What are these characters? (Characters identified: 牧者所愛)

Question

I'm very rusty, and can't figure out the last character. Am I correct that the first 3 are 牧者所? Thank you so, so much!

Answer 1

The first three characters are indeed 「牧者所」, with 「牧」 written with a corrupted 「攵」 which appears as 「文」. The last character is a reshuffled 「𢜤」, which in the current script is written as 「愛」.

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戰國・晉
金

󱩃𧊒壺
集成9734戰國・楚
簡

六德・17
郭店楚簡
隸定


　

「愛」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*[q]ˤə[p]-s/, [benevolent] love) was originally written as 「㤅」, comprised of semantic 「心」 (heart) and phonetic 「旡」 (/*[k]ə[t]-s/).

秦
簡

54.51
睡虎地秦簡
篆

夊部
說文解字
隸定


　

「夊」 was added later for no particular functionality. This was perhaps stylistic, and happened in several characters right below a component with the shape of a person. For reference, 「旡」 depicts a kneeling person with an open mouth.

西漢
隸

老子甲115
馬王堆帛書東漢
隸

郙閣頌
　西晉
隸

徐美人墓志
　
楷


　

「旡」 was later corrupted into 「⿱爫冖」, forming 「愛」. Sometimes, 「心」 and 「夊」 were also shuffled around; if 「心」 is moved to the bottom left, it is written as 「忄」.

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The character in question,

retains the non-corrupted 「旡」

　

and shuffles 「心」 to the bottom left.

　

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References:

• 小學堂
  • 字形演變
  • 異體字表
• 漢語多功能字庫
• 中國社會科學院考古研究所《殷周金文集成》

Answer 2

These four characters are "牧者所爱" in Clerical script font.

"牧者所爱" is a title of a Hymn. The English title is "DEAR TO THE HEART OF THE SHEPHERD," written by Ma­ry B. Win­gate.