As a new Christian, my first Bible was the NKJV.  But as I studied God's Word, I sought to know which translation was the most accurate, the most true/faithful to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  Asked a number of senior Christians and they all said the same thing…the NASB.  A few years back, I read David Dolan's book, ISRAEL IN CRISIS.  He wondered how the Bible could be silent about the holocaust (me too), the "unrivaled black hole in Jewish history."  But "one morning during study and prayer," he discovered that Psalm 102 actually does prophesy Hitler's holocaust.  And he discovered this, not in the NKJV nor the NIV, etc., but in the New American Standard Bible (NASB).   His words are in blue.

 

Verse 3:  For my days are consumed in smoke and my bones have been scorched like (in?) a hearth (NASB) vs. like smoke (NKJV).  The KJV mistranslates this as "my days are consumed like smoke."  But the original Hebrew is quite clear.  The word for smoke (ashan) is preceded by the Hebrew letter "bet" which usually means "in" or sometimes "on" but rarely "like."

 

Verse 4:  My heart has been smitten like grass and has withered away.  Indeed, I forget to eat my bread (NASB).  Physical, verbal, and mental abuse resulting in deep depression.

 

Verse 5:  My bones cling to my flesh (NASB).  Severe emaciation.  Who has not seen photographs of the many emaciated concentration camp victims?  Indeed, the main cause of death at the German Buchenwald camp was starvation.

 

Verse 8:  In verse 8…of the NASB…the translators have accurately rendered a Hebrew phrase into English, while assigning the literal wording to the margin notes.  The NASB says this: My enemies have reproached me all day long.  Those who deride me have used my name as a curse. The KJV says "They that are mad against me are sworn against me."  However, the NASB translators understood the original words in Hebrew can form an expression meaning "my very own name has been used as a curse against me."  Jews in nazi-occupied Europe were forced to wear a six-sided star on their clothing.  On this star was printed the name "Jude."  This is the modern name of the ancient Hebrews-- Jew--derived from the tribe of Judah.  Did the Star of David badge therefore signify that Christian Germany was honoring the Messiah's racial cousins, recognizing that the bloodline of contemporary Jews is exactly the same as Christ's?  Honor was hardly the word.

 

Verse 9:  For I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping (NASB).   Ashes from the crematoriums, dependent upon the winds, would often fall back into the camps.  Thus inmates were sometimes forced to breathe in, and even taste, the sooty remains of their fellow Jews.

 

Verse 10:  Because of thy indignation and thy wrath; For thou has lifted me up and cast me away (NASB).  Note that the psalmist does not state that God is responsible for his sufferings, but only that they are the result of the Lord's taking away His protective covering in righteous anger.

 

Verse 13:  You will arise and have compassion on Zion.  For it is time to be gracious to her, for the appointed time has come (NASB).  This preordained time of mercy upon Jerusalem is not going to occur out of the blue.  It follows, and is intimately connected to, the unimaginable suffering that precedes it.  But restoration and mercy will come, for it has long ago been set in Jerusalem stone by the Holy One of Israel.

 

Verse 14:  Surely Your servants find pleasure in her stones.  And feel pity for her dust (NASB).  Most buildings today in Jerusalem, by law, must be faced by off-white Jerusalem stones.

 

Verse 16:  For the Lord has built up Zion; He has appeared in His glory (NASB).  The NASB is faithful here to the original Hebrew, which suddenly switches in verse 16 to the past tense.  I believe this is an example of what some Bible scholars have dubbed "the prophetic tense."  In other words, the thing foretold here, although still future, is so certain to occur that the writer records it as if it has already taken place.

 

Verse 17: For He has regarded the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. (NASB)  In other words, Israel's Maker was not sleeping or on vacation when His covenant Jewish people went through the harrowing Holocaust flames.  He was listening to their prayers, and He answered them; maybe not right away, maybe not in the way everyone would have liked, but He answered them nonetheless.  His response was to return His despised and persecuted Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland.

 

Verse 18:  This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord (NASB).  The phrase in Hebrew (l'dor acharon) literally means last or final generation.  In the original Hebrew, verse 18 states emphatically that Psalm 102 is especially written for one specific generation, and that generation will be the final one of history.

 

I still read my NKJV and other translations such as the NIV, but my NASB w/the large letters is what I compare all the others to.  And my prayer before I open up His Holy Scriptures (NASB/NKJV/NIV, etc.) is that God will open my eyes and my understanding to see what He wants me to see.  Hope this helps!

 

YSIC, Sandra Jean.