30:5 For his anger lasts only a brief moment,
and his good favor restores one’s life. 1
One may experience sorrow during the night,
but joy arrives in the morning. 2
30:9 “What 3 profit is there in taking my life, 4
in my descending into the Pit? 5
Can the dust of the grave 6 praise you?
Can it declare your loyalty? 7
1 tn Heb “for [there is] a moment in his anger, [but] life in his favor.” Because of the parallelism with “moment,” some understand חַיִּים (khayyim) in a quantitative sense: “lifetime” (cf. NIV, NRSV). However, the immediate context, which emphasizes deliverance from death (see v. 3), suggests that חַיִּים has a qualitative sense: “physical life” or even “prosperous life” (cf. NEB “in his favour there is life”).
2 tn Heb “in the evening weeping comes to lodge, but at morning a shout of joy.” “Weeping” is personified here as a traveler who lodges with one temporarily.
3 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.
4 tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.
5 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).
6 tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
7 tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”
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!