1 Samuel 2:9

2:9 He watches over ¹  his holy ones, ² 

but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,

for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

Mazmur 17:5

17:5 I carefully obey your commands; ³ 

I do not deviate from them. ⁴ 

Mazmur 94:18

94:18 If I say, “My foot is slipping,”

your loyal love, O Lord, supports me.

Mazmur 121:3

121:3 May he not allow your foot to slip!

May your protector ⁵  not sleep! ⁶ 

[2:9]  ¹ tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:9]  ² tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.

[17:5]  ³ tn Heb “my steps stay firm in your tracks.” The infinitive absolute functions here as a finite verb (see GKC 347 §113.gg). God’s “tracks” are his commands, i.e., the moral pathways he has prescribed for the psalmist.

[17:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “my footsteps do not stagger.”

[121:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “the one who guards you.”

[121:3]  ⁶ tn The prefixed verbal forms following the negative particle אל appear to be jussives. As noted above, if they are taken as true jussives of prayer, then the speaker in v. 3 would appear to be distinct from both the speaker in vv. 1-2 and the speaker in vv. 4-8. However, according to GKC 322 §109.e), the jussives are used rhetorically here “to express the conviction that something cannot or should not happen.” In this case one should probably translate, “he will not allow your foot to slip, your protector will not sleep,” and understand just one speaker in vv. 4-8.