Mazmur 4:7

4:7 You make me happier ¹ 

than those who have abundant grain and wine. ² 

Mazmur 13:3

13:3 Look at me! ³  Answer me, O Lord my God!

Revive me, ⁴  or else I will die! ⁵ 

Mazmur 68:21

68:21 Indeed God strikes the heads of his enemies,

the hairy foreheads of those who persist in rebellion. ⁶ 

Mazmur 79:12

79:12 Pay back our neighbors in full! ⁷ 

May they be insulted the same way they insulted you, O Lord! ⁸ 

Mazmur 89:5

89:5 O Lord, the heavens ⁹  praise your amazing deeds,

as well as your faithfulness in the angelic assembly. ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 105:33

105:33 He destroyed their vines and fig trees,

and broke the trees throughout their territory.

[4:7]  ¹ tn Heb “you place joy in my heart.” Another option is to understand the perfect verbal form as indicating certitude, “you will make me happier.”

[4:7]  ² tn Heb “from (i.e., more than) the time (when) their grain and their wine are abundant.”

[13:3]  ³ tn Heb “see.”

[13:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “Give light [to] my eyes.” The Hiphil of אוּר (’ur), when used elsewhere with “eyes” as object, refers to the law of God giving moral enlightenment (Ps 19:8), to God the creator giving literal eyesight to all people (Prov 29:13), and to God giving encouragement to his people (Ezra 9:8). Here the psalmist pictures himself as being on the verge of death. His eyes are falling shut and, if God does not intervene soon, he will “fall asleep” for good.

[13:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “or else I will sleep [in?] the death.” Perhaps the statement is elliptical, “I will sleep [the sleep] of death,” or “I will sleep [with the sleepers in] death.”

[68:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “the hairy forehead of the one who walks about in his guilt.” The singular is representative.

[79:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “Return to our neighbors sevenfold into their lap.” The number seven is used rhetorically to express the thorough nature of the action. For other rhetorical/figurative uses of the Hebrew phrase שִׁבְעָתַיִם (shiv’atayim, “seven times”) see Gen 4:15, 24; Ps 12:6; Prov 6:31; Isa 30:26.

[79:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “their reproach with which they reproached you, O Lord.”

[89:5]  ⁹ tn As the following context makes clear, the personified “heavens” here stand by metonymy for the angelic beings that surround God’s heavenly throne.

[89:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in the assembly of the holy ones.” The phrase “holy ones” sometimes refers to God’s people (Ps 34:9) or to their priestly leaders (2 Chr 35:3), but here it refers to God’s heavenly assembly and the angels that surround his throne (see vv. 6-7).