Mazmur 80:5

80:5 You have given them tears as food; ¹ 

you have made them drink tears by the measure. ² 

Mazmur 51:11

51:11 Do not reject me! ³ 

Do not take your Holy Spirit ⁴  away from me! ⁵ 

Mazmur 89:38

89:38 But you have spurned ⁶  and rejected him;

you are angry with your chosen king. ⁷ 

[80:5]  ¹ tn Heb “you have fed them the food of tears.”

[80:5]  ² tn Heb “[by] the third part [of a measure].” The Hebrew term שָׁלִישׁ (shalish, “third part [of a measure]”) occurs only here and in Isa 40:12.

[51:11]  ³ tn Heb “do not cast me away from before you.”

[51:11]  ⁴ sn Your Holy Spirit. The personal Spirit of God is mentioned frequently in the OT, but only here and in Isa 63:10-11 is he called “your/his Holy Spirit.”

[51:11]  ⁵ sn Do not take…away. The psalmist expresses his fear that, due to his sin, God will take away the Holy Spirit from him. NT believers enjoy the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit and need not make such a request nor fear such a consequence. However, in the OT God’s Spirit empowered certain individuals for special tasks and only temporarily resided in them. For example, when God rejected Saul as king and chose David to replace him, the divine Spirit left Saul and came upon David (1 Sam 16:13-14).

[89:38]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew construction (conjunction + pronoun, followed by the verb) draws attention to the contrast between what follows and what precedes.

[89:38]  ⁷ tn Heb “your anointed one.” The Hebrew phrase מְשִׁיחֶךָ (mÿshikhekha, “your anointed one”) refers here to the Davidic king (see Pss 2:2; 18:50; 20:6; 28:8; 84:9; 132:10, 17).