Psalms 15:1

Psalm 15 ¹ 

A psalm of David.

15:1 Lord, who may be a guest in your home? ² 

Who may live on your holy hill? ³ 

Psalms 19:4

19:4 Yet its voice ⁴  echoes ⁵  throughout the earth;

its ⁶  words carry ⁷  to the distant horizon. ⁸ 

In the sky ⁹  he has pitched a tent for the sun. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 27:5

27:5 He will surely ¹¹  give me shelter ¹²  in the day of danger; ¹³ 

he will hide me in his home; ¹⁴ 

he will place me ¹⁵  on an inaccessible rocky summit. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 52:5

52:5 Yet ¹⁷  God will make you a permanent heap of ruins. ¹⁸ 

He will scoop you up ¹⁹  and remove you from your home; ²⁰ 

he will uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)

Psalms 78:55

78:55 He drove the nations out from before them;

he assigned them their tribal allotments ²¹ 

and allowed the tribes of Israel to settle down. ²² 

Psalms 118:15

118:15 They celebrate deliverance in the tents of the godly. ²³ 

The Lord’s right hand conquers, ²⁴ 

Psalms 120:5

120:5 How miserable I am! ²⁵ 

For I have lived temporarily ²⁶  in Meshech;

I have resided among the tents of Kedar. ²⁷ 

Psalms 132:3

132:3 He said, ²⁸  “I will not enter my own home, ²⁹ 

or get into my bed. ³⁰ 

[15:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 15. This psalm describes the character qualities that one must possess to be allowed access to the divine presence.

[15:1]  ² tn Heb “Who may live as a resident alien in your tent?”

[15:1]  ³ sn In this context the Lord’s holy hill probably refers to Zion/Jerusalem. See Isa 66:20; Joel 2:1; 3:17; Zech 8:3; Pss 2:6; 43:3; 48:1; 87:1; Dan 9:16.

[19:4]  ⁴ tc The MT reads, “their measuring line” (קוּם, qum). The noun קַו (qav, “measuring line”) makes no sense in this context. The reading קוֹלָם (qolam, “their voice”) which is supported by the LXX, is preferable.

[19:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “goes out,” or “proceeds forth.”

[19:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “their” (see the note on the word “its” in v. 3).

[19:4]  ⁷ tn The verb is supplied in the translation. The Hebrew text has no verb; יָצָא (yatsa’, “goes out”) is understood by ellipsis.

[19:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the end of the world.”

[19:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “in them” (i.e., the heavens).

[19:4]  ¹⁰ sn He has pitched a tent for the sun. The personified sun emerges from this “tent” in order to make its daytime journey across the sky. So the “tent” must refer metaphorically to the place where the sun goes to rest during the night.

[27:5]  ⁷ tn Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי (ki) is asseverative here, rather than causal.

[27:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”

[27:5]  ⁹ tn Or “trouble.”

[27:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “tent.”

[27:5]  ¹¹ tn The three imperfect verb forms in v. 5 anticipate a positive response to the prayer offered in vv. 7-12.

[27:5]  ¹² tn Heb “on a rocky summit he lifts me up.” The Lord places the psalmist in an inaccessible place where his enemies cannot reach him. See Ps 18:2.

[52:5]  ¹⁰ tn The adverb גַּם (gam, “also; even”) is translated here in an adversative sense (“yet”). It highlights the contrastive correspondence between the evildoer’s behavior and God’s response.

[52:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “will tear you down forever.”

[52:5]  ¹² tn This rare verb (חָתָה, khatah) occurs only here and in Prov 6:27; 25:22; Isa 30:14.

[52:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “from [your] tent.”

[78:55]  ¹³ tn Heb “he caused to fall [to] them with a measuring line an inheritance.”

[78:55]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and caused the tribes of Israel to settle down in their tents.”

[118:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the sound of a ringing shout and deliverance [is] in the tents of the godly.”

[118:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “does valiantly.” The statement refers here to military success (see Num 24:18; 1 Sam 14:48; Pss 60:12; 108:13).

[120:5]  ¹⁹ tn Or “woe to me.” The Hebrew term אוֹיָה (’oyah, “woe”) which occurs only here, is an alternate form of אוֹי (’oy).

[120:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I live as a resident alien.”

[120:5]  ²¹ sn Meshech was located in central Anatolia (modern Turkey). Kedar was located in the desert to east-southeast of Israel. Because of the reference to Kedar, it is possible that Ps 120:5 refers to a different Meshech, perhaps one associated with the individual mentioned as a descendant of Aram in 1 Chr 1:17. (However, the LXX in 1 Chr 1:17 follows the parallel text in Gen 10:23, which reads “Mash,” not Meshech.) It is, of course, impossible that the psalmist could have been living in both the far north and the east at the same time. For this reason one must assume that he is recalling his experience as a wanderer among the nations or that he is using the geographical terms metaphorically and sarcastically to suggest that the enemies who surround him are like the barbarians who live in these distant regions. For a discussion of the problem, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 146.

[132:3]  ²² tn The words “he said” are supplied in the translation to clarify that what follows is David’s vow.

[132:3]  ²³ tn Heb “the tent of my house.”

[132:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “go up upon the bed of my couch.”