48:13 Consider its defenses! 1
Walk through 2 its fortresses,
so you can tell the next generation about it! 3
48:14 For God, our God, is our defender forever! 4
He guides 5 us! 6
1 tn Heb “set your heart to its rampart.”
2 tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew word translated “walk through,” which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain. Cf. NEB “pass…in review”; NIV “view.”
3 sn The city’s towers, defenses, and fortresses are outward reminders and tangible symbols of the divine protection the city enjoys.
4 tn Heb “for this is God, our God, forever and ever.” “This” might be paraphrased, “this protector described and praised in the preceding verses.”
5 tn The imperfect highlights the characteristic nature of the generalizing statement.
6 tn In the Hebrew text the psalm ends with the words עַל־מוּת (’al-mut, “upon [unto?] dying”), which make little, if any, sense. M. Dahood (Psalms [AB], 1:293) proposes an otherwise unattested plural form עֹלָמוֹת (’olamot; from עוֹלָם, ’olam, “eternity”). This would provide a nice parallel to עוֹלָם וָעֶד (’olam va’ed, “forever”) in the preceding line, but elsewhere the plural of עוֹלָם appears as עֹלָמִים (’olamim). It is preferable to understand the phrase as a musical direction of some sort (see עַל־מוּת [’al-mut] in the superscription of Ps 9) or to emend the text to עַל־עֲלָמוֹת (’al-’alamot, “according to the alamoth style”; see the heading of Ps 46). In either case it should be understood as belonging with the superscription of the following psalm.