αὕτη ἐγενήθη μοι ὅτι τὰ δικαιώματά σου ἐξεζήτησα
NETS translates this as:
“This [note added: antecedent unclear] fell to me, because I sought your statues”
But could it also be translated like this:
“This fell to me, that I sought your statues” i.e. “This happened to me, that I became one who sought your statues”
Evidently so. At least, the RSV and ESV translate with “that", unlike the King James’ “because.”
(“statues” a typo for “statutes” I presume, but it’s an amusing variant, given Exodus’ prohibition of graven images.)
OK thanks Michael but I’m actually trying to understand what’s happening grammatically here. If the sentence basically says “THIS is THAT” where THAT is a subject+predicate prefaced with οτι then what does one call this kind of syntactical construction?
Sorry Mitch this is not my field at all, and I can’t control the Hebrew. What’s particularly odd in the Greek is the feminine αὕτη. I see that this echoes 50, αὕτη με παρεκάλεσεν ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει μου, ὅτι τὸ λόγιόν σου ἔζησέ με. I also see that the latter part of 56 recurs in the plea of 94, σός εἰμι ἐγώ, σῶσόν με, ὅτι τὰ δικαιώματά σου ἐξεζήτησα, where once again ὅτι certainly looks as if it means “because.” But you need someone with expertise in the LXX translation.
On the Learning Greek board the other day some of us were looking at a Plato passage with δια ταυτα …, ὅτι …, where the δια ταυτα is picked up by the ὅτι clause. But nothing odd about that.
Sorry for not being clearer, I wasn’t interested in how the Greek here is translated from the Hebrew, I just wanted to know more about the kind of grammatical constrction used in the sentence.
And I just found theanswer: it’s a “causal clause” as described in CGCG chapter 48.
Still learning all this grammatical terminology 
But thanks for pointing out the oddity of the feminine αὕτη here…
οτι is not originally present in Sinaiticus, but is added as a correction up above the line (in 56).
Both verses in Hebrew start out with the feminine demonstrative, and the Greek seem to be keeping the gender for that reason. Robert Alter translates 50 and 56 as if this Hebrew feminine “this” was referring to what becomes our ὅτι phrase in the Greek of 50.
50: This is my consolation in my affliction, that Your utterance gave me life.
56: This did I possess, for Your decrees I kept.
There are lots of guesses for αυτη in the Fathers:
Origenes: Τὴν Γραφὴν λέγει τὴν θεόπνευστον.
Joannes Chrysostomus [Sp.]: Τίς, Αὕτη; Ἡ νυκτερινὴ μελέτη.
Unk: Αὕτη ἡ μνήμη ἣν «ἐμνήσθην ἐν νυκτὶ τοῦ ὀνόματός σου»
Athanasius: Αὕτη τις ἡ ἐλπὶς, ἐγγινομένη μοι ἀπὸ τοῦ σοῦ λόγου
Euthymius Zigabeus seems to record two commentaries:
Αὕτη με παρεκάλεσεν ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει μου. Αὕτη· τίς; Ἡ ἐλπὶς δηλονότι. Αὕτη με παρηγόρησεν, αὕτη με ἀνεκλήσατο, ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει μου, τῇ ἀπὸ τῶν πειρασμῶν, ἐν τῇ κακοπαθείᾳ μου.
Αὕτη μοι ἐγενήθη, ὅτι τὰ δικαιώματά σου ἐξεζήτησα. Αὕτη ἡ μνήμη· εἴωθε γὰρ πολλάκις εἰς ὄνομα τὸ ῥῆμα μεταλαμβάνειν, ὡς τό, Αὕτη με παρεκάλεσεν, ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει μου. Λέγει γοῦν, ὅτι αὕτη ἡ μνήμη γέγονέ μοι, ἀπὸ τοῦ σφόδρα ζητεῖν τὰ δικαιώματά σου. Ἐκεῖθεν γὰρ τὸν φόβον ἔλαβον.
Edit: Sorry about the accents in the initial post, I’m hitting the age where the squiggles are becoming blurry in the evenings.
Fascinating, thanks Joel! Where can I find Chrysostom’s commentary on the Psalms in the original Greek?
I got the above from the digitalized version in TLG, but you can see it on page 686 in the original Migne volume on the lower right of the page.
Notice the [Sp.] in my citation. It is from the Spuria section of the Chrysostom volume. See page 675 for a discussion.
Ah Migne, thanks for the link. I remember finding the musty old volumes of Migne many years ago in the university library and wishing I knew enough Greek to read them. (I had only taken an introductory course on New Testament Greek to finish off my undergraduate degree.) I guess I read too much Isaac Asimov as a kid because I always wanted to know everything about everything.
