History, Philosophy, Social Commentary

Merry Christmas

14 Comments

I want to wish the best of the season to all of my Christian readers. As my gift, here is Psalm 53, being sung to the Pope in Aramaic.

[Christmas-afternoon update]

Richard Fernandez has thoughts on the Left’s continually failed attempts to purge the holiday of its meaning:

“Happy Federal Holiday” is about as information empty as you can get and perhaps that is deliberate. It advances not just another phrase, but a completely different world view, a universe safely empty of everything but numbers on a calendar.

Eventually anyone indoctrinated in this tradition will find accounts of the Federal Holiday Truce of 1914 or “I’ll be Home for the Federal Holiday of 1943” hard to comprehend. Nor will they be able to understand why anyone in Mosul should want to observe the Federal Holiday of 2017. Yet how could it be otherwise? To understand history one has to understand why such events as Christmas are and you cannot do that in a meaning-free universe.

The effort to erase Christmas will probably fail for no other reason than that it meets a human need that a mechanical bureaucratic day off cannot fulfill. Humanity needs a time to mark the growth and change in the family, an occasion to renew hopes and put aside fears and a chance to remember something we once knew: that everything’s going to be alright in the end. It really will.

The best Christmas present I could get would be for the corrupt officials at the Obama Justice Department (including the IRS) to finally be confronted with actual justice in the New Year. And I continue to be very happy that She lost.

14 thoughts on “Merry Christmas”

  2. Thank you Rand. That was beautiful!

    I did find the haunting sound incongruous with bleak text of Psalm 50. From KJV:
    1. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.
    2. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
    3. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
    4. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.
    5. There were they in great fear, where no fear was: for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee: thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them.
    6. Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

      1. Tracking it down further, the video appears in different locations with several different labels, and it seem in fact to be verses 1-6 of what we refer to as Psalm 51 or “Miserere” in the West and Psalm 50 in the East. (This due to a disagreement over the separation in the West of a single poem into Psalms 9 & 10.) Given the tone, this makes a lot more sense than Pslam 53, as Miserere is a common part of the liturgy and is often recited as prayer. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_51

        Copying from the YouTube comment of an Indonesian student of Aramaic:

        THE GIRL
        Psalms 51:1
        [Aramaic] Rakhemli Alaha // aakh taibutakh // uakh sogha drakhmaikh eti khathai
        [KJV] Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

        Psalms 51:2
        [Aramaic] Asga atsigani // min euli // umen khathai dakani
        [KJV] Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

        THE MAN
        Psalms 51:3
        [Aramaic] Metal // dsakhlaute (yakha ana—not sure) // wa khtahay luqbaley yinon bekhelzban
        [KJV] For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

        THE GIRL
        Psalms 51:4
        [Aramaic] Lakh balkhodaikh khteith // ubiishatha // qdamaikh (eichidth—not sure)
        [KJV] Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

        THE MAN
        Psalms 51:5
        [Aramaic] Metal // dtezddaq // bmelthakh utizke bdinaikh
        [KJV] Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

        Psalms 51:6
        [Aramaic] Metal // dabaula // ethbatneth wabakhtahe btentani emin
        [KJV] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

        THE GIRL – CLOSING
        Psalms 51:1
        [Aramaic] Rakhemli Alaha // aakh taibutakh // uakh sogha drakhmaikh eti khathai
        [KJV] Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
        END.

          1. Reminds me of when mass was in Latin.

            Keep in mind that Catholic and Protestant bibles have different chapter and verse numbers for some of the same text.

  4. I have a ham, a sweet potato pie and plenty of wine to keep them company. I hope everyone’s December 25 will be as pleasant.

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