Mazmur 43:4

43:4 Then I will go ¹  to the altar of God,

to the God who gives me ecstatic joy, ² 

so that I express my thanks to you, ³  O God, my God, with a harp.

Mazmur 71:23

71:23 My lips will shout for joy! Yes, ⁴  I will sing your praises!

I will praise you when you rescue me! ⁵ 

Mazmur 118:14-15

118:14 The Lord gives me strength and protects me; ⁶ 

he has become my deliverer.” ⁷ 

118:15 They celebrate deliverance in the tents of the godly. ⁸ 

The Lord’s right hand conquers, ⁹ 

Mazmur 135:3

135:3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good!

Sing praises to his name, for it is pleasant! ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 149:1-3

Psalm 149 ¹¹ 

149:1 Praise the Lord!

Sing to the Lord a new song!

Praise him in the assembly of the godly! ¹² 

149:2 Let Israel rejoice in their Creator!

Let the people ¹³  of Zion delight in their king! ¹⁴ 

149:3 Let them praise his name with dancing!

Let them sing praises to him to the accompaniment of the tambourine and harp!

[43:4]  ¹ tn The cohortative expresses the psalmist’s resolve. Prefixed with the vav (ו) conjunctive it also expresses the result or outcome of the preceding verbs “lead” and “escort.”

[43:4]  ² tn Heb “to God, the joy of my happiness.” The phrase “joy of my happiness” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the degree of the psalmist’s joy. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[43:4]  ³ tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive probably indicates purpose (“so that”) or intention.

[71:23]  ⁴ tn Or “when.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) has an emphasizing (asseverative) function here.

[71:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “and my life [or “soul”] which you will have redeemed.” The perfect verbal form functions here as a future perfect. The psalmist anticipates praising God, for God will have rescued him by that time.

[118:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “my strength and protection [is] the Lord.” The Hebrew term זִמְרָת (zimrat) is traditionally understood as meaning “song” (“my strength and song [is] the Lord”) in which case one might translate, “for the Lord gives me strength and joy” (i.e., a reason to sing). However, many recent commentators have argued that the noun זִמְרָת is here a homonym, meaning “protection” or “strength.” See HALOT 274 s.v.; cf. NEB “The Lord is my refuge and defence”; NRSV “my strength and my might.”

[118:14]  ⁷ tn Or “salvation.”

[118:15]  ⁸ tn Heb “the sound of a ringing shout and deliverance [is] in the tents of the godly.”

[118:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “does valiantly.” The statement refers here to military success (see Num 24:18; 1 Sam 14:48; Pss 60:12; 108:13).

[135:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for [it is] pleasant.” The translation assumes that it is the Lord’s “name” that is pleasant. Another option is to understand the referent of “it” as the act of praising (see Ps 147:1).

[149:1]  ¹¹ sn Psalm 149. The psalmist calls upon God’s people to praise him because he is just and avenges them.

[149:1]  ¹² tn Heb “his praise in the assembly of the godly ones.”

[149:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “sons.”

[149:2]  ¹⁴ sn The Lord is the king here, as the parallelism in the previous line (“their creator”) indicates.