10:16 The Lord rules forever! 1
The nations are driven out of his land. 2
24:7 Look up, 3 you gates!
Rise up, 4 you eternal doors!
Then the majestic king 5 will enter! 6
24:8 Who is this majestic king? 7
The Lord who is strong and mighty!
The Lord who is mighty in battle!
44:4 You are my 8 king, O God!
Decree 9 Jacob’s 10 deliverance!
47:6 Sing to God! Sing!
Sing to our king! Sing!
47:7 For God is king of the whole earth!
Sing a well-written song! 11
74:12 But God has been my 12 king from ancient times,
performing acts of deliverance on the earth. 13
99:1 The Lord reigns!
The nations tremble. 15
He sits enthroned above the winged angels; 16
the earth shakes. 17
99:2 The Lord is elevated 18 in Zion;
he is exalted over all the nations.
99:3 Let them praise your great and awesome name!
He 19 is holy!
99:4 The king is strong;
he loves justice. 20
You ensure that legal decisions will be made fairly; 21
you promote justice and equity in Jacob.
A psalm of praise, by David.
145:1 I will extol you, my God, O king!
I will praise your name continually! 23
33:22 For the Lord, our ruler,
the Lord, our commander,
the Lord, our king –
he will deliver us.
1 tn Heb “the
2 tn Or “the nations perish from his land.” The perfect verb form may express what is typical or it may express rhetorically the psalmist’s certitude that God’s deliverance is “as good as done.”
3 tn Heb “lift up your heads.” The gates of the Lord’s dwelling place are here personified. The idiom “lift up the head” often means “be confident, bold” (see Judg 8:28; Job 10:15; Ps 83:2; Zech 1:21).
4 tn Heb “lift yourselves up.”
5 tn Or “king of glory.”
6 tn Following the imperatives of the preceding lines, the prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.
7 sn Who is this majestic king? Perhaps the personified gates/doors ask this question, in response to the command given in v. 7.
8 sn The speaker changes here to an individual, perhaps the worship leader or the king. The oscillation between singular (vv. 4, 6) and plural (vv. 1-3, 5, 7-8) in vv. 1-8 may reflect an antiphonal ceremony.
9 tc The LXX assumes a participle here (מְצַוֶּה [mÿtsavveh], “the one who commands/decrees”) which would stand in apposition to “my God.” It is possible that the MT, which has the imperative (צַוֵּה, tsavveh) form, has suffered haplography of the letter mem (ם). Note that the preceding word (אֱלֹהִים, ’elohim) ends in mem. Another option is that the MT is divided in the wrong place; perhaps one could move the final mem from אֱלֹהִים to the beginning of the next word and read מְצַוֶּה אֱלֹהָי (’elohay mÿtsavveh, “[You are my king,] my God, the one who decrees”).
10 tn That is, Israel. See Pss 14:7; 22:23.
11 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. The word is derived from a verb meaning “to be prudent; to be wise.” Various options are: “a contemplative song,” “a song imparting moral wisdom,” or “a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.” The term also occurs in the superscriptions of Pss 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142. Here, in a context of celebration, the meaning “skillful, well-written” would fit particularly well.
12 tn The psalmist speaks as Israel’s representative here.
13 tn Heb “in the midst of the earth.”
14 sn Psalm 99. The psalmist celebrates the Lord’s just rule and recalls how he revealed himself to Israel’s leaders.
15 tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 1 are understood here as indicating the nations’ characteristic response to the reality of the
16 sn Winged angels (Heb “cherubs”). Cherubs, as depicted in the OT, possess both human and animal (lion, ox, and eagle) characteristics (see Ezek 1:10; 10:14, 21; 41:18). They are pictured as winged creatures (Exod 25:20; 37:9; 1 Kgs 6:24-27; Ezek 10:8, 19) and serve as the very throne of God when the ark of the covenant is in view (Ps 99:1; see Num 7:89; 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15). The picture of the Lord seated on the cherubs suggests they might be used by him as a vehicle, a function they carry out in Ezek 1:22-28 (the “living creatures” mentioned here are identified as cherubs in Ezek 10:20). In Ps 18:10 the image of a cherub serves to personify the wind.
17 tn The Hebrew verb נוּט (nut) occurs only here in the OT, but the meaning can be determined on the basis of the parallelism with רָגַז (ragaz, “tremble”) and evidence from the cognate languages (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 121).
18 tn Heb “great.”
19 tn The pronoun refers to the
20 tn Heb “and strength, a king, justice he loves.” The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult here. The translation assumes that two affirmations are made about the king, the
21 tn Heb “you establish fairness.”
22 sn Psalm 145. The psalmist praises God because he is a just and merciful king who cares for his people.
23 tn Or, hyperbolically, “forever.”