Biblical scholars point out that the translation of the last line of the 23rd Psalm – “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” – is not accurate. Closer to the original Hebrew text is “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for a long time” or “for many long days.”*** [See below]

HarperCollins has also rendered a new translation of “Forever” and their definition is a lot shorter than eternity.  The precise number is 26.

Twenty-six what?  Twenty-six checkouts of Harper e-books from your e-library.  Then forever is over.

Just to remind you how it works: your library buys an e-book from a publisher. It is then offered for loan to the library’s patrons, and there is a waiting list. When your turn comes up you download the e-book and have it exclusively for a limited period of time. When that time expires the e-book disappears from the patron’s computer and is offered to the next person on the waiting list. If a book is popular, a library or library system may buy more than one e-book version enabling the library to offer it to multiple borrowers.

At the outset of the digital revolution, e-book publishers pondered the issue of perpetuity. Unlike physical books, which are carried in brick and mortar libraries until they literally fall apart, e-books have an infinite shelf life (mainly because there are no shelves). If the purchase of one e-book entitled a library to use it forever after, publishers would lose money. (Somehow forever after in digital terms seemed to be longer than forever after for physical books.) So they tried to set limits on how long the library had the book before requiring it to renew its license. This tension has characterized the relationship between e-publishers and libraries for a decade.

But no one expected to draw the line at 26 borrows. Harper has done so, and libraries administrators are wringing their hands. “We believe this change balances the value libraries get from our titles with the need to protect our authors and ensure a presence in public libraries and the communities they serve for years to come,” said Harper. Their full statement may be read in this Open Letter to Librarians.

Do you agree? It depends on whether you’re a librarian, a publisher, an author or a library patron. Read A Limit on Lending E-Books by the New York Times’s Julie Bosman and judge for yourself.

Richard Curtis
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***  “… for many long days. This concluding phrase catches up the reference to ‘all the days of my life’ in the preceding line. It does not mean ‘forever’; the viewpoint of the poem is in and of the here and now and is in no way eschatological. The speaker hopes for a happy fate all his born days, and prays for the good fortune to abide in the Lord’s sanctuary—a place of security and harmony with the divine—all, or perhaps at least most, of those days.”

Translation from The Book of Psalms Copyright © 2007 by Robert Alter.