Psalms 17:7

17:7 Accomplish awesome, faithful deeds, ¹ 

you who powerfully deliver those who look to you for protection from their enemies. ² 

Psalms 42:8

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, ³ 

and by night he gives me a song, ⁴ 

a prayer ⁵  to the living God.

Psalms 52:8

52:8 But I ⁶  am like a flourishing ⁷  olive tree in the house of God;

I continually ⁸  trust in God’s loyal love.

Psalms 57:3

57:3 May he send help from heaven and deliver me ⁹ 

from my enemies who hurl insults! ¹⁰  (Selah)

May God send his loyal love and faithfulness!

Psalms 89:1

Psalm 89 ¹¹ 

A well-written song ¹²  by Ethan the Ezrachite.

89:1 I will sing continually ¹³  about the Lord’s faithful deeds;

to future generations I will proclaim your faithfulness. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 91:14

91:14 The Lord says, ¹⁵ 

“Because he is devoted to me, I will deliver him;

I will protect him ¹⁶  because he is loyal to me. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 98:3

98:3 He remains loyal and faithful to the family of Israel. ¹⁸ 

All the ends of the earth see our God deliver us. ¹⁹ 

Psalms 138:2

138:2 I will bow down toward your holy temple,

and give thanks to your name,

because of your loyal love and faithfulness,

for you have exalted your promise above the entire sky. ²⁰ 

Psalms 138:8

138:8 The Lord avenges me. ²¹ 

O Lord, your loyal love endures.

Do not abandon those whom you have made! ²² 

[17:7]  ¹ tn Heb “Set apart faithful acts.”

[17:7]  ² tn Heb “[O] one who delivers those who seek shelter from the ones raising themselves up, by your right hand.” The Lord’s “right hand” here symbolizes his power to protect and deliver.

[42:8]  ³ sn The psalmist believes that the Lord has not abandoned him, but continues to extend his loyal love. To this point in the psalm, the author has used the name “God,” but now, as he mentions the divine characteristic of loyal love, he switches to the more personal divine name Yahweh (rendered in the translation as “the Lord”).

[42:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

[42:8]  ⁵ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

[52:8]  ⁵ tn The disjunctive construction (vav [ו] + subject) highlights the contrast between the evildoer’s destiny (vv. 5-7) and that of the godly psalmist’s security.

[52:8]  ⁶ tn Or “luxuriant, green, leafy.”

[52:8]  ⁷ tn Or, hyperbolically, “forever and ever.”

[57:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “may he send from heaven and deliver me.” The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives expressing the psalmist’s prayer. The second verb, which has a vav (ו) conjunctive prefixed to it, probably indicates purpose. Another option is to take the forms as imperfects expressing confidence, “he will send from heaven and deliver me” (cf. NRSV).

[57:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “he hurls insults, one who crushes me.” The translation assumes that this line identifies those from whom the psalmist seeks deliverance. (The singular is representative; the psalmist is surrounded by enemies, see v. 4.) Another option is to understand God as the subject of the verb חָרַף (kharaf), which could then be taken as a homonym of the more common root חָרַף (“insult”) meaning “confuse.” In this case “one who crushes me” is the object of the verb. One might translate, “he [God] confuses my enemies.”

[89:1]  ⁹ sn Psalm 89. The psalmist praises God as the sovereign creator of the world. He recalls God’s covenant with David, but then laments that the promises of the covenant remain unrealized. The covenant promised the Davidic king military victories, but the king has now been subjected to humiliating defeat.

[89:1]  ¹⁰ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. See the note on the phrase “well-written song” in the superscription of Ps 88.

[89:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “forever.”

[89:1]  ¹² tn Heb “to a generation and a generation I will make known your faithfulness with my mouth.”

[91:14]  ¹¹ tn The words “the Lord says” are supplied in the translation to clarify that the words which follow are the Lord’s oracle of assurance.

[91:14]  ¹² tn Or “make him secure” (Heb “set him on high”).

[91:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “because he knows my name” (see Ps 9:10).

[98:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “he remembers his loyal love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel.”

[98:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the deliverance of our God,” with “God” being a subjective genitive (= God delivers).

[138:2]  ¹⁵ tc The MT reads, “for you have made great over all your name your word.” If retained, this must mean that God's mighty intervention, in fulfillment of his word of promise, surpassed anything he had done prior to this. However, the statement is odd and several emendations have been proposed. Some read, “for you have exalted over everything your name and your word,” while others suggest, “for you have exalted over all the heavens your name and your word.” The translation assumes an emendation of “your name” to “your heavens” (a construction that appears in Pss 8:3 and 144:5). The point is that God has been faithful to his promise and the reliability of that promise is apparent to all. For a fuller discussion of these options, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 244.

[138:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “avenges on my behalf.” For the meaning “to avenge” for the verb גָּמַר (gamar), see HALOT 197-98 s.v. גמר.

[138:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the works of your hands.” Many medieval Hebrew mss read the singular, “work of your hands.”