The Case of the Missing Comma

Shfoch Chamatcha Al Hagoyim

Post date: Nov 23, 2020 6:20:11 PM

Immediately after the Birkat Hamazon, we get Shfoch Chamatcha, It is a section made up out of four Bible verses, located in between step 11 and 12. In it, through verses from Psalms 79, 6-7, Psalms 69, 25 and Lamentations 3,66, destruction is requested of all nations that are non-believers. As such, it is coined a malediction by some researchers.

Roth (1934) writes: “No part of the Passover Service has aroused so much criticism as the above passage” and explains that is has been called “vengeful, vindictive, and unworthy of a people that calls itself civilized.” Of interest for this study are two distinct points, one intertextual and one typographical.

All the early English Haggadah translators when translating the first verse evoked God’s wrath upon “the heathen” that do not recognize Him, using either the past, present or future tense:

“Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known Thee” (Alexander)

“Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen who know Thee not” (David Levi)

“Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen who will not acknowledge thee” (Mendes)

“Heathen” is the word used in the King James Bible. The first to change this expression is Green (1897) who used “nations” instead of “heathen”: “Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations who know thee not.” Green was a forerunner followed by many e.g. Eisenstein and Wartski & Super. Most early 20^th century translators continued using the term “heathen” but from the 1940s onwards, almost all Haggadah translators switched to “nations” instead.

During the Modernizer’s Period, translators and English Haggadah commentators started to feel uncomfortable with these vengeful verses, as Green writes in his commentary: “verses against our enemies have made us more enemies than they have punished.” Green then goes into a lengthy justification for a Jewish prayer requesting the destruction of enemies, especially at Passover time when blood libels and pogroms were all too common. But he immediately afterwards recants stating that these are merely quotations from the Bible and no real prayer bidding admiration for Jewish “splendid tolerance and moderation”. He closes his almost two page long commentary with pacifying comments towards his home country:

Whether these verses are to be said now is a question which we English Jews indeed pause to consider. But at least in this happy land, and wherever the rule of England bears its beneficent sway, we Jews can open our doors and thank God for our freedom, can utter classical denunciations against the practices of the wicked….[who] will not be considered duly merited by the noble God-fearing nation, of whom it is our privilege to be here a part.

(p. 68)

As a result of this conflict between loyalty to (and respect for) the homeland and these harsh Bible verses, many Reform Haggadot deleted this section from the Hebrew text completely (Moreau, 2018).

But who exactly do we want God to pour his wrath out over? All the nations? Or only those that do not recognize God? Do we include Christians who do believe in God? And what about other religions?

One of the most influential English Haggadah translators was Z. Harry Gutstein who translated the Haggadah in 1949. His translation was the base for the famous red, yellow, black Haggadah by Rabbi Nathan Goldberg still cherished today in many households.

This Haggadah added a comma in a crucial place in the first verse of Shfoch Chamatcha in the Hebrew text that is usually not there:

Translated into English this comma changes:

Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not,

Into:

Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations, that know Thee not,

The first requests God’s wrath only upon heathens (that do not recognize God), whereas the second calls all the nations heathens because they do not recognize God. Where did that comma come from? Obviously not from the Bible because there are no commas in the Biblical text. The trope (diacritic musical notations) which are often added to printed Bible texts also does not indicate a comma at this place.

Ktav Publishing House Ltd, the publisher of this Haggadah was not the first to insert a comma at this place in the Hebrew text. Hebrew Publishing Company had done this before them in several Haggadot (e.g. the Haggadah translated by Dr. M. Stern and one translated by J.D. Eisenstein and illustrated by Lola). A Haggadah published in Jerusalem in 1905 for Calcuttan Jews also sported this comma in the Hebrew text. Many modern Haggadot insert the comma here as well. But Ktav was the first to do so in a Haggadah that would be republished over and over again entering this comma into practically every household.

Interestingly enough though, I have yet to see any English translation that adds this comma. Even the ones mentioned above that do have the comma in the Hebrew text do not insert it in their English translation. I would be interested to hear if anyone finds this comma in an English (or any other language) translation!