Psalms 2:7

2:7 The king says, ¹  “I will announce the Lord’s decree. He said to me: ² 

‘You are my son! ³  This very day I have become your father!

Psalms 10:6

10:6 He says to himself, ⁴ 

“I will never ⁵  be upended,

because I experience no calamity.” ⁶ 

Psalms 10:11

10:11 He says to himself, ⁷ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ⁸ 

Psalms 10:13

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ⁹ 

He says to himself, ¹⁰  “You ¹¹  will not hold me accountable.” ¹² 

Psalms 19:2

19:2 Day after day it speaks out; ¹³ 

night after night it reveals his greatness. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 27:8

27:8 My heart tells me to pray to you, ¹⁵ 

and I do pray to you, O Lord. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 29:9

29:9 The Lord’s shout bends ¹⁷  the large trees ¹⁸ 

and strips ¹⁹  the leaves from the forests. ²⁰ 

Everyone in his temple says, “Majestic!” ²¹ 

Psalms 35:3

35:3 Use your spear and lance ²²  against ²³  those who chase me!

Assure me with these words: ²⁴  “I am your deliverer!”

Psalms 50:12

50:12 Even if I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and all it contains belong to me.

Psalms 50:16

50:16 God says this to the evildoer: ²⁵ 

“How can you declare my commands,

and talk about my covenant? ²⁶ 

Psalms 102:24

102:24 I say, “O my God, please do not take me away in the middle of my life! ²⁷ 

You endure through all generations. ²⁸ 

[2:7]  ¹ tn The words “the king says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The speaker is the Lord’s chosen king.

[2:7]  ² tn Or “I will relate the decree. The Lord said to me” (in accordance with the Masoretic accentuation).

[2:7]  ³ sn ‘You are my son!’ The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26-27). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.

[10:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “he says in his heart/mind.”

[10:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “for a generation and a generation.” The traditional accentuation of the MT understands these words with the following line.

[10:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “who, not in calamity.” If אֲשֶׁר (’asher) is taken as a relative pronoun here, then one could translate, “[I] who [am] not in calamity.” Some emend אֲשֶׁר to אֹשֶׁר (’osher, “happiness”; see HALOT 99 s.v. אֹשֶׁר); one might then translate, “[I live in] happiness, not in calamity.” The present translation assumes that אֲשֶׁר functions here as a causal conjunction, “because, for.” For this use of אֲשֶׁר, see BDB 83 s.v. אֲשֶׁר 8.c (where the present text is not cited).

[10:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[10:13]  ¹⁰ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ¹² tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”

[19:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “it gushes forth a word.” The “sky” (see v. 1b) is the subject of the verb. Though not literally speaking (see v. 3), it clearly reveals God’s royal majesty. The sun’s splendor and its movement across the sky is in view (see vv. 4-6).

[19:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “it [i.e., the sky] declares knowledge,” i.e., knowledge about God’s royal majesty and power (see v. 1). This apparently refers to the splendor and movements of the stars. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 2, like the participles in the preceding verse, combine with the temporal phrases (“day after day” and “night after night”) to emphasize the ongoing testimony of the sky.

[27:8]  ¹⁶ tc Heb “concerning you my heart says, ‘Seek my face.’” The verb form “seek” is plural, but this makes no sense here, for the psalmist is addressed. The verb should be emended to a singular form. The first person pronominal suffix on “face” also makes little sense, unless it is the voice of the Lord he hears. His “heart” is viewed as speaking, however, so it is better to emend the form to פָּנָיו (panayv, “his face”).

[27:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “your face, O Lord, I seek.” To “seek the Lord’s face” means to seek his favor through prayer (see 2 Sam 21:1; Pss 24:6; 105:4).

[29:9]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew imperfect verbal form is descriptive in function; the psalmist depicts the action as underway.

[29:9]  ²⁰ tc Heb “the deer.” Preserving this reading, some translate the preceding verb, “causes [the deer] to give premature birth” (cf. NEB, NASB). But the Polel of חוּל/חִיל (khul/khil) means “give birth,” not “cause to give birth,” and the statement “the Lord’s shout gives birth to deer” is absurd. In light of the parallelism (note “forests” in the next line) and v. 5, it is preferable to emend אַיָּלוֹת (’ayyalot, “deer”) to אֵילוֹת (’elot, “large trees”) understanding the latter as an alternate form of the usual plural form אַיָּלִים (’ayyalim).

[29:9]  ²¹ tn The verb is used in Joel 1:7 of locusts stripping the leaves from a tree. The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries the descriptive function of the preceding imperfect. See GKC 329 §111.t.

[29:9]  ²² tn The usual form of the plural of יַעַר (ya’ar, “forest”) is יְעָרִים (yÿ’arim). For this reason some propose an emendation to יְעָלוֹת (yÿ’alot, “female mountain goats”) which would fit nicely in the parallelism with “deer” (cf. NEB “brings kids early to birth”). In this case one would have to understand the verb חָשַׂף (khasaf) to mean “cause premature birth,” an otherwise unattested homonym of the more common חָשַׂף (“strip bare”).

[29:9]  ²³ tn Heb “In his temple, all of it says, ‘Glory.’”

[35:3]  ²² tn Or “javelin.” On the meaning of this word, which occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, see M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:210-11.

[35:3]  ²³ tn Heb “draw out spear and lance to meet.”

[35:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “say to me,” or “say to my soul.”

[50:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “evil [one].” The singular adjective is used here in a representative sense; it refers to those within the larger covenant community who have blatantly violated the Lord’s commandments. In the psalms the “wicked” (רְשָׁעִים, rÿsha’im) are typically proud, practical atheists (Ps 10:2, 4, 11) who hate God’s commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander, and cheat others (Ps 37:21).

[50:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “What to you to declare my commands and lift up my covenant upon your mouth?” The rhetorical question expresses sarcastic amazement. The Lord is shocked that such evildoers would give lip-service to his covenantal demands, for their lifestyle is completely opposed to his standards (see vv. 18-20).

[102:24]  ²⁸ tn Heb “do not lift me up in the middle of my days.”

[102:24]  ²⁹ tn Heb “in a generation of generations [are] your years.”