22:4 In you our ancestors 1 trusted;
they trusted in you 2 and you rescued them.
22:5 To you they cried out, and they were saved;
in you they trusted and they were not disappointed. 3
Written by David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, causing the king to send him away. 5
34:1 I will praise 6 the Lord at all times;
my mouth will continually praise him. 7
34:2 I will boast 8 in the Lord;
let the oppressed hear and rejoice! 9
For the music director; by the Korahites; a psalm.
47:1 All you nations, clap your hands!
Shout out to God in celebration! 11
47:2 For the sovereign Lord 12 is awe-inspiring; 13
he is the great king who rules the whole earth! 14
47:3 He subdued nations beneath us 15
and countries 16 under our feet.
13:15 Even if he slays me, I will hope in him; 17
I will surely 18 defend 19 my ways to his face!
26:4 Trust in the Lord from this time forward, 20
even in Yah, the Lord, an enduring protector! 21
50:10 Who among you fears the Lord?
Who obeys 22 his servant?
Whoever walks in deep darkness, 23
without light,
should trust in the name of the Lord
and rely on his God.
50:1 This is what the Lord says:
“Where is your mother’s divorce certificate
by which I divorced her?
Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? 24
Look, you were sold because of your sins; 25
because of your rebellious acts I divorced your mother. 26
2:1 Here is the message about Judah and Jerusalem 27 that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz. 28
1 tn Heb “fathers.”
2 tn The words “in you” are supplied in the translation. They are understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).
3 tn Or “were not ashamed.”
4 sn Psalm 34. In this song of thanksgiving the psalmist praises God for delivering him from distress. He encourages others to be loyal to the Lord, tells them how to please God, and assures them that the Lord protects his servants. The psalm is an acrostic; vv. 1-21 begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. (Verse 6 begins with the letter he (ה) and v. 7 with the letter zayin (ז). The letter vav (ו), which comes between ה and ז, seems to be omitted, although it does appear at the beginning of v. 6b. The final verse of the psalm, which begins with the letter pe (פ), is outside the acrostic scheme.
5 tn Heb “By David, when he changed his sense before Abimelech and he drove him away and he went.”
6 tn Heb “bless.”
7 tn Heb “continually [will] his praise [be] in my mouth.”
8 tn Heb “my soul will boast”; or better, “let my soul boast.” Following the cohortative form in v. 1, it is likely that the prefixed verbal form here is jussive.
9 tn The two prefixed verbal forms in this verse are best taken as jussives, for the psalmist is calling his audience to worship (see v. 3).
10 sn Psalm 47. In this hymn the covenant community praises the Lord as the exalted king of the earth who has given them victory over the nations and a land in which to live.
11 tn Heb “Shout to God with [the] sound of a ringing cry!”
12 tn Heb “the
13 tn Or “awesome.” The Niphal participle נוֹרָא (nora’), when used of God in the psalms, focuses on the effect that his royal splendor and powerful deeds have on those witnessing his acts (Pss 66:3, 5; 68:35; 76:7, 12; 89:7; 96:4; 99:3; 111:9). Here it refers to his capacity to fill his defeated foes with terror and his people with fearful respect.
14 tn Heb “a great king over all the earth.”
15 tn On the meaning of the verb דָּבַר (davar, “subdue”), a homonym of דָּבַר (“speak”), see HALOT 209-10 s.v. I דבר. See also Ps 18:47 and 2 Chr 22:10. The preterite form of the verb suggests this is an historical reference and the next verse, which mentions the gift of the land, indicates that the conquest under Joshua is in view.
16 tn Or “peoples” (see Pss 2:1; 7:7; 9:8; 44:2).
17 tn There is a textual difficulty here that factors into the interpretation of the verse. The Kethib is לֹא (lo’, “not”), but the Qere is לוֹ (lo, “to him”). The RSV takes the former: “Behold, he will slay me, I have no hope.” The NIV takes it as “though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” Job is looking ahead to death, which is not an evil thing to him. The point of the verse is that he is willing to challenge God at the risk of his life; and if God slays him, he is still confident that he will be vindicated – as he says later in this chapter. Other suggestions are not compelling. E. Dhorme (Job, 187) makes a slight change of אֲיַחֵל (’ayakhel, “I will hope”) to אַחִיל (’akhil, “I will [not] tremble”). A. B. Davidson (Job, 98) retains the MT, but interprets the verb more in line with its use in the book: “I will not wait” (cf. NLT).
18 tn On אַךְ (’akh, “surely”) see GKC 483 §153 on intensive clauses.
19 tn The verb once again is יָכָה (yakhah, in the Hiphil, “argue a case, plead, defend, contest”). But because the word usually means “accuse” rather than “defend,” I. L. Seeligmann proposed changing “my ways” to “his ways” (“Zur Terminologie für das Gerichtsverfahren im Wortschatz des biblischen Hebräisch,” VTSup 16 [1967]: 251-78). But the word can be interpreted appropriately in the context without emendation.
20 tn Or “forevermore.” For other uses of the phrase עֲדֵי־עַד (’ade-’ad) see Isa 65:18 and Pss 83:17; 92:7.
21 tc The Hebrew text has “for in Yah, the Lord, an everlasting rock.” Some have suggested that the phrase בְּיָהּ (beyah, “in Yah”) is the result of dittography. A scribe seeing כִּי יְהוָה (ki yÿhvah) in his original text would somehow have confused the letters and accidentally inserted בְּיָהּ between the words (bet and kaf [ב and כ] can be confused in later script phases). A number of English versions retain both divine names for emphasis (ESV, NIV, NKJV, NRSV, NLT). One of the Qumran texts (1QIsaa) confirms the MT reading as well.
22 tn Heb “[who] listens to the voice of his servant?” The interrogative is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).
23 tn The plural indicates degree. Darkness may refer to exile and/or moral evil.
24 sn The Lord challenges the exiles (Zion’s children) to bring incriminating evidence against him. The rhetorical questions imply that Israel accused the Lord of divorcing his wife (Zion) and selling his children (the Israelites) into slavery to pay off a debt.
25 sn The Lord admits that he did sell the Israelites, but it was because of their sins, not because of some debt he owed. If he had sold them to a creditor, they ought to be able to point him out, but the preceding rhetorical question implies they would not be able to do so.
26 sn The Lord admits he did divorce Zion, but that too was the result of the nation’s sins. The force of the earlier rhetorical question comes into clearer focus now. The question does not imply that a certificate does not exist and that no divorce occurred. Rather, the question asks for the certificate to be produced so the accuser can see the reason for the divorce in black and white. The Lord did not put Zion away arbitrarily.
27 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
28 tn Heb “the word which Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”