134:2 Lift your hands toward the sanctuary
and praise the Lord!
A song of ascents. 2
134:1 Attention! 3 Praise the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord,
who serve 4 in the Lord’s temple during the night.
For the music director, according to the gittith style; 6 a psalm of David.
8:1 O Lord, our Lord, 7
how magnificent 8 is your reputation 9 throughout the earth!
You reveal your majesty in the heavens above! 10
3:10 When the mountains see you, they shake.
The torrential downpour sweeps through. 11
The great deep 12 shouts out;
it lifts its hands high. 13
1 sn Psalm 134. The psalmist calls on the temple servants to praise God (vv. 1-2). They in turn pronounce a blessing on the psalmist (v. 3).
2 sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.
3 tn Heb “Look!”
4 tn Heb “stand.”
5 sn Psalm 8. In this hymn to the sovereign creator, the psalmist praises God’s majesty and marvels that God has given mankind dominion over the created order.
6 tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הגתית is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or type of instrument.
7 tn The plural form of the title emphasizes the
8 tn Or “awesome”; or “majestic.”
9 tn Heb “name,” which here stands metonymically for God’s reputation.
10 tc Heb “which, give, your majesty on the heavens.” The verb form תְּנָה (tÿnah; an imperative?) is corrupt. The form should be emended to a second masculine singular perfect (נָתַתָּה, natatah) or imperfect (תִתֵן, titen) form. The introductory אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) can be taken as a relative pronoun (“you who”) or as a causal conjunction (“because”). One may literally translate, “you who [or “because you”] place your majesty upon the heavens.” For other uses of the phrase “place majesty upon” see Num 27:20 and 1 Chr 29:25.
11 tn Heb “a heavy rain of waters passes by.” Perhaps the flash floods produced by the downpour are in view here.
12 sn The great deep, which is to be equated with the sea (vv. 8, 15), is a symbol of chaos and represents the Lord’s enemies.
13 sn Lifting the hands here suggests panic and is accompanied by a cry for mercy (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19). The forces of chaos cannot withstand the Lord’s power revealed in the storm.