33:1 You godly ones, shout for joy because of the Lord!
It is appropriate for the morally upright to offer him praise.
33:2 Give thanks to the Lord with the harp!
Sing to him to the accompaniment of a ten-stringed instrument!
33:3 Sing to him a new song! 2
Play skillfully as you shout out your praises to him! 3
33:4 For 4 the Lord’s decrees 5 are just, 6
and everything he does is fair. 7
33:5 The Lord promotes 8 equity and justice;
the Lord’s faithfulness extends throughout the earth. 9
33:6 By the Lord’s decree 10 the heavens were made;
by a mere word from his mouth all the stars in the sky were created. 11
33:7 He piles up the water of the sea; 12
he puts the oceans 13 in storehouses.
33:8 Let the whole earth fear 14 the Lord!
Let all who live in the world stand in awe of him!
33:9 For he spoke, and it 15 came into existence,
he issued the decree, 16 and it stood firm.
33:10 The Lord frustrates 17 the decisions of the nations;
he nullifies the plans 18 of the peoples.
33:11 The Lord’s decisions stand forever;
his plans abide throughout the ages. 19
33:12 How blessed 20 is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen to be his special possession. 21
1 sn Psalm 33. In this hymn the psalmist praises the Lord as the sovereign creator and just ruler of the world who protects and vindicates those who fear him.
2 sn A new song is appropriate because the Lord is constantly intervening in the lives of his people in fresh and exciting ways.
3 tn Heb “play skillfully with a loud shout.”
4 sn For the
5 tn Heb “word.” In this context, which depicts the
6 tn Or “upright.”
7 tn Heb “and all his work [is] in faithfulness.”
8 tn Heb “loves.” The verb “loves” is here metonymic; the
9 tn Heb “fills the earth.”
10 tn Heb “word.”
11 tn Heb “and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” The words “were created” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons; they are understood by ellipsis (note “were made” in the preceding line). The description is consistent with Gen 1:16, which indicates that God spoke the heavenly luminaries into existence.
12 tn Heb “[he] gathers like a pile the waters of the sea.” Some prefer to emend נֵד (ged, “heap, pile”; cf. NASB) to נֹד (nod, “bottle”; cf. NRSV; NIV “into jars”), but “pile” is used elsewhere to describe water that the
13 tn Or “watery depths.” The form תְּהוֹמוֹת (tÿhomot, “watery depths”) is the plural form of תְּהוֹם (tÿhom, “great deep”; see Gen 1:2).
14 tn In this context “fear” probably means “to demonstrate respect for the
15 tn That is, “all the earth” in the first line of v. 8. The apparent antecedent of the masculine subject of the verbs in v. 9 (note וַיֶּהִי [vayyehiy] and וַיַּעֲמֹד [vayya’amod]) is “earth” or “world,” both of which are feminine nouns. However, כָּל (kol, “all”) may be the antecedent, or the apparent lack of agreement may be explained by the collective nature of the nouns involved here (see GKC 463 §145.e).
16 tn Heb “he commanded.”
17 tn Heb “breaks” or “destroys.” The Hebrew perfect verbal forms here and in the next line generalize about the
18 tn Heb “thoughts.”
19 tn Heb “the thoughts of his heart for generation to generation.” The verb “abides” is supplied in the translation. The
20 tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see Pss 1:1; 2:12; 34:9; 41:1; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).
21 tn Heb “inheritance.”