Mazmur 13:1

Psalm 13 ¹ 

For the music director; a psalm of David.

13:1 How long, Lord, will you continue to ignore me? ² 

How long will you pay no attention to me? ³ 

Mazmur 17:15

17:15 As for me, because I am innocent I will see your face; ⁴ 

when I awake you will reveal yourself to me. ⁵ 

Mazmur 21:9

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ⁶  when you appear; ⁷ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ⁸ 

the fire consumes them.

Mazmur 22:27

22:27 Let all the people of the earth acknowledge the Lord and turn to him! ⁹ 

Let all the nations ¹⁰  worship you! ¹¹ 

Mazmur 27:9

27:9 Do not reject me! ¹² 

Do not push your servant away in anger!

You are my deliverer! ¹³ 

Do not forsake or abandon me,

O God who vindicates me!

Mazmur 88:1

Psalm 88 ¹⁴ 

A song, a psalm written by the Korahites; for the music director; according to the machalath-leannoth style; ¹⁵  a well-written song ¹⁶  by Heman the Ezrachite.

88:1 O Lord God who delivers me! ¹⁷ 

By day I cry out

and at night I pray before you. ¹⁸ 

Mazmur 102:2

102:2 Do not ignore me in my time of trouble! ¹⁹ 

Listen to me! ²⁰ 

When I call out to you, quickly answer me!

[13:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 13. The psalmist, who is close to death, desperately pleads for God’s deliverance and affirms his trust in God’s faithfulness.

[13:1]  ² tn Heb “will you forget me continually.”

[13:1]  ³ tn Heb “will you hide your face from me.”

[17:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “I, in innocence, I will see your face.” To “see” God’s “face” means to have access to his presence and to experience his favor (see Ps 11:7; see also Job 33:26 [where רָאָה (ra’ah), not חָזַה (khazah), is used]). Here, however, the psalmist may be anticipating a mystical experience. See the following note on the word “me.”

[17:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will be satisfied, when I awake, [with] your form.” The noun תְּמוּנָה (tÿmunah) normally carries the nuance “likeness” or “form.” In Job 4:16 it refers to a ghostlike spiritual entity (see v. 15) that revealed itself to Eliphaz during the night. The psalmist may anticipate a mystical encounter with God in which he expects to see a manifestation of God’s presence (i.e., a theophany), perhaps in conjunction with an oracle of deliverance. During the quiet darkness of the night, God examines the psalmist’s inner motives and finds them to be pure (see v. 3). The psalmist is confident that when he awakens, perhaps sometime during the night or in the morning, he will be visited by God and assured of vindication.

[17:15]  sn When I awake you will reveal yourself to me. Some see in this verse an allusion to resurrection. According to this view, when the psalmist awakens from the sleep of death, he will see God. It is unlikely that the psalmist had such a highly developed personal eschatology. As noted above, it is more likely that he is anticipating a divine visitation and mystical encounter as a prelude to his deliverance from his enemies.

[21:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[22:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “may all the ends of the earth remember and turn to the Lord.” The prefixed verbal forms in v. 27 are understood as jussives (cf. NEB). Another option (cf. NIV, NRSV) is to take the forms as imperfects and translate, “all the people of the earth will acknowledge and turn…and worship.” See vv. 29-32.

[22:27]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “families of the nations.”

[22:27]  ¹¹ tn Heb “before you.”

[27:9]  ¹² tn Heb “do not hide your face from me.” The idiom “hide the face” can mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 30:7; 88:14).

[27:9]  ¹³ tn Or “[source of] help.”

[88:1]  ¹⁴ sn Psalm 88. The psalmist cries out in pain to the Lord, begging him for relief from his intense and constant suffering. The psalmist regards God as the ultimate cause of his distress, but nevertheless clings to God in hope.

[88:1]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew phrase מָחֲלַת לְעַנּוֹת (makhalat lÿ’annot) may mean “illness to afflict.” Perhaps it refers to a particular style of music, a tune title, or a musical instrument. The term מָחֲלַת also appears in the superscription of Ps 53.

[88:1]  ¹⁶ 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.

[88:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “O Lord God of my deliverance.” In light of the content of the psalm, this reference to God as the one who delivers seems overly positive. For this reason some emend the text to אַלֹהַי שִׁוַּעְתִּי (’alohay shivva’tiy, “[O Lord] my God, I cry out”). See v. 13.

[88:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “[by] day I cry out, in the night before you.”

[102:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “do not hide your face from me in the day of my trouble.” The idiom “to hide the face” can mean “to ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or carry the stronger idea of “to reject” (see Pss 29:7; 30:7; 88:14).

[102:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “turn toward me your ear.”