Mazmur 18:22

18:22 For I am aware of all his regulations, ¹ 

and I do not reject his rules. ² 

Mazmur 33:7

33:7 He piles up the water of the sea; ³ 

he puts the oceans ⁴  in storehouses.

Mazmur 39:7

39:7 But now, O Lord, upon what am I relying?

You are my only hope! ⁵ 

Mazmur 49:4

49:4 I will learn a song that imparts wisdom;

I will then sing my insightful song to the accompaniment of a harp. ⁶ 

Mazmur 61:6

61:6 Give the king long life!

Make his lifetime span several generations! ⁷ 

Mazmur 62:11

62:11 God has declared one principle;

two principles I have heard: ⁸ 

God is strong, ⁹ 

Mazmur 119:43

119:43 Do not completely deprive me of a truthful testimony, ¹⁰ 

for I await your justice.

Mazmur 133:1

Psalm 133 ¹¹ 

A song of ascents, ¹²  by David.

133:1 Look! How good and how pleasant it is

when brothers live together! ¹³ 

[18:22]  ¹ tn Heb “for all his regulations [are] before me.” The Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim, “regulations”) refers to God’s covenantal requirements, especially those which the king is responsible to follow (cf. Deut 17:18-20). See also Pss 19:9 (cf. vv. 7-8); 89:30; 147:20 (cf. v. 19), as well as the numerous uses of the term in Ps 119.

[18:22]  ² tn Heb “and his rules I do not turn aside from me.” 2 Sam 22:23 reads, “and his rules, I do not turn aside from it.” The prefixed verbal form is probably an imperfect; the psalmist here generalizes about his loyalty to God’s commands. The Lord’s “rules” are the stipulations of the covenant which the king was responsible to obey (see Ps 89:31; cf. v. 30 and Deut 17:18-20).

[33:7]  ³ tn Heb “[he] gathers like a pile the waters of the sea.” Some prefer to emend נֵד (ged, “heap, pile”; cf. NASB) to נֹד (nod, “bottle”; cf. NRSV; NIV “into jars”), but “pile” is used elsewhere to describe water that the Lord confines to one place (Exod 15:8; Josh 3:13, 16; Ps 78:13). This verse appears to refer to Gen 1:9, where God decrees that the watery deep be gathered to one place so that dry land might appear. If so, the participles in this and the following line depict this action with special vividness, as if the reader were present on the occasion. Another option is that the participles picture the confinement of the sea to one place as an ongoing divine activity.

[33:7]  ⁴ tn Or “watery depths.” The form תְּהוֹמוֹת (tÿhomot, “watery depths”) is the plural form of תְּהוֹם (tÿhom, “great deep”; see Gen 1:2).

[39:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “my hope, for you it [is].”

[49:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will turn my ear to a wise saying, I will open [i.e., “reveal; explain”] my insightful saying with a harp.” In the first line the psalmist speaks as a pupil who learns a song of wisdom from a sage. This suggests that the resulting insightful song derives from another source, perhaps God himself. Elsewhere the Hebrew word pair חִידָה/מָשָׁל (mashal/khidah) refers to a taunt song (Hab 2:6), a parable (Ezek 17:2), lessons from history (Ps 78:2), and proverbial sayings (Prov 1:6). Here it appears to refer to the insightful song that follows, which reflects on the mortality of humankind and the ultimate inability of riches to prevent the inevitable – death. Another option is that the word pair refers more specifically to the closely related proverbial sayings of vv. 12, 20 (note the use of the verb מָשָׁל, mashal, “to be like” in both verses). In this case the psalmist first hears the sayings and then explains (Heb “opens”) their significance (see vv. 5-11, 13-19).

[61:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “days upon days of the king add, his years like generation and generation.”

[61:6]  sn It is not certain if the (royal) psalmist is referring to himself in the third person in this verse, or if an exile is praying on behalf of the king.

[62:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “one God spoke, two which I heard.” This is a numerical saying utilizing the “x” followed by “x + 1” pattern to facilitate poetic parallelism. (See W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament [VTSup], 55-56.) As is typical in such sayings, a list corresponding to the second number (in this case “two”) follows. Another option is to translate, “God has spoken once, twice [he has spoken] that which I have heard.” The terms אַחַת (’akhat, “one; once”) and שְׁתַּיִם (shÿtayim, “two; twice”) are also juxtaposed in 2 Kgs 6:10 (where they refer to an action that was done more than “once or twice”) and in Job 33:14 (where they refer to God speaking “one way” and then in “another manner”).

[62:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “that strength [belongs] to God.”

[119:43]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “do not snatch from my mouth a word of truth to excess.” The psalmist wants to be able to give a reliable testimony about the Lord’s loyal love (vv. 41-42), but if God does not intervene, the psalmist will be deprived of doing so, for the evidence of such love (i.e., deliverance) will be lacking.

[133:1]  ¹¹ sn Psalm 133. The psalmist affirms the benefits of family unity.

[133:1]  ¹² sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[133:1]  ¹³ sn This statement refers to the extended family structure of ancient Israel, where brothers would often live in proximity to one another (Deut 25:5), giving the family greater social prominence and security. However, in its later application in the Israelite cult it probably envisions unity within the covenant community. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 212-15.