Mazmur 9:8

9:8 He judges the world fairly;

he makes just legal decisions for the nations. ¹ 

Mazmur 35:21

35:21 They are ready to devour me; ² 

they say, “Aha! Aha! We’ve got you!” ³ 

Mazmur 57:8

57:8 Awake, my soul! ⁴ 

Awake, O stringed instrument and harp!

I will wake up at dawn! ⁵ 

Mazmur 63:9

63:9 Enemies seek to destroy my life, ⁶ 

but they will descend into the depths of the earth. ⁷ 

Mazmur 64:7

64:7 But God will shoot ⁸  at them;

suddenly they will be ⁹  wounded by an arrow. ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 72:18

72:18 The Lord God, the God of Israel, deserves praise! ¹¹ 

He alone accomplishes amazing things! ¹² 

Mazmur 75:2

75:2 God says, ¹³ 

“At the appointed times, ¹⁴ 

I judge ¹⁵  fairly.

Mazmur 75:7

75:7 For God is the judge! ¹⁶ 

He brings one down and exalts another. ¹⁷ 

Mazmur 77:6

77:6 I said, “During the night I will remember the song I once sang;

I will think very carefully.”

I tried to make sense of what was happening. ¹⁸ 

Mazmur 78:62

78:62 He delivered his people over to the sword,

and was angry with his chosen nation. ¹⁹ 

Mazmur 94:5

94:5 O Lord, they crush your people;

they oppress the nation that belongs to you. ²⁰ 

Mazmur 101:4

101:4 I will have nothing to do with a perverse person; ²¹ 

I will not permit ²²  evil.

Mazmur 102:27

102:27 But you remain; ²³ 

your years do not come to an end.

Mazmur 103:14

103:14 For he knows what we are made of; ²⁴ 

he realizes ²⁵  we are made of clay. ²⁶ 

Mazmur 104:16

104:16 The trees of the Lord ²⁷  receive all the rain they need, ²⁸ 

the cedars of Lebanon which he planted,

Mazmur 106:19

106:19 They made an image of a calf at Horeb,

and worshiped a metal idol.

Mazmur 109:6

109:6 ²⁹ Appoint an evil man to testify against him! ³⁰ 

May an accuser stand ³¹  at his right side!

Mazmur 109:29

109:29 My accusers will be covered ³²  with shame,

and draped in humiliation as if it were a robe.

Mazmur 110:7

110:7 From the stream along the road he drinks;

then he lifts up his head. ³³ 

Mazmur 135:4

135:4 Indeed, ³⁴  the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,

Israel to be his special possession. ³⁵ 

Mazmur 136:4

136:4 to the one who performs magnificent, amazing deeds all by himself,

for his loyal love endures,

[9:8]  ¹ tn Heb “the peoples.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 8 either describe God’s typical, characteristic behavior, or anticipate a future judgment of worldwide proportions (“will judge…”).

[35:21]  ² tn Heb “and they cause their mouth to be wide against me.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries on the generalizing mood of the previous verse. For other examples of this use of the prefixed verbal form with vav consecutive, see GKC 329 §111.t.

[35:21]  ³ tn Heb “our eye sees.” Apparently this is an idiom meaning to “look in triumph” or “gloat over” (see Ps 54:7).

[57:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “glory,” but that makes little sense in the context. Some view כָּבוֹד (kavod, “glory”) here as a metonymy for man’s inner being (see BDB 459 s.v. II כָּבוֹד 5), but it is preferable to emend the form to כְּבֵדִי (kÿvediy, “my liver”). Like the heart, the liver is viewed as the seat of one’s emotions. See also Pss 16:9; 30:12; 108:1, as well as H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 64, and M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:90. For an Ugaritic example of the heart/liver as the source of joy, see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 47-48: “her [Anat’s] liver swelled with laughter, her heart was filled with joy, the liver of Anat with triumph.”

[57:8]  ⁵ tn BDB 1007 s.v. שַׁחַר takes “dawn” as an adverbial accusative, though others understand it as a personified direct object. “Dawn” is used metaphorically for the time of deliverance and vindication the psalmist anticipates. When salvation “dawns,” the psalmist will “wake up” in praise.

[63:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “but they for destruction seek my life.” The pronoun “they” must refer here to the psalmist’s enemies, referred to at this point for the first time in the psalm.

[63:9]  ⁷ sn The depths of the earth refers here to the underworld dwelling place of the dead (see Ezek 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24). See L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 167.

[64:7]  ⁸ tn The prefixed verb with vav (ו) consecutive is normally used in narrative contexts to describe completed past actions. It is possible that the conclusion to the psalm (vv. 7-10) was added to the lament after God’s judgment of the wicked in response to the psalmist’s lament (vv. 1-6). The translation assumes that these verses are anticipatory and express the psalmist’s confidence that God would eventually judge the wicked. The psalmist uses a narrative style as a rhetorical device to emphasize his certitude. See GKC 329-30 §111.w.

[64:7]  ⁹ tn The perfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s certitude about the coming demise of the wicked.

[64:7]  ¹⁰ tn The translation follows the traditional accentuation of the MT. Another option is to translate, “But God will shoot them down with an arrow, suddenly they will be wounded” (cf. NIV, NRSV).

[72:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[be] blessed.” See Pss 18:46; 28:6; 31:21; 41:13.

[72:18]  ¹² tn Heb “[the] one who does amazing things by himself.”

[75:2]  ¹³ tn The words “God says” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation to clarify that God speaks in vv. 2-3.

[75:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “when I take an appointed time.”

[75:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I, [in] fairness, I judge.” The statement is understood in a generalizing sense; God typically executes fair judgment as he governs the world. One could take this as referring to an anticipated (future) judgment, “I will judge.”

[75:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “judges.”

[75:7]  ¹⁷ tn The imperfects here emphasize the generalizing nature of the statement.

[77:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I will remember my song in the night, with my heart I will reflect. And my spirit searched.” As in v. 4, the words of v. 6a are understood as what the psalmist said earlier. Consequently the words “I said” are supplied in the translation for clarification (see v. 10). The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive at the beginning of the final line is taken as sequential to the perfect “I thought” in v. 6.

[78:62]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his inheritance.”

[94:5]  ²⁰ tn Or “your inheritance.”

[101:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “a perverse heart will turn aside from me.” The adjective עִקֵּשׁ (’iqqesh) has the basic nuance “twisted; crooked” and by extension refers to someone or something that is morally perverse (see Ps 18:26). It appears frequently in the Book of Proverbs, where it is used of evil people (22:5), speech (8:8; 19:1), thoughts (11:20; 17:20), and life styles (2:15; 28:6).

[101:4]  ²² tn Heb “know.” The king will not willingly allow perverse individuals to remain in his royal court.

[102:27]  ²³ tn Heb “you [are] he,” or “you [are] the one.” The statement may echo the Lord’s affirmation “I am he” in Isa 41:4; 43:10, 13; 46:10; 48:12. In each of these passages the affirmation emphasizes the fact that the Lord transcends time limitations, the very point being made in Ps 102:27.

[103:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “our form.”

[103:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “remembers.”

[103:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “we [are] clay.”

[104:16]  ²⁷ sn The trees of the Lord are the cedars of Lebanon (see the next line), which are viewed as special because of their great size and grandeur. The Lebanon forest was viewed elsewhere in the OT as the “garden of God” (see Ezek 31:8).

[104:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “are satisfied,” which means here that they receive abundant rain (see v. 13).

[109:6]  ²⁹ sn In vv. 6-19 the psalmist calls on God to judge his enemies severely. Some attribute this curse-list to the psalmist’s enemies rather than the psalmist. In this case one should paraphrase v. 6: “They say about me, ‘Appoint an evil man, etc.’” Those supporting this line of interpretation point out that vv. 2-5 and 20 refer to the enemies’ attack on the psalmist being a verbal one. Furthermore in vv. 1-5, 20 the psalmist speaks of his enemies in the plural, while vv. 6-19 refer to an individual. This use of the singular in vv. 6-19 could be readily explained if this is the psalmist’s enemies’ curse on him. However, it is much more natural to understand vv. 6-19 as the psalmist’s prayer against his enemies. There is no introductory quotation formula in v. 6 to indicate that the psalmist is quoting anyone, and the statement “may the Lord repay my accusers in this way” in v. 20 most naturally appears to be a fitting conclusion to the prayer in vv. 6-19. But what about the use of the singular in vv. 6-19? Often in the psalms the psalmist will describe his enemies as a group, but then speak of them as an individual as well, as if viewing his adversaries collectively as one powerful foe. See, for example, Ps 7, where the psalmist uses both the plural (vv. 1, 6) and the singular (vv. 2, 4-5) in referring to enemies. Perhaps by using the singular in such cases, the psalmist wants to single out each enemy for individual attention, or perhaps he has one especially hostile enemy in mind who epitomizes the opposition of the whole group. This may well be the case in Ps 109. Perhaps we should understand the singular throughout vv. 6-19 in the sense of “each and every one.” For a lengthy and well-reasoned defense of the opposite view – that vv. 6-19 are a quotation of what the enemies said about the psalmist – see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 72-73.

[109:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “appoint against him an evil [man].”

[109:6]  ³¹ tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive here (note the imperative in the preceding line).

[109:29]  ³² tn Heb “clothed.” Another option is to translate the prefixed verbal forms in this line and the next as jussives (“may my accusers be covered with shame”).

[110:7]  ³³ tn Here the expression “lifts up the head” refers to the renewed physical strength and emotional vigor (see Ps 3:3) provided by the refreshing water. For another example of a victorious warrior being energized by water in the aftermath of battle, see Judg 15:18-19 (see also 1 Sam 30:11-12, where the setting is different, however).

[135:4]  ³⁴ tn Or “for.”

[135:4]  ³⁵ sn His special possession. The language echoes Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18. See also Mal 3:17.