89:16 They rejoice in your name all day long,
and are vindicated 1 by your justice.
89:17 For you give them splendor and strength. 2
By your favor we are victorious. 3
For the music director; a psalm of David.
20:1 May the Lord answer 5 you 6 when you are in trouble; 7
may the God of Jacob 8 make you secure!
20:5 Then we will shout for joy over your 9 victory;
we will rejoice 10 in the name of our God!
May the Lord grant all your requests!
91:14 The Lord says, 11
“Because he is devoted to me, I will deliver him;
I will protect him 12 because he is loyal to me. 13
91:1 As for you, the one who lives 15 in the shelter of the sovereign One, 16
and resides in the protective shadow 17 of the mighty king 18 –
2:1 Why 20 do the nations rebel? 21
Why 22 are the countries 23 devising 24 plots that will fail? 25
17:6 “I have revealed 26 your name to the men 27 you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, 28 and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed 29 your word.
1 tn Heb “are lifted up.”
2 tn Heb “for the splendor of their strength [is] you.”
3 tn Heb “you lift up our horn,” or if one follows the marginal reading (Qere), “our horn is lifted up.” The horn of an ox underlies the metaphor (see Deut 33:17; 1 Kgs 22:11; Ps 92:10). The horn of the wild ox is frequently a metaphor for military strength; the idiom “exalt/lift up the horn” signifies military victory (see 1 Sam 2:10; Pss 75:10; 89:24; 92:10; Lam 2:17).
4 sn Psalm 20. The people pray for the king’s success in battle. When the king declares his assurance that the Lord will answer the people’s prayer, they affirm their confidence in God’s enablement.
5 tn The prefixed verbal forms here and in vv. 1b-5 are interpreted as jussives of prayer (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV). Another option is to understand them as imperfects, “the
6 sn May the
7 tn Heb “in a day of trouble.”
8 tn Heb “the name of the God of Jacob.” God’s “name” refers metonymically to his very person and to the divine characteristics suggested by his name, in this case “God of Jacob,” which highlights his relationship to Israel.
9 sn Your victory. Here the king is addressed (see v. 1).
10 tc The Hebrew verb דָּגַל (dagal) occurs only here in the Qal. If accepted as original, it may carry the nuance “raise a banner,” but it is preferable to emend the form to נגיל (“we will rejoice”) which provides better parallelism with “shout for joy” and fits well with the prepositional phrase “in the name of our God” (see Ps 89:16).
11 tn The words “the
12 tn Or “make him secure” (Heb “set him on high”).
13 tn Heb “because he knows my name” (see Ps 9:10).
14 sn Psalm 91. In this psalm an individual (perhaps a priest) addresses one who has sought shelter in the Lord and assures him that God will protect him from danger (vv. 1-13). In vv. 14-16 God himself promises to keep his loyal follower safe.
15 tn Heb “[O] one who lives.”
16 tn Traditionally “the Most High.”
17 sn The Lord is compared here to a bird who protects its young under the shadow of its wings (see v. 4).
18 sn The divine name used here is “Shaddai” (שַׁדַּי, shadday; see also Ps 68:14). Shaddai (or El Shaddai) is the mighty king (sovereign judge) of the world who grants life/blesses and kills/judges. In Genesis he blesses the patriarchs with fertility and promises numerous descendants. Outside Genesis he both blesses/protects and takes away life/happiness.
19 sn Psalm 2. In this royal psalm the author asserts the special status of the divinely chosen Davidic king and warns the nations and their rulers to submit to the authority of God and his chosen vice-regent.
20 tn The question is rhetorical. Rather than seeking information, the psalmist expresses his outrage that the nations would have the audacity to rebel against God and his chosen king.
21 tn The Hebrew verb רָגַשׁ (ragash) occurs only here. In Dan 6:6, 11, 15 the Aramaic cognate verb describes several officials acting as a group. A Hebrew nominal derivative is used in Ps 55:14 of a crowd of people in the temple.
22 tn The interrogative לָמָּה (lamah, “why?”) is understood by ellipsis in the second line.
23 tn Or “peoples” (so many English versions).
24 tn The Hebrew imperfect form describes the rebellion as underway. The verb הָגָה (hagah), which means “to recite quietly, meditate,” here has the metonymic nuance “devise, plan, plot” (see Ps 38:12; Prov 24:2).
25 tn Heb “devising emptiness.” The noun רִיק (riq, “emptiness”) may characterize their behavior as “worthless, morally bankrupt” but more likely refers to the outcome of their plots (i.e., failure). As the rest of the psalm emphasizes, their rebellion will fail.
26 tn Or “made known,” “disclosed.”
27 tn Here “men” is retained as a translation for ἀνθρώποις (anqrwpoi") rather than the more generic “people” because in context it specifically refers to the eleven men Jesus had chosen as apostles (Judas had already departed, John 13:30). If one understands the referent here to be the broader group of Jesus’ followers that included both men and women, a translation like “to the people” should be used here instead.
28 tn Grk “Yours they were.”
29 tn Or “have kept.”
30 tn Grk And I.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.
31 tn The context indicates that this should be translated as an adversative or contrastive conjunction.
32 tn Or “protect them”; Grk “keep them.”
33 tn Or “by your name.”
34 tn The second repetition of “one” is implied, and is supplied here for clarity.
35 tn The translation “will continue to make it known” is proposed by R. E. Brown (John [AB], 2:773).