Mazmur 32:8

32:8 I will instruct and teach you ¹  about how you should live. ² 

I will advise you as I look you in the eye. ³ 

Mazmur 56:8

56:8 You keep track of my misery. ⁴ 

Put my tears in your leather container! ⁵ 

Are they not recorded in your scroll? ⁶ 

Mazmur 60:3

60:3 You have made your people experience hard times; ⁷ 

you have made us drink intoxicating wine. ⁸ 

Mazmur 74:11

74:11 Why do you remain inactive?

Intervene and destroy him! ⁹ 

Mazmur 80:5

80:5 You have given them tears as food; ¹⁰ 

you have made them drink tears by the measure. ¹¹ 

Mazmur 80:8

80:8 You uprooted a vine ¹²  from Egypt;

you drove out nations and transplanted it.

Mazmur 83:1

Psalm 83 ¹³ 

A song, a psalm of Asaph.

83:1 O God, do not be silent!

Do not ignore us! ¹⁴  Do not be inactive, O God!

Mazmur 91:13

91:13 You will subdue ¹⁵  a lion and a snake; ¹⁶ 

you will trample underfoot a young lion and a serpent.

Mazmur 139:5

139:5 You squeeze me in from behind and in front;

you place your hand on me.

[32:8]  ¹ tn The second person pronominal forms in this verse are singular. The psalmist addresses each member of his audience individually (see also the note on the word “eye” in the next line). A less likely option (but one which is commonly understood) is that the Lord addresses the psalmist in vv. 8-9 (cf. NASB “I will instruct you and teach you…I will counsel you with My eye upon you”).

[32:8]  ² tn Heb “I will instruct you and I will teach you in the way [in] which you should walk.”

[32:8]  ³ tn Heb “I will advise, upon you my eye,” that is, “I will offer advice [with] my eye upon you.” In 2 Chr 20:12 the statement “our eye is upon you” means that the speakers are looking to the Lord for intervention. Here the expression “my eye upon you” may simply mean that the psalmist will teach his pupils directly and personally.

[56:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “my wandering you count, you.” The Hebrew term נֹד (nod, “wandering,” derived from the verbal root נוֹד, nod, “to wander”; cf. NASB) here refers to the psalmist’s “changeable circumstances of life” and may be translated “misery.” The verb סָפַר (safar, “count”) probably carries the nuance “assess” here. Cf. NIV “my lament”; NRSV “my tossings.”

[56:8]  ⁵ tn Traditionally “your bottle.” Elsewhere the Hebrew word נֹאד (no’d, “leather container”) refers to a container made from animal skin which is used to hold wine or milk (see Josh 9:4, 13; Judg 4:19; 1 Sam 16:20). If such a container is metaphorically in view here, then the psalmist seems to be asking God to store up his tears as a reminder of his suffering.

[56:8]  ⁶ tn The word “recorded” is supplied in the translation for clarification. The rhetorical question assumes a positive response (see the first line of the verse).

[60:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “you have caused your people to see [what is] hard.”

[60:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “wine of staggering,” that is, intoxicating wine that makes one stagger in drunkenness. Intoxicating wine is here an image of divine judgment that makes its victims stagger like drunkards. See Isa 51:17-23.

[74:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? From the midst of your chest, destroy!” The psalmist pictures God as having placed his right hand (symbolic of activity and strength) inside his robe against his chest. He prays that God would pull his hand out from under his robe and use it to destroy the enemy.

[80:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you have fed them the food of tears.”

[80:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[by] the third part [of a measure].” The Hebrew term שָׁלִישׁ (shalish, “third part [of a measure]”) occurs only here and in Isa 40:12.

[80:8]  ¹² sn The vine is here a metaphor for Israel (see Ezek 17:6-10; Hos 10:1).

[83:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 83. The psalmist asks God to deliver Israel from the attacks of foreign nations. Recalling how God defeated Israel’s enemies in the days of Deborah and Gideon, he prays that the hostile nations would be humiliated.

[83:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “do not be deaf.”

[91:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “walk upon.”

[91:13]  ¹⁶ tn Or perhaps “cobra” (see Ps 58:4).