Psalms 42:8

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, 1 

and by night he gives me a song, 2 

a prayer 3  to the living God.

Leviticus 25:21

25:21 I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield 4  the produce 5  for three years,

Deuteronomy 28:8

28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he 6  is giving you.

1 sn The psalmist believes that the Lord has not abandoned him, but continues to extend his loyal love. To this point in the psalm, the author has used the name “God,” but now, as he mentions the divine characteristic of loyal love, he switches to the more personal divine name Yahweh (rendered in the translation as “the Lord”).

2 tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

3 tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

4 tn Heb “and it [i.e., the land] shall make the produce.” The Hebrew term וְעָשָׂת (vÿ’asat, “and it shall make”) is probably an older third feminine singular form of the verb (GKC 210 §75.m). Smr has the normal form.

5 tn Smr and LXX have “its produce” (cf. 25:3, 7, etc.) rather than “the produce.”

6 tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.