I have just updated my Psalms Hebrew reader (available here). While the base text in the book is the one found in the Leningrad Codex and hence BHS, I have made one very slight amendment. I used the update as an opportunity to reinsert a line that has dropped out of Hebrew Bibles for two thousand years. In Psalm 145:13 I reintroduced the missing נ-nun stanza from the acrostic in [[double square brackets]]. The dropped stanza sticks out in the Masoretic Text since all other verses in the Psalm being with the sequential letters of the Hebrew alphabet (א–ת). The line is almost certainly original given its occurrence in the Greek Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls:
πιστὸς κύριος ἐν τοῖς λόγοις αὐτοῦThe Greek text agrees precisely with the Great Psalm Scroll (11Q5) which strongly suggests a common source. (The only difference is the scroll contains three words at the end of the line: ברוך יהוה וברוך. This scribal expansion is also found in each line of Psalm 145 in that scroll.) I have added vowels and anachronistic Masoretic accents. It is possible that this line was added later, but this is very doubtful.
My reason for reintroducing this text is to briefly introduce readers to textual issues in the Hebrew Bible and prevent scholars from making wild theories about missing nuns and deliberate diversity within acrostic patterns. While I suggest the nun line is original, I am not claiming including it is necessarily a better reading. At times the Septuagint reflects earlier readings than what is found in the Hebrew Masoretic Text. But earlier readings are not necessarily better, think of how Samuel–Kings is updated in the later text of Chronicles. No reader would claim Chronicles is an inferior text for being later. Just because a text is later does not mean that its readings (or omissions) should not be read as Scripture by Jews or Christians. This just highlights the ‘Masoretic Text’ is but one slightly fluid tradition that need not be stuck to so dogmatically. In fact, no modern Bible translation does this.
