Latin Verb Choice in Psalm

[ivanus]

I am curious about the use of abeo in Psalms 1:1:

Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum...

The King James rendering is:

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly...

'abeo' mean to go away or depart. That would seem to leave the sentence as a double negative: "Blessed is the man who doesn't depart from the counsel of the ungodly..." This would have made sense to me if 'consilium' had been in the accusative leaving the phrase "Blessed is the man who does not depart into the counsel of the ungodly.'

I would appreciate some insight on where I've gone wrong here.

[lauragibbs]

The idea is somewhat elliptical - the man who has not departed (from the counsel of good men and gone off) in the counsel of wicked men...
If you are curious to see the different versions of the Psalm (and there are multiple versions of the Psalter in the history of the Catholic Church: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Psalters), you might enjoy looking at this blog post which has a table laying out this psalm in different versions side by side:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2008/08/breviary ... o-psalm-1/

[ivanus]

Thank you for the feedback and the links. The history and comparison are helpful.The little hobgoblin of directly equivalent translation that lives in my head isn't happy, but he rarely is.

I've ended up with several versions of the Vulgate in my peregrinations about the web and so I've seen some of the oddities such as "cathedra pestilentiae" in some versions of this Psalm and in others. While I am learning the language, I'm using the Nova Vulgata at http://www.vatican.va/latin/latin_bible.html from the Vatican web site as my reference as it seems to be more consistent with the other modern English translations.

[adrianus]

Sic lego. // I read it this way

Blessed is he who has not gone off consorting with the wicked [in consilio = as adviser, available for consultation—Oxford Lat. Dict.]
and who has not dallied on the path of sinners
and who has not sat upon the easy chair of the corrupt
but whose purpose is God's law,
and who upon His law will dwell night and day.
...
Ideo non resurgent impii in judicio,
neque peccatores in concilio justorum:

And so the wicked will not be rising again at their trial,
nor the sinners at the judgement of the just,
because the Lord recognizes the way of the just
and the course of the wicked will be destroyed.