Psalms 134:2

134:2 Lift your hands toward the sanctuary

and praise the Lord!

Psalms 134:1

Psalm 134 ¹ 

A song of ascents. ² 

134:1 Attention! ³  Praise the Lord,

all you servants of the Lord,

who serve ⁴  in the Lord’s temple during the night.

Psalms 8:1

Psalm 8 ⁵ 

For the music director, according to the gittith style; ⁶  a psalm of David.

8:1 O Lord, our Lord, ⁷ 

how magnificent ⁸  is your reputation ⁹  throughout the earth!

You reveal your majesty in the heavens above! ¹⁰ 

Habakkuk 3:10

3:10 When the mountains see you, they shake.

The torrential downpour sweeps through. ¹¹ 

The great deep ¹²  shouts out;

it lifts its hands high. ¹³ 

[134:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 134. The psalmist calls on the temple servants to praise God (vv. 1-2). They in turn pronounce a blessing on the psalmist (v. 3).

[134:1]  ² 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.

[134:1]  ³ tn Heb “Look!”

[134:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “stand.”

[8:1]  ⁵ sn Psalm 8. In this hymn to the sovereign creator, the psalmist praises God’s majesty and marvels that God has given mankind dominion over the created order.

[8:1]  ⁶ tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הגתית is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or type of instrument.

[8:1]  ⁷ tn The plural form of the title emphasizes the Lord’s absolute sovereignty.

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Or “awesome”; or “majestic.”

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “name,” which here stands metonymically for God’s reputation.

[8:1]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “which, give, your majesty on the heavens.” The verb form תְּנָה (tÿnah; an imperative?) is corrupt. The form should be emended to a second masculine singular perfect (נָתַתָּה, natatah) or imperfect (תִתֵן, titen) form. The introductory אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) can be taken as a relative pronoun (“you who”) or as a causal conjunction (“because”). One may literally translate, “you who [or “because you”] place your majesty upon the heavens.” For other uses of the phrase “place majesty upon” see Num 27:20 and 1 Chr 29:25.

[3:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a heavy rain of waters passes by.” Perhaps the flash floods produced by the downpour are in view here.

[3:10]  ¹² sn The great deep, which is to be equated with the sea (vv. 8, 15), is a symbol of chaos and represents the Lord’s enemies.

[3:10]  ¹³ sn Lifting the hands here suggests panic and is accompanied by a cry for mercy (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19). The forces of chaos cannot withstand the Lord’s power revealed in the storm.