בכול מעשיו
(The LORD is faithful in all his words and holy in all 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, 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 v17:

צדיק יהוה בכל דרכיו וחסיד בכול מעשיו
(The LORD is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works)

Thus, the inclusion of the verse introduces a repetition into the Psalm which otherwise does not contain any repetition.

Secondly, there is the evidence of the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). The verse appears as follows:

נאמן אלוהים בדרכיו וחסיד בכול מעשיו
(God is faithful in his ways and holy in all his works)

There are a number of differences between this verse in the DSS and the one found in the medieval Hebrew manuscript. The name of God is different, being God (אלוהים) rather than LORD (יהוה). This is significant since the name of God which is used throughout the Psalm in similar expressions is LORD (יהוה) and not God (אלוהים’): 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 נ verse, the reading is ‘the LORD upholdeth’.

Other differences between the manuscript and the DSS readings are: ‘his ways’ in the DSS as opposed to the Hebrew manuscript ‘his words’, and the omission in the DSS of the word ‘all’, which the Hebrew manuscript includes.

The rendering of the supposed נ verse in the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament dating from the second century BC) is:

πιστος κυριος εν τοις λογοις αυτου και οσιος εν πασι τοις εργοις αυτου
(The Lord is faithful in his words 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 Hebrew’s ‘all his words’. In addition, the Septuagint has ‘his words’ as opposed to the DSS’s ‘his ways’. 

The Syriac translation of the נ verse has:

The Lord is faithful in his words and righteous in all his works.

There is a significant difference between this version and the Hebrew manuscript, the DSS and the Septuagint in the second part of the verse: the Syriac has ‘righteous’, whereas the other three textual witnesses have ‘holy’.

As seen from this survey of the witnesses to the supposed missing נ 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.

Conclusion

It may, therefore, be concluded that there is positive evidence that the נ verse is intentionally omitted from Psalm 145. The inspired authors of the Old Testament use the Hebrew language with great skill and they sometimes employ literary devices to enhance their message.

It may also be concluded that the evidence for a supposed missing נ 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 to the verse so few and inconsistent? A reasonable explanation is that most scribes knew that the verse was never originally present. 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.

It may be asked why, if the evidence for the supposed missing נ verse is slight, the ESV and the NIV and other modern versions should include the verse. In the case of other verses, such as 1 John 5.7,8, the modern versions readily exclude the verses on the basis of the supposed paucity of manuscript and early version evidence. Why then should there be a difference in the case of the supposed missing verse in Psalm 145? A possible explanation is that the inclusion of the verse in the modern versions is simply an implicit aspersion on the complete reliability of the traditional Masoretic text, which underlies the Old Testament of the Authorised (King James) Version and other Reformation-era translations.