Psalms 26:8

26:8 O Lord, I love the temple where you live, ¹ 

the place where your splendor is revealed. ² 

Psalms 109:5

109:5 They repay me evil for good, ³ 

and hate for love.

Psalms 116:1

Psalm 116 ⁴ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ⁵ 

Psalms 119:48

119:48 I will lift my hands to ⁶  your commands,

which I love,

and I will meditate on your statutes.

Psalms 119:97

מ (Mem)

119:97 O how I love your law!

All day long I meditate on it.

Psalms 119:119

119:119 You remove all the wicked of the earth like slag. ⁷ 

Therefore I love your rules. ⁸ 

Psalms 119:159

119:159 See how I love your precepts!

O Lord, revive me with your loyal love!

[26:8]  ¹ tn Heb “the dwelling of your house.”

[26:8]  ² tn Heb “the place of the abode of your splendor.”

[109:5]  ³ tn Heb “and they set upon me evil in place of good.”

[116:1]  ⁵ sn Psalm 116. The psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him from a life threatening crisis and promises to tell the entire covenant community what God has done for him.

[116:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “I love because the Lord heard my voice, my pleas.” It is possible that “the Lord” originally appeared directly after “I love” and was later accidentally misplaced. The translation assumes the prefixed verbal form is a preterite. The psalmist recalls that God heard his cry for help (note the perfect in v. 2a and the narrative in vv. 3-4).

[119:48]  ⁷ tn Lifting the hands is often associated with prayer (Pss 28:2; 63:4; Lam 2:19). (1) Because praying to God’s law borders on the extreme, some prefer to emend the text to “I lift up my hands to you,” eliminating “your commands, which I love” as dittographic. In this view these words were accidentally repeated from the previous verse. (2) However, it is possible that the psalmist closely associates the law with God himself because he views the law as the expression of the divine will. (3) Another option is that “lifting the hands” does not refer to prayer here, but to the psalmist’s desire to receive and appropriate the law. (4) Still others understand this to be an action praising God’s commands (so NCV; cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[119:119]  ⁹ sn Traditionally “dross” (so KJV, ASV, NIV). The metaphor comes from metallurgy; “slag” is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.

[119:119]  ¹⁰ sn As he explains in the next verse, the psalmist’s fear of judgment motivates him to obey God’s rules.