Psalms 104:15

104:15 as well as wine that makes people feel so good, ¹ 

and so they can have oil to make their faces shine, ² 

as well as food that sustains people’s lives. ³ 

Psalms 73:7

73:7 Their prosperity causes them to do wrong; ⁴ 

their thoughts are sinful. ⁵ 

Psalms 119:7

119:7 I will give you sincere thanks, ⁶ 

when I learn your just regulations.

Psalms 73:1

Book 3
(Psalms 73-89)

Psalm 73 ⁷ 

A psalm by Asaph.

73:1 Certainly God is good to Israel, ⁸ 

and to those whose motives are pure! ⁹ 

Psalms 90:12

90:12 So teach us to consider our mortality, ¹⁰ 

so that we might live wisely. ¹¹ 

Psalms 101:4

101:4 I will have nothing to do with a perverse person; ¹² 

I will not permit ¹³  evil.

Psalms 24:4

24:4 The one whose deeds are blameless

and whose motives are pure, ¹⁴ 

who does not lie, ¹⁵ 

or make promises with no intention of keeping them. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 101:5

101:5 I will destroy anyone who slanders his neighbor in secret.

I will not tolerate anyone who has a cocky demeanor and an arrogant attitude. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 111:1

Psalm 111 ¹⁸ 

111:1 Praise the Lord!

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,

in the assembly of the godly and the congregation.

Psalms 95:10

95:10 For forty years I was continually disgusted ¹⁹  with that generation,

and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray; ²⁰ 

they do not obey my commands.’ ²¹ 

Psalms 109:16

109:16 For he never bothered to show kindness; ²² 

he harassed the oppressed and needy,

and killed the disheartened. ²³ 

[104:15]  ¹ tn Heb “and wine [that] makes the heart of man happy.”

[104:15]  ² tn Heb “to make [the] face shine from oil.” The Hebrew verb צָהַל (tsahal, “to shine”) occurs only here in the OT. It appears to be an alternate form of צָהַר (tsahar), a derivative from צָהָרִים (tsaharim, “noon”).

[104:15]  ³ tn Heb “and food [that] sustains the heart of man.”

[73:7]  ⁴ tc The MT reads “it goes out from fatness their eye,” which might be paraphrased, “their eye protrudes [or “bulges”] because of fatness.” This in turn might refer to their greed; their eyes “bug out” when they see rich food or produce (the noun חֵלֶב [khelev, “fatness”] sometimes refers to such food or produce). However, when used with the verb יָצָא (yatsa’, “go out”) the preposition מִן (“from”) more naturally indicates source. For this reason it is preferable to emend עֵינֵמוֹ (’enemo, “their eye”) to עֲוֹנָמוֹ, (’avonamo, “their sin”) and read, “and their sin proceeds forth from fatness,” that is, their prosperity gives rise to their sinful attitudes. If one follows this textual reading, another interpretive option is to take חֵלֶב (“fatness”) in the sense of “unreceptive, insensitive” (see its use in Ps 17:10). In this case, the sin of the wicked proceeds forth from their spiritual insensitivity.

[73:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “the thoughts of [their] heart [i.e., mind] cross over” (i.e., violate God’s moral boundary, see Ps 17:3).

[119:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will give you thanks with an upright heart.”

[73:1]  ¹⁰ sn Psalm 73. In this wisdom psalm the psalmist offers a personal testimony of his struggle with the age-old problem of the prosperity of the wicked. As he observed evil men prosper, he wondered if a godly lifestyle really pays off. In the midst of his discouragement, he reflected upon spiritual truths and realities. He was reminded that the prosperity of the wicked is only temporary. God will eventually vindicate his people.

[73:1]  ¹¹ tn Since the psalm appears to focus on an individual’s concerns, not the situation of Israel, this introduction may be a later addition designed to apply the psalm’s message to the entire community. To provide a better parallel with the next line, some emend the Hebrew phrase לְיִשְׂרָאֵל אֱלֹהִים (lÿyisra’el ’elohim, “to Israel, God”) to אֱלֹהִים [or אֵל] לָיָּשָׁר (’elohim [or ’el] lÿyyashar, “God [is good] to the upright one”).

[73:1]  ¹² tn Heb “to the pure of heart.”

[90:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “to number our days,” that is, to be aware of how few they really are.

[90:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and we will bring a heart of wisdom.” After the imperative of the preceding line, the prefixed verbal form with the conjunction indicates purpose/result. The Hebrew term “heart” here refers to the center of one’s thoughts, volition, and moral character.

[101:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a perverse heart will turn aside from me.” The adjective עִקֵּשׁ (’iqqesh) has the basic nuance “twisted; crooked” and by extension refers to someone or something that is morally perverse (see Ps 18:26). It appears frequently in the Book of Proverbs, where it is used of evil people (22:5), speech (8:8; 19:1), thoughts (11:20; 17:20), and life styles (2:15; 28:6).

[101:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “know.” The king will not willingly allow perverse individuals to remain in his royal court.

[24:4]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ tn Heb “and does not swear an oath deceitfully.”

[101:5]  ²² tn Heb “[one who has] pride of eyes and wideness [i.e., arrogance] of heart, him I will not endure.”

[111:1]  ²⁵ sn Psalm 111. The psalmist praises God for his marvelous deeds, especially the way in which he provides for and delivers his people. The psalm is an acrostic. After the introductory call to praise, every poetic line (twenty-two in all) begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[95:10]  ²⁸ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form.

[95:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.”

[95:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and they do not know my ways.” In this context the Lord’s “ways” are his commands, viewed as a pathway from which his people, likened to wayward sheep (see v. 7), wander.

[109:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “he did not remember to do loyal love.”

[109:16]  ³² tn Heb “and he chased an oppressed and needy man, and one timid of heart to put [him] to death.”