42:4 I will remember and weep! 6
For I was once walking along with the great throng to the temple of God,
shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival. 7
For the music director; according to the gittith style; 9 by Asaph.
81:1 Shout for joy to God, our source of strength!
Shout out to the God of Jacob!
81:2 Sing 10 a song and play the tambourine,
the pleasant sounding harp, and the ten-stringed instrument!
81:3 Sound the ram’s horn on the day of the new moon, 11
and on the day of the full moon when our festival begins. 12
81:4 For observing the festival is a requirement for Israel; 13
it is an ordinance given by the God of Jacob.
1 tn Heb “you shall rest your Sabbath.”
2 tn Heb “the Passover.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.
3 tc The MT reading אֶל (’el, “unto”) before “the place” should, following Smr, Syriac, Targums, and Vulgate, be omitted in favor of ב (bet; בַּמָּקוֹם, bammaqom), “in the place.”
4 tn Heb “the
5 tn Heb “in your gates.”
6 tn Heb “These things I will remember and I will pour out upon myself my soul.” “These things” are identified in the second half of the verse as those times when the psalmist worshiped in the
7 tc Heb “for I was passing by with the throng [?], I was walking with [?] them to the house of God; with a voice of a ringing shout and thanksgiving a multitude was observing a festival.” The Hebrew phrase בַּסָּךְ אֶדַּדֵּם (bassakh ’eddaddem, “with the throng [?] I was walking with [?]”) is particularly problematic. The noun סָךְ (sakh) occurs only here. If it corresponds to הָמוֹן (hamon, “multitude”) then one can propose a meaning “throng.” The present translation assumes this reading (cf. NIV, NRSV). The form אֶדַּדֵּם (“I will walk with [?]”) is also very problematic. The form can be taken as a Hitpael from דָּדָה (dadah; this verb possibly appears in Isa 38:15), but the pronominal suffix is problematic. For this reason many emend the form to ם[י]אַדִּרִ (’adirim, “nobles”) or ם-רִ[י]אַדִ (’adirim, “great,” with enclitic mem [ם]). The present translation understands the latter and takes the adjective “great” as modifying “throng.” If one emends סָךְ (sakh, “throng [?]”) to סֹךְ (sokh, “shelter”; see the Qere of Ps 27:5), then ר[י]אַדִּ (’addir) could be taken as a divine epithet, “[in the shelter of] the majestic one,” a reading which may find support in the LXX and Syriac Peshitta.
8 sn Psalm 81. The psalmist calls God’s people to assemble for a festival and then proclaims God’s message to them. The divine speech (vv. 6-16) recalls how God delivered the people from Egypt, reminds Israel of their rebellious past, expresses God’s desire for his people to obey him, and promises divine protection in exchange for obedience.
9 tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הַגִּתִּית (haggittit) is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or instrument. See the superscription to Ps 8.
10 tn Heb “lift up.”
11 tn Heb “at the new moon.”
12 tn Heb “at the full moon on the day of our festival.” The Hebrew word כֶּסֶה (keseh) is an alternate spelling of כֶּסֶא (kese’, “full moon”).
13 tn Heb “because a statute for Israel [is] it.”
14 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.
15 sn After singing a hymn. The Hallel Psalms (Pss 113-118) were sung during the meal. Psalms 113 and 114 were sung just before the second cup and 115-118 were sung at the end of the meal, after the fourth, or hallel cup.