Psalms 142:2

142:2 I pour out my lament before him;

I tell him about ¹  my troubles.

Psalms 72:9

72:9 Before him the coastlands ²  will bow down,

and his enemies will lick the dust. ³ 

Psalms 96:6

96:6 Majestic splendor emanates from him; ⁴ 

his sanctuary is firmly established and beautiful. ⁵ 

Psalms 97:3

97:3 Fire goes before him;

on every side ⁶  it burns up his enemies.

Psalms 85:13

85:13 Deliverance goes ⁷  before him,

and prepares ⁸  a pathway for him. ⁹ 

Psalms 100:2

100:2 Worship ¹⁰  the Lord with joy!

Enter his presence with joyful singing!

Psalms 50:3

50:3 Our God approaches and is not silent; ¹¹ 

consuming fire goes ahead of him

and all around him a storm rages. ¹² 

Psalms 68:4

68:4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his name!

Exalt the one who rides on the clouds! ¹³ 

For the Lord is his name! ¹⁴ 

Rejoice before him!

Psalms 106:23

106:23 He threatened ¹⁵  to destroy them,

but ¹⁶  Moses, his chosen one, interceded with him ¹⁷ 

and turned back his destructive anger. ¹⁸ 

Psalms 18:6

18:6 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I cried out to my God. ¹⁹ 

From his heavenly temple ²⁰  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ²¹ 

Psalms 22:29

22:29 All of the thriving people ²²  of the earth will join the celebration and worship; ²³ 

all those who are descending into the grave ²⁴  will bow before him,

including those who cannot preserve their lives. ²⁵ 

Psalms 62:8

62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people!

Pour out your hearts before him! ²⁶ 

God is our shelter! (Selah)

[142:2]  ¹ tn Heb “my trouble before him I declare.”

[72:9]  ² tn Or “islands.” The term here refers metonymically to those people who dwell in these regions.

[72:9]  ³ sn As they bow down before him, it will appear that his enemies are licking the dust.

[96:6]  ³ tn Heb “majesty and splendor [are] before him.”

[96:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “strength and beauty [are] in his sanctuary.”

[97:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “all around.”

[85:13]  ⁵ tn Or “will go.”

[85:13]  ⁶ tn Or “will prepare.”

[85:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “and it prepares for a way his footsteps.” Some suggest emending וְיָשֵׂם (vÿyasem, “and prepares”) to וְשָׁלוֹם (vÿshalom, “and peace”) since “deliverance” and “peace” are closely related earlier in v. 13. This could be translated, “and peace [goes ahead, making] a pathway for his footsteps” (cf. NEB).

[100:2]  ⁶ tn Or “serve.”

[50:3]  ⁷ tn According to GKC 322 §109.e, the jussive (note the negative particle אַל, ’al) is used rhetorically here “to express the conviction that something cannot or should not happen.”

[50:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “fire before him devours, and around him it is very stormy.”

[68:4]  ⁸ tn Traditionally the Hebrew term עֲרָבוֹת (’aravot) is taken as “steppe-lands” (often rendered “deserts”), but here the form is probably a homonym meaning “clouds.” Verse 33, which depicts God as the one who “rides on the sky” strongly favors this (see as well Deut 33:26), as does the reference in v. 9 to God as the source of rain. The term עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “cloud”) is cognate with Akkadian urpatu/erpetu and with Ugaritic ’rpt. The phrase rkb ’rpt (“one who rides on the clouds”) appears in Ugaritic mythological texts as an epithet of the storm god Baal. The nonphonemic interchange of the bilabial consonants b and p is attested elsewhere in roots common to Hebrew and Ugaritic, though the phenomenon is relatively rare.

[68:4]  ⁹ tc Heb “in the Lord his name.” If the MT is retained, the preposition -בְ (bet) is introducing the predicate (the so-called bet of identity), “the Lord is his name.” However, some prefer to emend the text to כִּי יָהּ שְׁמוֹ (ki yah shÿmo, “for Yah is his name”). This emendation, reflected in the present translation, assumes a confusion of bet (ב) and kaf (כ) and haplography of yod (י).

[106:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he said.”

[106:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “if not,” that is, “[and would have] if [Moses] had not.”

[106:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “stood in the gap before him.”

[106:23]  ¹² tn Heb “to turn back his anger from destroying.”

[18:6]  ¹⁰ tn In this poetic narrative context the four prefixed verbal forms in v. 6 are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects.

[18:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly temple is in view, not the earthly one.

[18:6]  ¹² tc Heb “and my cry for help before him came into his ears.” 2 Sam 22:7 has a shorter reading, “my cry for help, in his ears.” It is likely that Ps 18:6 MT as it now stands represents a conflation of two readings: (1) “my cry for help came before him,” (2) “my cry for help came into his ears.” See F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS), 144, n. 13.

[22:29]  ¹¹ tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the Lord.

[22:29]  ¹² tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the Lord will receive universal worship. The mood is one of wishful thinking and anticipation; this is not prophecy in the strict sense.

[22:29]  ¹³ tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.

[22:29]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”

[62:8]  ¹² tn To “pour out one’s heart” means to offer up to God intense, emotional lamentation and petitionary prayers (see Lam 2:19).