Mazmur 31:7

31:7 I will be happy and rejoice in your faithfulness,

because you notice my pain

and you are aware of how distressed I am. ¹ 

Mazmur 40:9

40:9 I have told the great assembly ²  about your justice. ³ 

Look! I spare no words! ⁴ 

O Lord, you know this is true.

Mazmur 69:5

69:5 O God, you are aware of my foolish sins; ⁵ 

my guilt is not hidden from you. ⁶ 

Mazmur 69:19

69:19 You know how I am insulted, humiliated and disgraced;

you can see all my enemies. ⁷ 

Mazmur 139:14

139:14 I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. ⁸ 

You knew me thoroughly; ⁹ 

Mazmur 140:12

140:12 I know ¹⁰  that the Lord defends the cause of the oppressed

and vindicates the poor. ¹¹ 

[31:7]  ¹ tn Heb “you know the distresses of my life.”

[40:9]  ² sn The great assembly is also mentioned in Pss 22:25 and 35:18.

[40:9]  ³ tn Heb “I proclaim justice in the great assembly.” Though “justice” appears without a pronoun here, the Lord’s just acts are in view (see v. 10). His “justice” (צֶדֶק, tsedeq) is here the deliverance that originates in his justice; he protects and vindicates the one whose cause is just.

[40:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “Look! My lips I do not restrain.”

[69:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “you know my foolishness.”

[69:5]  ⁶ sn The psalmist is the first to admit that he is not perfect. But even so, he is innocent of the allegations which his enemies bring against him (v. 5b). God, who is aware of his foolish sins and guilt, can testify to the truth of his claim.

[69:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “before you [are] all my enemies.”

[139:14]  ⁸ tc Heb “because awesome things, I am distinct, amazing [are] your works.” The text as it stands is syntactically problematic and makes little, if any, sense. The Niphal of פָּלָה (pala’) occurs elsewhere only in Exod 33:16. Many take the form from פָלָא (pala’; see GKC 216 §75.qq), which in the Niphal perfect means “to be amazing” (see 2 Sam 1:26; Ps 118:23; Prov 30:18). Some, following the LXX and some other ancient witnesses, also prefer to emend the verb from first to second person, “you are amazing” (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 249, 251). The present translation assumes the text conflates two variants: נפלאים, the otherwise unattested masculine plural participle of פָלָא, and נִפְלָאוֹת (nifla’ot), the usual (feminine) plural form of the Niphal participle. The latter has been changed to a verb by later scribes in an attempt to accommodate it syntactically. The original text likely read, נוראות נפלאותים מעשׂיך (“your works [are] awesome [and] amazing”).

[139:14]  ⁹ tc Heb “and my being knows very much.” Better parallelism is achieved (see v. 15a) if one emends יֹדַעַת (yoda’at), a Qal active participle, feminine singular form, to יָדַעְתָּ (yada’ta), a Qal perfect second masculine singular perfect. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252.

[140:12]  ¹⁰ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading a first person verb form here. The Kethib reads the second person.

[140:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and the just cause of the poor.”