Psalms 10:4

10:4 The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks,

“God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.” ¹ 

Psalms 24:4

24:4 The one whose deeds are blameless

and whose motives are pure, ² 

who does not lie, ³ 

or make promises with no intention of keeping them. ⁴ 

Psalms 32:2

32:2 How blessed is the one ⁵  whose wrongdoing the Lord does not punish, ⁶ 

in whose spirit there is no deceit. ⁷ 

Psalms 37:21

37:21 Evil men borrow, but do not repay their debt,

but the godly show compassion and are generous. ⁸ 

Psalms 49:12

49:12 but, despite their wealth, people do not last, ⁹ 

they are like animals ¹⁰  that perish. ¹¹ 

Psalms 58:5

58:5 that does not respond to ¹²  the magicians,

or to a skilled snake-charmer.

Psalms 77:14

77:14 You are the God who does amazing things;

you have revealed your strength among the nations.

Psalms 107:38

107:38 He blessed ¹³  them so that they became very numerous.

He would not allow their cattle to decrease in number. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 121:1

Psalm 121 ¹⁵ 

A song of ascents. ¹⁶ 

121:1 I look up ¹⁷  toward the hills.

From where ¹⁸  does my help come?

[10:4]  ¹ tn Heb “the wicked [one], according to the height of his nose, he does not seek, there is no God, all his thoughts.” The phrase “height of his nose” probably refers to an arrogant or snooty attitude; it likely pictures one with his nose turned upward toward the sky in pride. One could take the “wicked” as the subject of the negated verb “seek,” in which case the point is that the wicked do not “seek” God. The translation assumes that this statement, along with “there is no God,” is what the wicked man thinks to himself. In this case God is the subject of the verb “seek,” and the point is that God will not hold the wicked man accountable for his actions. Verse 13 strongly favors this interpretation. The statement “there is no God” is not a philosophical assertion that God does not exist, but rather a confident affirmation that he is unconcerned about how men live morally and ethically (see v. 11).

[24:4]  ² tn Heb “the innocent of hands and the pure of heart.” The “hands” allude to one’s actions, the “heart” to one’s thought life and motives.

[24:4]  ³ tn Heb “who does not lift up for emptiness my life.” The first person pronoun on נַפְשִׁי (nafshiy, “my life”) makes little sense here; many medieval Hebrew mss support the ancient versions in reading a third person pronoun “his.” The idiom “lift the life” here means to “long for” or “desire strongly.” In this context (note the reference to an oath in the following line) “emptiness” probably refers to speech (see Ps 12:2).

[24:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “and does not swear an oath deceitfully.”

[32:2]  ³ tn Heb “man.” The word choice reflects the perspective of the psalmist, who is male. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, the gender and age specific “man” has been translated with the more neutral “one.”

[32:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “blessed [is] the man to whom the Lord does not impute wrongdoing.”

[32:2]  ⁵ sn In whose spirit there is no deceit. The point is not that the individual is sinless and pure. In this context, which focuses on confession and forgiveness of sin, the psalmist refers to one who refuses to deny or hide his sin, but instead honestly confesses it to God.

[37:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “an evil [man] borrows and does not repay; but a godly [man] is gracious and gives.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and godly individual are in view. The three active participles and one imperfect (“repay”) draw attention to the characteristic behavior of the two types.

[49:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “but mankind in honor does not remain.” The construction vav (ו) + noun at the beginning of the verse can be taken as contrastive in relation to what precedes. The Hebrew term יְקָר (yÿqar, “honor”) probably refers here to the wealth mentioned in the preceding context. The imperfect verbal form draws attention to what is characteristically true. Some scholars emend יָלִין (yalin, “remains”) to יָבִין (yavin, “understands”) but this is an unnecessary accommodation to the wording of v. 20.

[49:12]  ⁶ tn Or “cattle.”

[49:12]  ⁷ tn The verb is derived from דָּמָה (damah, “cease; destroy”; BDB 198 s.v.). Another option is to derive the verb from דָּמָה (“be silent”; see HALOT 225 s.v. II דמה, which sees two homonymic roots [דָּמָה, “be silent,” and דָּמָה, “destroy”] rather than a single root) and translate, “they are like dumb beasts.” This makes particularly good sense in v. 20, where the preceding line focuses on mankind’s lack of understanding.

[58:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “does not listen to the voice of.”

[107:38]  ⁷ tn “Bless” here carries the nuance “endue with sexual potency, make fertile.” See Gen 1:28, where the statement “he blessed them” directly precedes the command “be fruitful and populate the earth” (see also 1:22). The verb “bless” carries this same nuance in Gen 17:16 (where God’s blessing of Sarai imparts to her the capacity to bear a child); 48:16 (where God’s blessing of Joseph’s sons is closely associated with their having numerous descendants); and Deut 7:13 (where God’s blessing is associated with fertility in general, including numerous descendants). See also Gen 49:25 (where Jacob uses the noun derivative in referring to “blessings of the breast and womb,” an obvious reference to fertility) and Gen 27:27 (where the verb is used of a field to which God has given the capacity to produce vegetation).

[107:38]  ⁸ tn The verbal form in this line appears to be an imperfect, which may be taken as customary (drawing attention to typical action in a past time frame) or as generalizing (in which case one should use the English present tense, understanding a move from narrative to present reality).

[121:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 121. The psalm affirms that the Lord protects his people Israel. Unless the psalmist addresses an observer (note the second person singular forms in vv. 3-8), it appears there are two or three speakers represented in the psalm, depending on how one takes v. 3. The translation assumes that speaker one talks in vv. 1-2, that speaker two responds to him with a prayer in v. 3 (this assumes the verbs are true jussives of prayer), and that speaker three responds with words of assurance in vv. 4-8. If the verbs in v. 3 are taken as a rhetorical use of the jussive, then there are two speakers. Verses 3-8 are speaker two’s response to the words of speaker one. See the note on the word “sleep” at the end of v. 3.

[121:1]  ⁹ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[121:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I lift my eyes.”

[121:1]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew term מֵאַיִן (me’ayin) is interrogative, not relative, in function. Rather than directly stating that his source of help descends from the hills, the psalmist is asking, “From where does my help come?” Nevertheless, the first line does indicate that he is looking toward the hills for help, probably indicating that he is looking up toward the sky in anticipation of supernatural intervention. The psalmist assumes the dramatic role of one needing help. He answers his own question in v. 2.