5:3 Lord, in the morning 1 you will hear 2 me; 3
in the morning I will present my case to you 4 and then wait expectantly for an answer. 5
30:5 For his anger lasts only a brief moment,
and his good favor restores one’s life. 6
One may experience sorrow during the night,
but joy arrives in the morning. 7
143:8 May I hear about your loyal love in the morning, 8
for I trust in you.
Show me the way I should go, 9
because I long for you. 10
A psalm of David.
143:1 O Lord, hear my prayer!
Pay attention to my plea for help!
Because of your faithfulness and justice, answer me!
19:11 Yes, your servant finds moral guidance there; 12
those who obey them receive a rich reward. 13
19:12 Who can know all his errors? 14
Please do not punish me for sins I am unaware of. 15
1 sn In the morning is here viewed as the time of prayer (Pss 59:16; 88:13) and/or of deliverance (Ps 30:5).
2 tn The imperfect is here understood in a specific future sense; the psalmist is expressing his confidence that God will be willing to hear his request. Another option is to understand the imperfect as expressing the psalmist’s wish or request. In this case one could translate, “
3 tn Heb “my voice.”
4 tn Heb “I will arrange for you.” Some understand a sacrifice or offering as the implied object (cf. NEB “I set out my morning sacrifice”). The present translation assumes that the implied object is the psalmist’s case/request. See Isa 44:7.
5 tn Heb “and I will watch.”
6 tn Heb “for [there is] a moment in his anger, [but] life in his favor.” Because of the parallelism with “moment,” some understand חַיִּים (khayyim) in a quantitative sense: “lifetime” (cf. NIV, NRSV). However, the immediate context, which emphasizes deliverance from death (see v. 3), suggests that חַיִּים has a qualitative sense: “physical life” or even “prosperous life” (cf. NEB “in his favour there is life”).
7 tn Heb “in the evening weeping comes to lodge, but at morning a shout of joy.” “Weeping” is personified here as a traveler who lodges with one temporarily.
8 tn Heb “cause me to hear in the morning your loyal love.” Here “loyal love” probably stands metonymically for an oracle of assurance promising God’s intervention as an expression of his loyal love.
9 sn The way probably refers here to God’s moral and ethical standards and requirements (see v. 10).
10 tn Heb “for to you I lift up my life.” The Hebrew expression נָאָשׂ נֶפֶשׁ (na’as nefesh, “to lift up [one’s] life”) means “to desire; to long for” (see Deut 24:15; Prov 19:18; Jer 22:27; 44:14; Hos 4:8, as well as H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 16).
11 sn Psalm 143. As in the previous psalm, the psalmist laments his persecuted state and asks the Lord to deliver him from his enemies.
12 tn Heb “moreover your servant is warned by them.”
13 tn Heb “in the keeping of them [there is] a great reward.”
14 tn Heb “Errors who can discern?” This rhetorical question makes the point that perfect moral discernment is impossible to achieve. Consequently it is inevitable that even those with good intentions will sin on occasion.
15 tn Heb “declare me innocent from hidden [things],” i.e., sins. In this context (see the preceding line) “hidden” sins are not sins committed in secret, but sins which are not recognized as such by the psalmist.