Mazmur 5:8

5:8 Lord, lead me in your righteousness ¹ 

because of those who wait to ambush me, ² 

remove the obstacles in the way in which you are guiding me! ³ 

Mazmur 18:43

18:43 You rescue me from a hostile army; ⁴ 

you make me ⁵  a leader of nations;

people over whom I had no authority are now my subjects. ⁶ 

Mazmur 18:50

18:50 He ⁷  gives his chosen king magnificent victories; ⁸ 

he is faithful ⁹  to his chosen ruler, ¹⁰ 

to David and his descendants ¹¹  forever.” ¹² 

Mazmur 22:9

22:9 Yes, you are the one who brought me out ¹³  from the womb

and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts.

Mazmur 22:25

22:25 You are the reason I offer praise ¹⁴  in the great assembly;

I will fulfill my promises before the Lord’s loyal followers. ¹⁵ 

Mazmur 31:19

31:19 How great is your favor, ¹⁶ 

which you store up for your loyal followers! ¹⁷ 

In plain sight of everyone you bestow it on those who take shelter ¹⁸  in you. ¹⁹ 

Mazmur 41:2

41:2 May the Lord protect him and save his life! ²⁰ 

May he be blessed ²¹  in the land!

Do not turn him over ²²  to his enemies! ²³ 

Mazmur 68:27

68:27 There is little Benjamin, their ruler, ²⁴ 

and the princes of Judah in their robes, ²⁵ 

along with the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Naphtali.

Mazmur 78:38

78:38 Yet he is compassionate.

He forgives sin and does not destroy.

He often holds back his anger,

and does not stir up his fury. ²⁶ 

[5:8]  ¹ tn God’s providential leading is in view. His צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “righteousness”) includes here the deliverance that originates in his righteousness; he protects and vindicates the one whose cause is just. For other examples of this use of the word, see BDB 842 s.v.

[5:8]  ² tn Heb “because of those who watch me [with evil intent].” See also Pss 27:11; 56:2.

[5:8]  ³ tn Heb “make level before me your way.” The imperative “make level” is Hiphil in the Kethib (consonantal text); Piel in the Qere (marginal reading). God’s “way” is here the way in which he leads the psalmist providentially (see the preceding line, where the psalmist asks the Lord to lead him).

[18:43]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the strivings of a people.” In this context the Hebrew term רִיב (riv, “striving”) probably has a militaristic sense (as in Judg 12:2; Isa 41:11), and עָם (’am, “people”) probably refers more specifically to an army (for other examples, see the verses listed in BDB 766 s.v. I עַם, עָם 2.d). Some understand the phrase as referring to attacks by the psalmist’s own countrymen, the “nation” being Israel. However, foreign enemies appear to be in view; note the reference to “nations” in the following line.

[18:43]  ⁵ tn 2 Sam 22:44 reads, “you keep me.”

[18:43]  ⁶ tn Heb “a people whom I did not know serve me.” In this context “know” (יָדַע, yada’) probably refers to formal recognition by treaty. People who were once not under the psalmist’s authority now willingly submit to his rulership to avoid being conquered militarily (see vv. 44-45). The language may recall the events recorded in 2 Sam 8:9-10 and 10:19.

[18:50]  ⁷ tn Or “the one who.”

[18:50]  ⁸ tn Heb “magnifies the victories of his king.” “His king” refers to the psalmist, the Davidic king whom God has chosen to rule Israel.

[18:50]  ⁹ tn Heb “[the one who] does loyalty.”

[18:50]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his anointed [one],” i.e., the psalmist/Davidic king. See Ps 2:2.

[18:50]  ¹¹ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[18:50]  ¹² sn If David is the author of the psalm (see the superscription), then he here anticipates that God will continue to demonstrate loyalty to his descendants who succeed him. If the author is a later Davidic king, then he views the divine favor he has experienced as the outworking of God’s faithful promises to David his ancestor.

[22:9]  ¹³ tn Or “the one who pulled me.” The verb is derived from either גָחָה (gakhah; see HALOT 187 s.v. גחה) or גִּיחַ (giyakh; see BDB 161 s.v. גִּיחַ) and seems to carry the nuance “burst forth” or “pull out.”

[22:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from with you [is] my praise.”

[22:25]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “my vows I will fulfill before those who fear him.” When asking the Lord for help, the psalmists would typically promise to praise the Lord publicly if he intervened and delivered them.

[31:19]  ¹⁶ tn Or “How abundant are your blessings!”

[31:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “for those who fear you.”

[31:19]  ¹⁸ tn “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 2:12; 5:11-12; 34:21-22).

[31:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “you work [your favor] for the ones seeking shelter in you before the sons of men.”

[41:2]  ²⁰ tn The prefixed verbal forms are taken as jussives in the translation because the jussive is clearly used in the final line of the verse, suggesting that this is a prayer. The psalmist stops to pronounce a prayer of blessing on the godly individual envisioned in v. 1. Of course, he actually has himself primarily in view. He mixes confidence (vv. 1, 3) with petition (v. 2) because he stands in the interval between the word of assurance and the actual intervention by God.

[41:2]  ²¹ tc The translation follows the consonantal Hebrew text (Kethib), which has a Pual (passive) prefixed form, regarded here as a jussive. The Pual of the verb אָשַׁר (’ashar) also appears in Prov 3:18. The marginal reading (Qere) assumes a vav (ו) consecutive and Pual perfect. Some, with the support of the LXX, change the verb to a Piel (active) form with an objective pronominal suffix, “and may he bless him,” or “and he will bless him” (cf. NIV).

[41:2]  ²² tn The negative particle אַל (’al) before the prefixed verbal form indicates the verb is a jussive and the statement a prayer. Those who want to take v. 2 as a statement of confidence suggest emending the negative particle to לֹא (lo’), which is used with the imperfect. See the earlier note on the verbal forms in line one of this verse. According to GKC 322 §109.e, this is a case where the jussive is used rhetorically to “express that something cannot or should not happen.” In this case one might translate, “you will not turn him over to his enemies,” and take the preceding verbal forms as indicative in mood.

[41:2]  ²³ tn Heb “do not give him over to the desire of his enemies” (see Ps 27:12).

[68:27]  ²⁴ sn Little Benjamin, their ruler. This may allude to the fact that Israel’s first king, Saul, was from the tribe of Benjamin.

[68:27]  ²⁵ tc The MT reads רִגְמָתָם (rigmatam), which many derive from רָגַם (ragam, “to kill by stoning”) and translates, “[in] their heaps,” that is, in large numbers.

[78:38]  ²⁶ tn One could translate v. 38 in the past tense (“he was compassionate…forgave sin and did not destroy…held back his anger, and did not stir up his fury”), but the imperfect verbal forms are probably best understood as generalizing. Verse 38 steps back briefly from the narrational summary of Israel’s history and lays the theological basis for v. 39, which focuses on God’s mercy toward sinful Israel.