Psalms 16:8

16:8 I constantly trust in the Lord; ¹ 

because he is at my right hand, I will not be upended.

Psalms 21:8

21:8 You ²  prevail over ³  all your enemies;

your power is too great for those who hate you. ⁴ 

Psalms 60:5

60:5 Deliver by your power ⁵  and answer me, ⁶ 

so that the ones you love may be safe. ⁷ 

Psalms 63:8

63:8 My soul ⁸  pursues you; ⁹ 

your right hand upholds me.

Psalms 74:11

74:11 Why do you remain inactive?

Intervene and destroy him! ¹⁰ 

Psalms 77:10

77:10 Then I said, “I am sickened by the thought

that the sovereign One ¹¹  might become inactive. ¹² 

Psalms 78:54

78:54 He brought them to the border of his holy land,

to this mountainous land ¹³  which his right hand ¹⁴  acquired.

Psalms 89:42

89:42 You have allowed his adversaries to be victorious, ¹⁵ 

and all his enemies to rejoice.

Psalms 91:7

91:7 Though a thousand may fall beside you,

and a multitude on your right side,

it ¹⁶  will not reach you.

Psalms 108:6

108:6 Deliver by your power ¹⁷  and answer me,

so that the ones you love may be safe. ¹⁸ 

Psalms 109:6

109:6 ¹⁹ Appoint an evil man to testify against him! ²⁰ 

May an accuser stand ²¹  at his right side!

Psalms 109:31

109:31 because he stands at the right hand of the needy,

to deliver him from those who threaten ²²  his life.

Psalms 110:5

110:5 O sovereign Lord, ²³  at your right hand

he strikes down ²⁴  kings in the day he unleashes his anger. ²⁵ 

Psalms 121:5

121:5 The Lord is your protector;

the Lord is the shade at your right hand.

[16:8]  ¹ tn Heb “I set the Lord before me continually.” This may mean that the psalmist is aware of the Lord’s presence and sensitive to his moral guidance (see v. 7), or that he trusts in the Lord’s protection (see the following line).

[21:8]  ² tn The king is now addressed. One could argue that the Lord is still being addressed, but v. 9 militates against this proposal, for there the Lord is mentioned in the third person and appears to be distinct from the addressee (unless, of course, one takes “Lord” in v. 9 as vocative; see the note on “them” in v. 9b). Verse 7 begins this transition to a new addressee by referring to both the king and the Lord in the third person (in vv. 1-6 the Lord is addressed and only the king referred to in the third person).

[21:8]  ³ tn Heb “your hand finds.” The idiom pictures the king grabbing hold of his enemies and defeating them (see 1 Sam 23:17). The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 8-12 may be translated with the future tense, as long as the future is understood as generalizing.

[21:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “your right hand finds those who hate you.”

[60:5]  ³ tn Heb “right hand.”

[60:5]  ⁴ tn The Qere (marginal reading) has “me,” while the Kethib (consonantal text) has “us.”

[60:5]  ⁵ tn Or “may be rescued.” The lines are actually reversed in the Hebrew text, “So that the ones you love may be rescued, deliver by your power and answer me.”

[63:8]  ⁴ tn Or “I.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[63:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “clings after.” The expression means “to pursue with determination” (see Judg 20:45; 1 Sam 14:22; 1 Chr 10:2; Jer 42:16).

[74:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? From the midst of your chest, destroy!” The psalmist pictures God as having placed his right hand (symbolic of activity and strength) inside his robe against his chest. He prays that God would pull his hand out from under his robe and use it to destroy the enemy.

[77:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “Most High.” This divine title (עֶלְיוֹן, ’elyon) pictures God as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked. See especially Pss 7:17; 9:2; 18:13; 21:7; 47:2.

[77:10]  ⁷ tc Heb “And I said, ‘This is my wounding, the changing of the right hand of the Most High.’” The form חַלּוֹתִי (khallotiy) appears to be a Qal infinitive construct (with a first person singular pronominal suffix) from the verbal root חָלַל (khalal, “to pierce; to wound”). The present translation assumes an emendation to חֲלוֹתִי (khalotiy), a Qal infinitive construct (with a first person singular pronominal suffix) from the verbal root חָלָה (khalah, “be sick, weak”). The form שְׁנוֹת (shÿnot) is understood as a Qal infinitive construct from שָׁנָה (shanah, “to change”) rather than a plural noun form, “years” (see v. 5). “Right hand” here symbolizes by metonymy God’s power and activity. The psalmist observes that his real problem is theological in nature. His experience suggests that the sovereign Lord has abandoned him and become inactive. However, this goes against the grain of his most cherished beliefs.

[78:54]  ⁷ tn Heb “this mountain.” The whole land of Canaan seems to be referred to here. In Exod 15:17 the promised land is called the “mountain of your [i.e., God’s] inheritance.”

[78:54]  ⁸ tn The “right hand” here symbolizes God’s military strength (see v. 55).

[89:42]  ⁸ tn Heb “you have lifted up the right hand of his adversaries.” The idiom “the right hand is lifted up” refers to victorious military deeds (see Pss 89:13; 118:16).

[91:7]  ⁹ tn Apparently the deadly disease mentioned in v. 6b is the understood subject here.

[108:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “right hand.”

[108:6]  ¹¹ tn Or “may be rescued.” The lines are actually reversed in the Hebrew text: “So that the ones you love may be rescued, deliver by your power and answer me.”

[109:6]  ¹¹ sn In vv. 6-19 the psalmist calls on God to judge his enemies severely. Some attribute this curse-list to the psalmist’s enemies rather than the psalmist. In this case one should paraphrase v. 6: “They say about me, ‘Appoint an evil man, etc.’” Those supporting this line of interpretation point out that vv. 2-5 and 20 refer to the enemies’ attack on the psalmist being a verbal one. Furthermore in vv. 1-5, 20 the psalmist speaks of his enemies in the plural, while vv. 6-19 refer to an individual. This use of the singular in vv. 6-19 could be readily explained if this is the psalmist’s enemies’ curse on him. However, it is much more natural to understand vv. 6-19 as the psalmist’s prayer against his enemies. There is no introductory quotation formula in v. 6 to indicate that the psalmist is quoting anyone, and the statement “may the Lord repay my accusers in this way” in v. 20 most naturally appears to be a fitting conclusion to the prayer in vv. 6-19. But what about the use of the singular in vv. 6-19? Often in the psalms the psalmist will describe his enemies as a group, but then speak of them as an individual as well, as if viewing his adversaries collectively as one powerful foe. See, for example, Ps 7, where the psalmist uses both the plural (vv. 1, 6) and the singular (vv. 2, 4-5) in referring to enemies. Perhaps by using the singular in such cases, the psalmist wants to single out each enemy for individual attention, or perhaps he has one especially hostile enemy in mind who epitomizes the opposition of the whole group. This may well be the case in Ps 109. Perhaps we should understand the singular throughout vv. 6-19 in the sense of “each and every one.” For a lengthy and well-reasoned defense of the opposite view – that vv. 6-19 are a quotation of what the enemies said about the psalmist – see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 72-73.

[109:6]  ¹² tn Heb “appoint against him an evil [man].”

[109:6]  ¹³ tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive here (note the imperative in the preceding line).

[109:31]  ¹² tn Heb “judge.”

[110:5]  ¹³ tn As pointed in the Hebrew text, this title refers to God (many medieval Hebrew mss read יְהוָה, yehveh, “Lord” here). The present translation assumes that the psalmist here addresses the Lord as he celebrates what the king is able to accomplish while positioned at God’s “right hand.” According to this view the king is the subject of the third person verb forms in vv. 5b-7. (2) Another option is to understand the king as the addressee (as in vv. 2-3). In this case “the Lord” is the subject of the third person verbs throughout vv. 5-7 and is depicted as a warrior in a very anthropomorphic manner. In this case the Lord is pictured as being at the psalmist’s right hand (just the opposite of v. 1). See Pss 16:8; 121:5. (3) A third option is to revocalize אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “Lord”) as אֲדֹנִי (’adoniy, “my lord”; see v. 1). In this case one may translate, “My lord, at his [God’s] right hand, strikes down.” In this case the king is the subject of the third person verbs in vv. 5b-7.

[110:5]  ¹⁴ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 5-6 are understood here as descriptive-dramatic or as generalizing. Another option is to take them as rhetorical. In this case the psalmist describes anticipated events as if they had already taken place.

[110:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in the day of his anger.”