Psalms 17:8

17:8 Protect me as you would protect the pupil of your eye! ¹ 

Hide me in the shadow of your wings! ² 

Psalms 9:14

9:14 Then I will ³  tell about all your praiseworthy acts; ⁴ 

in the gates of Daughter Zion ⁵  I will rejoice because of your deliverance.” ⁶ 

Psalms 45:10

45:10 Listen, O princess! ⁷ 

Observe and pay attention! ⁸ 

Forget your homeland ⁹  and your family! ¹⁰ 

Psalms 45:13

45:13 The princess ¹¹  looks absolutely magnificent, ¹² 

decked out in pearls and clothed in a brocade trimmed with gold. ¹³ 

Psalms 137:8

137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated! ¹⁴ 

How blessed will be the one who repays you

for what you dished out to us! ¹⁵ 

Psalms 51:1

Psalm 51 ¹⁶ 

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. ¹⁷ 

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of ¹⁸  your loyal love!

Because of ¹⁹  your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! ²⁰ 

[17:8]  ¹ tc Heb “Protect me like the pupil, a daughter of an eye.” The noun בַּת (bat, “daughter”) should probably be emended to בָּבַת (bavat, “pupil”). See Zech 2:12 HT (2:8 ET) and HALOT 107 s.v. *בָּבָה.

[17:8]  ² sn Your wings. The metaphor compares God to a protective mother bird.

[9:14]  ³ tn Or “so that I might.”

[9:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “all your praise.” “Praise” stands by metonymy for the mighty acts that prompt it.

[9:14]  ⁵ sn Daughter Zion is an idiomatic title for Jerusalem. It appears frequently in the prophets, but only here in the psalms.

[9:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “in your deliverance.”

[45:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “daughter.” The Hebrew noun בת (“daughter”) can sometimes refer to a young woman in a general sense (see H. Haag, TDOT 2:334).

[45:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “see and turn your ear.” The verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “see”) is used here of mental observation.

[45:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “your people.” This reference to the “people” of the princess suggests she was a foreigner. Perhaps the marriage was arranged as part of a political alliance between Israel (or Judah) and a neighboring state. The translation “your homeland” reflects such a situation.

[45:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the house of your father.”

[45:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “[the] daughter of a king.”

[45:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “[is] completely glorious.”

[45:13]  ⁹ tc Heb “within, from settings of gold, her clothing.” The Hebrew term פְּנִימָה (pÿnimah, “within”), if retained, would go with the preceding line and perhaps refer to the bride being “within” the palace or her bridal chamber (cf. NIV, NRSV). Since the next two lines refer to her attire (see also v. 9b), it is preferable to emend the form to פְּנִינִיהָּ (“her pearls”) or to פְּנִינִים (“pearls”). The mem (מ) prefixed to “settings” is probably dittographic.

[137:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “O devastated daughter of Babylon.” The psalmist dramatically anticipates Babylon’s demise.

[137:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “O the happiness of the one who repays you your wage which you paid to us.”

[51:1]  ¹¹ sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. The exiles could relate to David’s experience, for they, like him, and had been forced to confront their sin. They appropriated David’s ancient prayer and applied it to their own circumstances.

[51:1]  ¹² tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”

[51:1]  ¹³ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ¹⁵ tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”