In | A Lost Verse in Psalm 145

One of the more interesting finds among the Dead Sea Scrolls involved an acrostic Psalm. For centuries, Psalm 145 had stood out as one of the strangest. It appeared to be a deliberate attempt at an acrostic poem, but rather than the typical 22 verses accounting for the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Psalm 145 had only 21. It was missing the letter nun, roughly the Hebrew equivalent of the English letter “n.” 

While studying the only Dead Sea Scroll containing this part of the book of Psalms (11QPs-a), Dr. Peter Flint found something surprising—or maybe not surprising. In this oldest existing copy of Psalm 145, a missing nun verse is there, right where we might expect it. 

This verse is now included in a number of English translations, including the NIV, NLT and ESV, having been added to verse 13. It rather ironically and emphatically reads:

The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. 
Psalm 145:13 (NIV)

At times, the discoveries made in ancient manuscripts can be highly technical and of interest only to scholars. But Dr. Flint’s discovery changed the way we read the Bible on a daily basis. After two thousand years, we’re able to read a verse of Scripture that so many of our spiritual ancestors never had access to, but suspected had once been there.