Mazmur 20:1

Psalm 20 ¹ 

For the music director; a psalm of David.

20:1 May the Lord answer ²  you ³  when you are in trouble; ⁴ 

may the God of Jacob ⁵  make you secure!

Mazmur 27:2

27:2 When evil men attack me ⁶ 

to devour my flesh, ⁷ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ⁸ 

they stumble and fall. ⁹ 

Mazmur 41:3

41:3 The Lord supports ¹⁰  him on his sickbed;

you completely heal him from his illness. ¹¹ 

Mazmur 71:6

71:6 I have leaned on you since birth; ¹² 

you pulled me ¹³  from my mother’s womb.

I praise you continually. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 137:7

137:7 Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did

on the day Jerusalem fell. ¹⁵ 

They said, “Tear it down, tear it down, ¹⁶ 

right to its very foundation!”

[20:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 20. The people pray for the king’s success in battle. When the king declares his assurance that the Lord will answer the people’s prayer, they affirm their confidence in God’s enablement.

[20:1]  ² tn The prefixed verbal forms here and in vv. 1b-5 are interpreted as jussives of prayer (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV). Another option is to understand them as imperfects, “the Lord will answer,” etc. In this case the people declare their confidence that the Lord will intervene on behalf of the king and extend to him his favor.

[20:1]  ³ sn May the Lord answer you. The people address the king as they pray to the Lord.

[20:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “in a day of trouble.”

[20:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “the name of the God of Jacob.” God’s “name” refers metonymically to his very person and to the divine characteristics suggested by his name, in this case “God of Jacob,” which highlights his relationship to Israel.

[27:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ⁷ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

[41:3]  ¹⁰ tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive, continuing the prayer of v. 2, but the parallel line in v. 3b employs the perfect, suggesting that the psalmist is again speaking in the indicative mood (see v. 1b). The imperfect can be understood as future or as generalizing (see v. 1).

[41:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all his bed you turn in his illness.” The perfect is used here in a generalizing sense (see v. 1) or in a rhetorical manner to emphasize that the healing is as good as done.

[71:6]  ¹² tn Heb “from the womb.”

[71:6]  ¹³ tc The form in the MT is derived from גָזָה (gazah, “to cut off”), perhaps picturing God as the one who severed the psalmist’s umbilical cord. Many interpreters and translators prefer to emend the text to גֹחִי (gokhiy), from גוּח (gukh) or גִיח, (gikh, “pull out”; see Ps 22:9; cf. the present translation) or to עוּזִּי (’uzziy, “my strength”; cf. NEB “my protector since I left my mother’s womb”).

[71:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in you [is] my praise continually.”

[137:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem.”

[137:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lay [it] bare, lay [it] bare.”