Mazmur 2:1

Psalm 2 ¹ 

2:1 Why ²  do the nations rebel? ³ 

Why ⁴  are the countries ⁵  devising ⁶  plots that will fail? ⁷ 

Mazmur 48:4

48:4 For ⁸  look, the kings assemble; ⁹ 

they advance together.

Mazmur 50:9

50:9 I do not need to take ¹⁰  a bull from your household

or goats from your sheepfolds.

Mazmur 54:4

54:4 Look, God is my deliverer! ¹¹ 

The Lord is among those who support me. ¹² 

Mazmur 73:15-16

73:15 If I had publicized these thoughts, ¹³ 

I would have betrayed your loyal followers. ¹⁴ 

73:16 When I tried to make sense of this,

it was troubling to me. ¹⁵ 

Mazmur 82:6

82:6 I thought, ¹⁶  ‘You are gods;

all of you are sons of the Most High.’ ¹⁷ 

Mazmur 94:11

94:11 The Lord knows that

peoples’ thoughts are morally bankrupt. ¹⁸ 

Mazmur 106:22

106:22 amazing feats in the land of Ham,

mighty ¹⁹  acts by the Red Sea.

Mazmur 111:2

111:2 The Lord’s deeds are great,

eagerly awaited ²⁰  by all who desire them.

Mazmur 116:5

116:5 The Lord is merciful and fair;

our God is compassionate.

Mazmur 118:13

118:13 “You aggressively attacked me ²¹  and tried to knock me down, ²² 

but the Lord helped me.

Mazmur 118:23

118:23 This is the Lord’s work.

We consider it amazing! ²³ 

Mazmur 119:1

Psalm 119 ²⁴ 

א (Alef)

119:1 How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, ²⁵ 

who obey ²⁶  the law of the Lord.

Mazmur 119:4

119:4 You demand that your precepts

be carefully kept. ²⁷ 

Mazmur 119:39

119:39 Take away the insults that I dread! ²⁸ 

Indeed, ²⁹  your regulations are good.

Mazmur 119:129

פ (Pe)

119:129 Your rules are marvelous.

Therefore I observe them.

[2:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 2. In this royal psalm the author asserts the special status of the divinely chosen Davidic king and warns the nations and their rulers to submit to the authority of God and his chosen vice-regent.

[2:1]  ² tn The question is rhetorical. Rather than seeking information, the psalmist expresses his outrage that the nations would have the audacity to rebel against God and his chosen king.

[2:1]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb רָגַשׁ (ragash) occurs only here. In Dan 6:6, 11, 15 the Aramaic cognate verb describes several officials acting as a group. A Hebrew nominal derivative is used in Ps 55:14 of a crowd of people in the temple.

[2:1]  ⁴ tn The interrogative לָמָּה (lamah, “why?”) is understood by ellipsis in the second line.

[2:1]  ⁵ tn Or “peoples” (so many English versions).

[2:1]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew imperfect form describes the rebellion as underway. The verb הָגָה (hagah), which means “to recite quietly, meditate,” here has the metonymic nuance “devise, plan, plot” (see Ps 38:12; Prov 24:2).

[2:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “devising emptiness.” The noun רִיק (riq, “emptiness”) may characterize their behavior as “worthless, morally bankrupt” but more likely refers to the outcome of their plots (i.e., failure). As the rest of the psalm emphasizes, their rebellion will fail.

[48:4]  ⁸ tn The logical connection between vv. 3-4 seems to be this: God is the protector of Zion and reveals himself as the city’s defender – this is necessary because hostile armies threaten the city.

[48:4]  ⁹ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 4-6 are understood as descriptive. In dramatic style (note הִנֵּה, hinneh, “look”) the psalm describes an enemy attack against the city as if it were occurring at this very moment. Another option is to take the perfects as narrational (“the kings assembled, they advanced”), referring to a particular historical event, such as Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701 b.c. (cf. NIV, NRSV). Even if one translates the verses in a dramatic-descriptive manner (as the present translation does), the Lord’s victory over the Assyrians was probably what served as the inspiration of the description (see v. 8).

[50:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I will not take.”

[54:4]  ¹¹ tn Or “my helper.”

[54:4]  ¹² tn Or “sustain my life.”

[73:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “If I had said, ‘I will speak out like this.’”

[73:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “look, the generation of your sons I would have betrayed.” The phrase “generation of your [i.e., God’s] sons” occurs only here in the OT. Some equate the phrase with “generation of the godly” (Ps 14:5), “generation of the ones seeking him” (Ps 24:6), and “generation of the upright” (Ps 112:2). In Deut 14:1 the Israelites are referred to as God’s “sons.” Perhaps the psalmist refers here to those who are “Israelites” in the true sense because of their loyalty to God (note the juxtaposition of “Israel” with “the pure in heart” in v. 1).

[73:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and [when] I pondered to understand this, troubling it [was] in my eyes.”

[82:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “said.”

[82:6]  ¹⁷ sn Normally in the OT the title Most High belongs to the God of Israel, but in this context, where the mythological overtones are so strong, it probably refers to the Canaanite high god El (see v. 1, as well as Isa 14:13).

[94:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are emptiness.” The psalmist thinks specifically of the “thoughts” expressed in v. 7.

[106:22]  ¹⁹ tn Or “awe-inspiring.”

[111:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “sought out.”

[118:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “pushing, you pushed me.” The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following verbal idea. The psalmist appears to address the nations as if they were an individual enemy. Some find this problematic and emend the verb form (which is a Qal perfect second masculine singular with a first person singular suffix) to נִדְחֵיתִי (nidkheti), a Niphal perfect first common singular, “I was pushed.”

[118:13]  ²² tn Heb “to fall,” i.e., “that [I] might fall.”

[118:23]  ²³ tn Heb “it is amazing in our eyes.” The use of the plural pronoun here and in vv. 24-27 suggests that the psalmist may be speaking for the entire nation. However, it is more likely that vv. 22-27 are the people’s response to the psalmist’s thanksgiving song (see especially v. 26). They rejoice with him because his deliverance on the battlefield (see vv. 10-12) had national repercussions.

[119:1]  ²⁴ sn Psalm 119. The psalmist celebrates God’s law and the guidance it provides his people. He expresses his desire to know God’s law thoroughly so that he might experience the blessings that come to those who obey it. This lengthy psalm exhibits an elaborate acrostic pattern. The psalm is divided into twenty-two sections (corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each of which is comprised of eight verses. Each of the verses in the first section (vv. 1-8) begins with the letter alef (א), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern continues throughout the psalm as each new section highlights a successive letter of the alphabet. Each verse in section two (vv. 9-16) begins with the second letter of the alphabet, each verse in section three (vv. 17-24) with the third letter, etc. This rigid pattern creates a sense of order and completeness and may have facilitated memorization.

[119:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness of those who are blameless of way.”

[119:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “walk in.”

[119:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “you, you commanded your precepts, to keep, very much.”

[119:39]  ²⁸ tn Heb “my reproach that I fear.”

[119:39]  ²⁹ tn Or “for.”