Mazmur 17:14

17:14 Lord, use your power to deliver me from these murderers, ¹ 

from the murderers of this world! ² 

They enjoy prosperity; ³ 

you overwhelm them with the riches they desire. ⁴ 

They have many children,

and leave their wealth to their offspring. ⁵ 

Mazmur 22:29

22:29 All of the thriving people ⁶  of the earth will join the celebration and worship; ⁷ 

all those who are descending into the grave ⁸  will bow before him,

including those who cannot preserve their lives. ⁹ 

Mazmur 30:9

30:9 “What ¹⁰  profit is there in taking my life, ¹¹ 

in my descending into the Pit? ¹² 

Can the dust of the grave ¹³  praise you?

Can it declare your loyalty? ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 65:9

65:9 You visit the earth and give it rain; ¹⁵ 

you make it rich and fertile ¹⁶ 

with overflowing streams full of water. ¹⁷ 

You provide grain for them, ¹⁸ 

for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. ¹⁹ 

Mazmur 68:6

68:6 God settles those who have been deserted in their own homes; ²⁰ 

he frees prisoners and grants them prosperity. ²¹ 

But sinful rebels live in the desert. ²² 

Mazmur 72:16

72:16 May there be ²³  an abundance ²⁴  of grain in the earth;

on the tops ²⁵  of the mountains may it ²⁶  sway! ²⁷ 

May its ²⁸  fruit trees ²⁹  flourish ³⁰  like the forests of Lebanon! ³¹ 

May its crops ³²  be as abundant ³³  as the grass of the earth! ³⁴ 

[17:14]  ¹ tc Heb “from men [by] your hand, Lord.” The translation assumes an emendation (both here and in the following line) of מִמְתִים (mimtim, “from men”) to מִמְמִתִים (mimmitim, “from those who kill”). For other uses of the plural form of the Hiphil participle of מוּת (mut, “die”), see 2 Kgs 17:26 (used with lions as subject), Job 33:22 (apparently referring to the agents of death), and Jer 26:15 (used of those seeking Jeremiah’s life).

[17:14]  ² tn Heb “from men, from [the] world.” On the emendation of “men” to “murderers,” see the preceding note on the word “murderers.”

[17:14]  ³ tn Heb “their portion, in life.”

[17:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “and [with] your treasures you fill their belly.”

[17:14]  sn You overwhelm them with the riches they desire. The psalmist is not accusing God of being unjust; he is simply observing that the wicked often prosper and that God is the ultimate source of all blessings that human beings enjoy (see Matt 5:45). When the wicked are ungrateful for God’s blessings, they become even more culpable and deserving of judgment. So this description of the wicked actually supports the psalmist’s appeal for deliverance. God should rescue him because he is innocent (see vv. 3-5) and because the wicked, though blessed abundantly by God, still have the audacity to attack God’s people.

[17:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “they are satisfied [with] sons and leave their abundance to their children.”

[22:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the Lord.

[22:29]  ⁷ tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the Lord will receive universal worship. The mood is one of wishful thinking and anticipation; this is not prophecy in the strict sense.

[22:29]  ⁸ tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.

[22:29]  ⁹ tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”

[30:9]  ¹⁰ sn The following two verses (vv. 9-10) contain the prayer (or an excerpt of the prayer) that the psalmist offered to the Lord during his crisis.

[30:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.

[30:9]  ¹² tn The Hebrew term שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4).

[30:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[30:9]  ¹⁴ tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”

[30:9]  sn According to the OT, those who descend into the realm of death/Sheol are cut off from God’s mighty deeds and from the worshiping covenant community that experiences divine intervention (Pss 6:5; 88:10-12; Isa 38:18). In his effort to elicit a positive divine response, the psalmist reminds God that he will receive no praise or glory if he allows the psalmist to die. Dead men do not praise God!

[65:9]  ¹⁵ tn The verb form is a Polel from שׁוּק (shuq, “be abundant”), a verb which appears only here and in Joel 2:24 and 3:13, where it is used in the Hiphil stem and means “overflow.”

[65:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you greatly enrich it.”

[65:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[with] a channel of God full of water.” The divine name is probably used here in a superlative sense to depict a very deep stream (“a stream fit for God,” as it were).

[65:9]  ¹⁸ tn The pronoun apparently refers to the people of the earth, mentioned in v. 8.

[65:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “for thus [referring to the provision of rain described in the first half of the verse] you prepare it.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix attached to the verb “prepare” refers back to the “earth,” which is a feminine noun with regard to grammatical form.

[68:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “God causes the solitary ones to dwell in a house.” The participle suggests this is what God typically does.

[68:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “he brings out prisoners into prosperity.” Another option is to translate, “he brings out prisoners with singing” (cf. NIV). The participle suggests this is what God typically does.

[68:6]  ²² tn Or “in a parched [land].”

[68:6]  sn God delivers the downtrodden and oppressed, but sinful rebels who oppose his reign are treated appropriately.

[72:16]  ²³ tn The prefixed verbal form is jussive, not imperfect. The translation assumes the subject is impersonal (rather than the king).

[72:16]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew noun פִסַּה (pissah; which appears here in the construct form) occurs only here in the OT. Perhaps the noun is related to the verbal root פָּשָׂה (pasah, “to spread,” see BDB 832 s.v.; the root appears as פָּסָה [pasah] in postbiblical Hebrew), which is used in postbiblical Hebrew of the rising sun’s rays spreading over the horizon and a tree’s branches spreading out (see Jastrow 1194 s.v. פסי, פָּסָה, פָּשָׂה). In Ps 72:16 a “spreading of grain” would refer to grain fields extending out over the land. C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs (Psalms [ICC], 2:139) emend the form to סְפִיחַ (sÿfiakh, “second growth”).

[72:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “top” (singular).

[72:16]  ²⁶ tn That is, the grain.

[72:16]  ²⁷ tn According to the traditional accentuation of the MT, this verb belongs with what follows. See the translator’s note at the end of the verse for a discussion of the poetic parallelism and interpretation of the verse.

[72:16]  ²⁸ tn The antecedent of the third masculine singular pronominal suffix is unclear. It is unlikely that the antecedent is אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) because this noun is normally grammatically feminine. Perhaps רֹאשׁ (ro’sh, “top [of the mountains]”) is the antecedent. Another option is to understand the pronoun as referring to the king, who would then be viewed as an instrument of divine agricultural blessing (see v. 6).

[72:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “fruit.”

[72:16]  ³⁰ tc According to the traditional accentuation of the MT, this verb belongs with what follows. See the note on the word “earth” at the end of the verse for a discussion of the poetic parallelism and interpretation of the verse. The present translation takes it with the preceding words, “like Lebanon its fruit” and emends the verb form from וְיָצִיצוּ (vÿyatsitsu; Qal imperfect third masculine plural with prefixed vav, [ו]) to יָצִיץ (yatsits; Qal imperfect third masculine singular). The initial vav is eliminated as dittographic (note the vav on the ending of the preceding form פִּרְיוֹ, piryo, “its/his fruit”) and the vav at the end of the form is placed on the following emended form (see the note on the word “crops”), yielding וַעֲמִיר (va’amir, “and [its] crops”).

[72:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “like Lebanon.”

[72:16]  ³² tc The MT has “from the city.” The translation assumes an emendation to עֲמִיר (’amir, “crops”).

[72:16]  ³³ tn The translation assumes that the verb צוץ (“flourish”) goes with the preceding line. The words “be as abundant” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[72:16]  ³⁴ tc The traditional accentuation and vocalization of the MT differ from the text assumed by the present translation. The MT reads as follows: “May there be an abundance of grain in the earth, / and on the tops of the mountains! / May its [or “his”?] fruit [trees?] rustle like [the trees of] Lebanon! / May they flourish from the city, like the grass of the earth!” If one follows the MT, then it would appear that the “fruit” of the third line is a metaphorical reference to the king’s people, who flow out from the cities to populate the land (see line 4). Elsewhere in the OT people are sometimes compared to grass that sprouts up from the land (see v. 7, as well as Isa 27:6; Pss 92:7; 103:15). The translation understands a different poetic structural arrangement and, assuming the emendations mentioned in earlier notes, interprets each line of the verse to be a prayer for agricultural abundance.