Why are verses missing in the Psalms in my Bible?

Question

Today, to my surprise, I discovered that Bible in my native Georgian language is not complete. I have checked several sources and compared to English and Russian Bibles, and there are missing verses in Psalms. For example, Ps 109 has 31 verses but in the Georgian one it has 7 verses only. Other chapters have similar issues, but I haven't checked other books. Why is this so? It can't be that they could not translate them.

Answer 1

The issue is most likely the numbering of the Psalms in your Bible. Your Georgian translation appears to use the Greek (Septuagint) numbering that is common in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles, while the Bibles you are comparing against use the numbering of the Hebrew (Masoretic) text.

Let's look at Psalm 109 as an example. According to the Hebrew numbering, Psalm 109 has 31 verses and begins like this:

Be not silent, O God of my praise! [ESV]

But according to the Greek numbering, Psalm 109 has 7 verses and begins like this:

The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”

In the Hebrew numbering system, this is actually Psalm 110, as you'll see if you click the link.

Why does this happen? The short version is that some psalms are combined (or split, depending on your perspective) in the Greek version that aren't combined (or split) in the Hebrew version. Here's the numbering breakdown, from Wikipedia:

Hebrew (Masoretic)    Greek (Septuagint or Vulgate)
    1–8                           1–8
    9–10                          9
    11–113                        10–112
    114–115                       113
    116                           114–115
    117–146                       116–145
    147                           146–147
    148–150                       148–150