QUESTION:
Why the Orthodox Church refers to the Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd" as the 22nd Psalm, whereas the King James version of the Bible calls it Psalm 23?
REPLY:
The Orthodox Church uses an older arrangement of the 01d Testament Scripture. The King James version erroneously divides Psalm 9 into two, making them Psalms 4 and 10. Psalm 9 actually has 38 verses. It is a poem in which in Hebrew --- each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet (this would be called an acrostic poem). In the King James version, there are only 20 verses in Psalm 9, and the other 18 verses are wrongly called Psalm 10: The Orthodox Church has kept the original form, and so the Orthodox numbering is correct, while the King James version numbering is wrong. There is also a good example of the differences between the Orthodox Bible and the Western Bible in this psalm. Let us compare the Orthodox version of Psalm 9:20 with the Protestant (Western) version.
The Orthodox version reads:
"O Lord, set a law-giver over them; let the nations know that they are but men.
The Protestant (K.J.V.) version reads;
"Strike them with terror, O Lord; let the heathens know that they are but men".
As you can see, there is a considerable difference in the content and spirit of the two versions. The authentic (Orthodox) version is a part of the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah (Christ). This is completely missing in the Protestant version.
+Archbishop Lazar
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