Reader Question about Psalms 148:12 (11/11/17)

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How about the older women?

Short Answer: Vs. 12 says “[the] elderly” in Hebrew, not “old men.”

Long Answer: We had these verses from Psalms 148:11-12 in the English Standard Version:

I think our fellow reader was halfway joking with this question. My first, halfway joking, response was that I thought probably the older women were busy organizing everything, but I would check the Hebrew and Greek.

What I found turned out to be interesting and yet another reminder that “gender neutral” translations are often more accurate than – what? “gender non-neutral”? – ones. In some cases a gender non-neutral translation is unavoidable; however, in this particular case, there’s an exact translation from the Hebrew into both English and Greek, which is not always used.

The word in Hebrew is an adjective used as a noun, zawkanim/the old [men/women/people], elders. This word means exactly what we mean in English when we talk about “the old” or “the elderly.”

Now, when the rabbis translated Psalms 148 into Greek around 300 BCE, they went with presbutai, which is the plural of presbutace/old man. They chose (for whatever reason) not to use presbuteroi/the old, elders. Presbuteroi (the plural of presbuteros) is an adjective used as a noun, just like zawkanim or the elderly, and would have been an exact translation.

Presbuteros is used 66 times in the New Testament. It’s an adjective and therefore must be masculine, feminine, or neuter in the singular; however, in the plural (which is nearly all of the NT uses), it may refer to mixed groups of men and women.

In the Gospels, presbuteroi appears to be almost exclusively translated elders in the sense of “current or ancient religious authorities,” as in the repeated phrases, “chief priests and elders” (e.g., Mark 14:53) or “tradition of the elders” (e.g., Mark 7:3).
The only exception I found in the Gospels is from Luke (a Gentile whose Greek is near-Classical), referring to “the [singular masculine] older” (Luke 15:25) in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
In Acts and most places in the letters, it’s used both in the sense of “[Jewish] priests and elders” (e.g., Acts 23:14) and “church leaders” (e.g., Acts 21:18); however, I found two exceptions.
- In 1 Timothy 5:1-2, Paul refers separately to “the [masculine] older [person]” + father and “the [feminine] older [persons]” + mothers, so translations that say “older man” and “older women” are on the money here.
- In Hebrews 11:2, the presbuteroi are absolutely not restricted to old men, because the discussion includes Sarah (vs. 11), Rahab (vs. 31), and women (vs. 35).

Presbuteros is used 151 times in the Greek Old Testament. I didn’t look at all of them, because the very first occurrence is in Genesis 18:11, where Abraham and Sarah are referred to as presbuteroi. So I looked only at the plurals, of which there are 30. The other 29 occurrences are elders in the sense of “tribal elders.” (I don’t actually know whether the ancient Hebrew tribal elders were men, but in a lot of tribal cultures the elders include women, and elders are wise, not necessarily old.)

Back to gender-neutral translations. Here’s what various translations have for Psalms 148:11-12:

Old men: King James Version (1611), American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English, Darby, English Standard Version, Jewish Publication Society, Modern King James Version, Revised Version.
Old people: Contemporary English Version, Easy-to-Read Version, Good News Bible.
Older people: International Standard Version.
Old: Douay-Rheims (1609), God’s Word. Jubilee

You see from the Douay-Rheims date that the gender-neutral translation is presbuteros/old! And thanks to this reader for reminding us to read carefully, to think for ourselves, and to read at least two unrelated translations.

More Wonders and Signs
Wonders and Signs – Part 1
Wonders and Signs – Part 2
Wonders and Signs – Part 3

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