Mazmur 42:4

42:4 I will remember and weep! ¹ 

For I was once walking along with the great throng to the temple of God,

shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival. ² 

Mazmur 75:8

75:8 For the Lord holds in his hand a cup full

of foaming wine mixed with spices, ³ 

and pours it out. ⁴ 

Surely all the wicked of the earth

will slurp it up and drink it to its very last drop.” ⁵ 

Mazmur 138:2

138:2 I will bow down toward your holy temple,

and give thanks to your name,

because of your loyal love and faithfulness,

for you have exalted your promise above the entire sky. ⁶ 

[42:4]  ¹ tn Heb “These things I will remember and I will pour out upon myself my soul.” “These things” are identified in the second half of the verse as those times when the psalmist worshiped in the Lord’s temple. The two cohortative forms indicate the psalmist’s resolve to remember and weep. The expression “pour out upon myself my soul” refers to mourning (see Job 30:16).

[42:4]  ² tc Heb “for I was passing by with the throng [?], I was walking with [?] them to the house of God; with a voice of a ringing shout and thanksgiving a multitude was observing a festival.” The Hebrew phrase בַּסָּךְ אֶדַּדֵּם (bassakh ’eddaddem, “with the throng [?] I was walking with [?]”) is particularly problematic. The noun סָךְ (sakh) occurs only here. If it corresponds to הָמוֹן (hamon, “multitude”) then one can propose a meaning “throng.” The present translation assumes this reading (cf. NIV, NRSV). The form אֶדַּדֵּם (“I will walk with [?]”) is also very problematic. The form can be taken as a Hitpael from דָּדָה (dadah; this verb possibly appears in Isa 38:15), but the pronominal suffix is problematic. For this reason many emend the form to ם[י]אַדִּרִ (’adirim, “nobles”) or ם-רִ[י]אַדִ (’adirim, “great,” with enclitic mem [ם]). The present translation understands the latter and takes the adjective “great” as modifying “throng.” If one emends סָךְ (sakh, “throng [?]”) to סֹךְ (sokh, “shelter”; see the Qere of Ps 27:5), then ר[י]אַדִּ (’addir) could be taken as a divine epithet, “[in the shelter of] the majestic one,” a reading which may find support in the LXX and Syriac Peshitta.

[75:8]  ³ tn Heb “for a cup [is] in the hand of the Lord, and wine foams, it is full of a spiced drink.” The noun מֶסֶךְ (mesekh) refers to a “mixture” of wine and spices.

[75:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he pours out from this.”

[75:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “surely its dregs they slurp up and drink, all the wicked of the earth.”

[75:8]  sn The psalmist pictures God as forcing the wicked to gulp down an intoxicating drink that will leave them stunned and vulnerable. Divine judgment is also depicted this way in Ps 60:3; Isa 51:17-23; and Hab 2:16.

[138:2]  ⁶ tc The MT reads, “for you have made great over all your name your word.” If retained, this must mean that God's mighty intervention, in fulfillment of his word of promise, surpassed anything he had done prior to this. However, the statement is odd and several emendations have been proposed. Some read, “for you have exalted over everything your name and your word,” while others suggest, “for you have exalted over all the heavens your name and your word.” The translation assumes an emendation of “your name” to “your heavens” (a construction that appears in Pss 8:3 and 144:5). The point is that God has been faithful to his promise and the reliability of that promise is apparent to all. For a fuller discussion of these options, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 244.