78:10 They did not keep their covenant with God, 3
and they refused to obey 4 his law.
106:13 They quickly forgot what he had done; 5
they did not wait for his instructions. 6
107:11 because they had rebelled against God’s commands, 7
and rejected the instructions of the sovereign king. 8
א (Alef)
119:1 How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, 10
who obey 11 the law of the Lord.
1 tn Heb “took.” This probably means they tasted some of the food to make sure it was stale.
2 tn Heb “but they did not ask the mouth of the
3 tn Heb “the covenant of God.”
4 tn Heb “walk in.”
5 tn Heb “his works.”
6 tn Heb “his counsel.”
7 tn Heb “the words of God.”
8 tn Heb “the counsel of the Most High.”
9 sn Psalm 119. The psalmist celebrates God’s law and the guidance it provides his people. He expresses his desire to know God’s law thoroughly so that he might experience the blessings that come to those who obey it. This lengthy psalm exhibits an elaborate acrostic pattern. The psalm is divided into twenty-two sections (corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each of which is comprised of eight verses. Each of the verses in the first section (vv. 1-8) begins with the letter alef (א), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern continues throughout the psalm as each new section highlights a successive letter of the alphabet. Each verse in section two (vv. 9-16) begins with the second letter of the alphabet, each verse in section three (vv. 17-24) with the third letter, etc. This rigid pattern creates a sense of order and completeness and may have facilitated memorization.
10 tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness of those who are blameless of way.”
11 tn Heb “walk in.”
12 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.” Compare the same idiom in 2:27.
13 tn For the idiom involved here see the translator’s note on 7:13. The verb that introduces this clause is a Piel infinitive absolute which is functioning in place of the finite verb (see, e.g., GKC 346 §113.ff and compare usage in Jer 8:15; 14:19. This grammatical point means that the versions cited in BHS fn a may not be reading a different text after all, but may merely be interpreting the form as syntactically equivalent to a finite verb as the present translation has done.).
sn This refers to God teaching them through the prophets whom he has sent as indicated by the repeated use of this idiom elsewhere in 7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:3, 4; 26:5, 19.
14 tn Heb “But they were not listening so as to accept correction.”