Mazmur 102:18

102:18 The account of his intervention ¹  will be recorded for future generations;

people yet to be born will praise the Lord.

Mazmur 51:1

Psalm 51 ² 

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. ³ 

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of ⁴  your loyal love!

Because of ⁵  your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! ⁶ 

Mazmur 52:1

Psalm 52 ⁷ 

For the music director; a well-written song ⁸  by David. It was written when Doeg the Edomite went and informed Saul: “David has arrived at the home of Ahimelech.” ⁹ 

52:1 Why do you boast about your evil plans, ¹⁰  O powerful man?

God’s loyal love protects me all day long! ¹¹ 

Mazmur 18:7

18:7 The earth heaved and shook; ¹² 

the roots of the mountains ¹³  trembled; ¹⁴ 

they heaved because he was angry.

[102:18]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text has simply “this,” referring to the anticipated divine intervention on behalf of Zion (vv. 13, 16-17). The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[51:1]  ² sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. The exiles could relate to David’s experience, for they, like him, and had been forced to confront their sin. They appropriated David’s ancient prayer and applied it to their own circumstances.

[51:1]  ³ tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”

[51:1]  ⁴ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁵ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁶ tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”

[52:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 52. The psalmist confidently confronts his enemy and affirms that God will destroy evildoers and vindicate the godly.

[52:1]  ⁸ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. The word is derived from a verb meaning “to be prudent; to be wise.” Various options are: “a contemplative song,” “a song imparting moral wisdom,” or “a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.” The term occurs in the superscriptions of Pss 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142, as well as in Ps 47:7.

[52:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said to him, ‘David has come to the house of Ahimelech.’”

[52:1]  sn According to the superscription, David wrote this psalm during the period when Saul was seeking his life. On one occasion Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s head shepherd (1 Sam 21:7), informed Saul of David’s whereabouts (see 1 Sam 21-22).

[52:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Why do you boast in evil?”

[52:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the loyal love of God [is] all the day.” In this context, where the psalmist is threatened by his enemy, the point seems to be that the psalmist is protected by God’s loyal love at all times.

[18:7]  ¹² sn The earth heaved and shook. The imagery pictures an earthquake in which the earth’s surface rises and falls. The earthquake motif is common in OT theophanies of God as warrior and in ancient Near Eastern literary descriptions of warring gods and kings. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 160-62.

[18:7]  ¹³ tn 2 Sam 22:8 has “heavens” which forms a merism with “earth” in the preceding line. The “foundations of the heavens” would be the mountains. However, the reading “foundations of the mountains” has a parallel in Deut 32:22.

[18:7]  ¹⁴ tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the three prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive in the verse.