Mazmur 30:9

30:9 “What ¹  profit is there in taking my life, ² 

in my descending into the Pit? ³ 

Can the dust of the grave ⁴  praise you?

Can it declare your loyalty? ⁵ 

Mazmur 34:1

Psalm 34 ⁶ 

Written by David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, causing the king to send him away. ⁷ 

34:1 I will praise ⁸  the Lord at all times;

my mouth will continually praise him. ⁹ 

Mazmur 43:4

43:4 Then I will go ¹⁰  to the altar of God,

to the God who gives me ecstatic joy, ¹¹ 

so that I express my thanks to you, ¹²  O God, my God, with a harp.

Mazmur 92:1

Psalm 92 ¹³ 

A psalm; a song for the Sabbath day.

92:1 It is fitting ¹⁴  to thank the Lord,

and to sing praises to your name, O sovereign One! ¹⁵ 

[30:9]  ¹ sn The following two verses (vv. 9-10) contain the prayer (or an excerpt of the prayer) that the psalmist offered to the Lord during his crisis.

[30:9]  ² tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.

[30:9]  ³ tn The Hebrew term שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4).

[30:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[30:9]  ⁵ tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”

[30:9]  sn According to the OT, those who descend into the realm of death/Sheol are cut off from God’s mighty deeds and from the worshiping covenant community that experiences divine intervention (Pss 6:5; 88:10-12; Isa 38:18). In his effort to elicit a positive divine response, the psalmist reminds God that he will receive no praise or glory if he allows the psalmist to die. Dead men do not praise God!

[34:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 34. In this song of thanksgiving the psalmist praises God for delivering him from distress. He encourages others to be loyal to the Lord, tells them how to please God, and assures them that the Lord protects his servants. The psalm is an acrostic; vv. 1-21 begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. (Verse 6 begins with the letter he (ה) and v. 7 with the letter zayin (ז). The letter vav (ו), which comes between ה and ז, seems to be omitted, although it does appear at the beginning of v. 6b. The final verse of the psalm, which begins with the letter pe (פ), is outside the acrostic scheme.

[34:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “By David, when he changed his sense before Abimelech and he drove him away and he went.”

[34:1]  sn Pretended to be insane. The psalm heading appears to refer to the account in 1 Sam 21:10-15 which tells how David, fearful that King Achish of Gath might kill him, pretended to be insane in hopes that the king would simply send him away. The psalm heading names the king Abimelech, not Achish, suggesting that the tradition is confused on this point. However, perhaps “Abimelech” was a royal title, rather than a proper name. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 278.

[34:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “bless.”

[34:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “continually [will] his praise [be] in my mouth.”

[43:4]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive probably indicates purpose (“so that”) or intention.

[92:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 92. The psalmist praises God because he defeats the wicked and vindicates his loyal followers.

[92:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “good.”

[92:1]  ¹⁵ tn Traditionally “O Most High.”