An unusual paraphrased poetic rendition of Psalm 119 by an early 20th century socialite.

Here's a really unusual book called "PSALM CXIX The Hebrew Alphabet A Rosary An Inventory The Kabbalah." The title hardly makes sense, but the book is actually an artistic gem. Here is the title page:

The book is apparently hand written (and lithographed, I guess) and was published around 1913. The author's name is Grace Sanders Keefer (she was also known by other names). The book is her own poetic rendition of Psalm 119 in English, preserving the alphabetic character of this 176-verse Psalm. Thus, the aleph verses begin with the letter A, beis with B, etc. She carries it all the way through, with some creative license.

To illustrate what I mean, here is how the JPS 1917 translates Psalm 119:1-2:

1 Happy are they that are upright in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD

2 Happy are they that keep His testimonies, that seek Him with the whole heart.

3 Yea, they do no unrighteousness; they walk in His ways.

Here is how she paraphrases these, so that they begins with an A:

1 A straight man goeth about in perfect equanimity: he keeps on going in the Law of Jahweh.

2 A straight man guards The Spirit (of The Law) with all his heart expressing it.

3 Added to this he does not leave behing him a trail of crookedness.

Here are two sample pages:

The copy of the book (owned by U Mich) has the following inscription by the author:

Since that probably isn't easy to read, here is what it says:

Rabbi Emanuel Sternheim,

The purpose of this translation is to testify in I-Am-ness: Individualism the Equilateral Concepts/ Symbolism of AREALISM JUDAISM ROMANISM and to open the "Sealed Orders," "The Veil of The Temple", To The Light of the Simple Truth.

Grace Sanders Keefer

No, that doesn't make any more sense to me. Still, the translation is very creative, the lettering very nice (I assume she did it herself). Unfortunately I wasn't able to uncover much about her other than that she was a socialite based in Atlanta and New York and involved in two messy divorces, which made the newspapers (her first husband was of the Macy family, as in Macy's). Judging by the year of her first marriage (1905) I'll guess that she was about 30, or in her early 30s when this book was produced.

Incidentally, the idea of re-writing Psalms has a long history. For example, see כהנת אברהם (1719) by Abraham Hakohen ben Shabbetai of Zante, which features lengthy poems based on all 150 Psalms. It also includes poems based on Perek Shirah, which is usually not mentioned when this book is discussed.