Psalm 2:12, does it really say “Kiss the Son”?
Psalm 2:12 reads as kiss the son in the received Hebrew, using Aramaic bar for son where Hebrew ben would mean son; the Septuagint renders the clause as lay hold of instruction.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
The APB translation committee's printed text begins Psalm 2:12 with "Kiss the son". It continues with the warning about anger and perishing on the way, then closes with a blessing on those who seek refuge in him. The printed wording adopts the son reading and uses a lowercase initial for son.
The argument for each reading
If “kiss the Son”
The Masoretic Text reads נשקו בר, rendered as kiss the son. This reading understands bar as the Aramaic word for son. The linguistic oddity is specific: the received Hebrew text uses Aramaic bar where Hebrew ben would mean son. That difference gives the phrase its interpretive difficulty, but it also gives the son reading a concrete basis in the received wording.
Under this interpretation, the command calls for a kiss of homage to the son. The APB prints this reading and follows it with a warning about anger and perishing on the way. The choice therefore affects whom the opening command names and how the requested act is understood.
If “lay hold of instruction”
The Septuagint reads δράξασθε παιδείας, lay hold of instruction. Its translators derived the clause from a different sense of the same consonants. Their rendering contains neither a son nor a kiss of homage. It makes instruction the object of the command.
The Vulgate (Gallican Psalter) follows the Greek with adprehendite disciplinam, embrace discipline. This agreement shows the instruction reading continuing in a translation that follows the Greek; it does not provide an independent Hebrew reading. The case for this interpretation rests on the ancient translators' understanding of the consonants. Under this reading, the opening command urges acceptance of instruction or discipline rather than homage expressed through a kiss.
The disputed point is how to understand the opening command: as a kiss of homage to the son or as an appeal to embrace instruction. The difference concerns the interpretation of the same consonants. It does not by itself settle a doctrine. The APB also prints the warning about anger and the closing blessing on those who seek refuge in him.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.