Mazmur 107:38

107:38 He blessed ¹  them so that they became very numerous.

He would not allow their cattle to decrease in number. ² 

Mazmur 144:13-15

144:13 Our storehouses ³  will be full,

providing all kinds of food. ⁴ 

Our sheep will multiply by the thousands

and fill ⁵  our pastures. ⁶ 

144:14 Our cattle will be weighted down with produce. ⁷ 

No one will break through our walls,

no one will be taken captive,

and there will be no terrified cries in our city squares. ⁸ 

144:15 How blessed are the people who experience these things! ⁹ 

How blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!

[107:38]  ¹ tn “Bless” here carries the nuance “endue with sexual potency, make fertile.” See Gen 1:28, where the statement “he blessed them” directly precedes the command “be fruitful and populate the earth” (see also 1:22). The verb “bless” carries this same nuance in Gen 17:16 (where God’s blessing of Sarai imparts to her the capacity to bear a child); 48:16 (where God’s blessing of Joseph’s sons is closely associated with their having numerous descendants); and Deut 7:13 (where God’s blessing is associated with fertility in general, including numerous descendants). See also Gen 49:25 (where Jacob uses the noun derivative in referring to “blessings of the breast and womb,” an obvious reference to fertility) and Gen 27:27 (where the verb is used of a field to which God has given the capacity to produce vegetation).

[107:38]  ² tn The verbal form in this line appears to be an imperfect, which may be taken as customary (drawing attention to typical action in a past time frame) or as generalizing (in which case one should use the English present tense, understanding a move from narrative to present reality).

[144:13]  ³ tn The Hebrew noun occurs only here.

[144:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “from kind to kind.” Some prefer to emend the text to מָזוֹן עַל מָזוֹן (mazon ’al mazon, “food upon food”).

[144:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “they are innumerable.”

[144:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “in outside places.” Here the term refers to pastures and fields (see Job 5:10; Prov 8:26).

[144:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “weighted down.” This probably refers (1) to the cattle having the produce from the harvest placed on their backs to be transported to the storehouses (see BDB 687 s.v. סָבַל). Other options are (2) to take this as reference to the cattle being pregnant (see HALOT 741 s.v. סבל pu) or (3) to their being well-fed or fattened (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 288).

[144:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “there [will be] no breach, and there [will be] no going out, and there [will be] no crying out in our broad places.”

[144:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “[O] the happiness of the people who [it is] such to them.”