Psalms 3:6

3:6 I am not afraid ¹  of the multitude of people ² 

who attack me from all directions. ³ 

Psalms 9:20

9:20 Terrify them, Lord! ⁴ 

Let the nations know they are mere mortals! ⁵  (Selah)

Psalms 18:11

18:11 He shrouded himself in darkness, ⁶ 

in thick rain clouds. ⁷ 

Psalms 21:3

21:3 For you bring him ⁸  rich ⁹  blessings; ¹⁰ 

you place a golden crown on his head.

Psalms 21:6

21:6 For you grant him lasting blessings;

you give him great joy by allowing him into your presence. ¹¹ 

Psalms 21:9

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ¹²  when you appear; ¹³ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ¹⁴ 

the fire consumes them.

Psalms 45:16

45:16 Your ¹⁵  sons will carry ¹⁶  on the dynasty of your ancestors; ¹⁷ 

you will make them princes throughout the land.

Psalms 48:13

48:13 Consider its defenses! ¹⁸ 

Walk through ¹⁹  its fortresses,

so you can tell the next generation about it! ²⁰ 

Psalms 73:28

73:28 But as for me, God’s presence is all I need. ²¹ 

I have made the sovereign Lord my shelter,

as ²²  I declare all the things you have done.

Psalms 83:11

83:11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, ²³ 

and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna, ²⁴ 

Psalms 84:6

84:6 As they pass through the Baca Valley, ²⁵ 

he provides a spring for them. ²⁶ 

The rain ²⁷  even covers it with pools of water. ²⁸ 

Psalms 88:8

88:8 You cause those who know me to keep their distance;

you make me an appalling sight to them.

I am trapped and cannot get free. ²⁹ 

Psalms 101:3

101:3 I will not even consider doing what is dishonest. ³⁰ 

I hate doing evil; ³¹ 

I will have no part of it. ³² 

Psalms 104:20

104:20 You make it dark and night comes, ³³ 

during which all the beasts of the forest prowl around.

Psalms 110:1

Psalm 110 ³⁴ 

A psalm of David.

110:1 Here is the Lord’s proclamation ³⁵  to my lord: ³⁶ 

“Sit down at my right hand ³⁷  until I make your enemies your footstool!” ³⁸ 

Psalms 132:11

132:11 The Lord made a reliable promise to David; ³⁹ 

he will not go back on his word. ⁴⁰ 

He said, ⁴¹  “I will place one of your descendants ⁴²  on your throne.

[3:6]  ¹ tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s continuing attitude as he faces the crisis at hand.

[3:6]  ² tn Or perhaps “troops.” The Hebrew noun עָם (’am) sometimes refers to a military contingent or army.

[3:6]  ³ tn Heb “who all around take a stand against me.”

[9:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “place, Lord, terror with regard to them.” The Hebrew term מוֹרָה (morah, “terror”) is an alternative form of מוֹרָא (mora’; a reading that appears in some mss and finds support in several ancient textual witnesses).

[9:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “let the nations know they [are] man[kind]”; i.e., mere human beings (as opposed to God).

[18:11]  ⁷ tc Heb “he made darkness his hiding place around him, his covering.” 2 Sam 22:12 reads, “he made darkness around him coverings,” omitting “his hiding place” and pluralizing “covering.” Ps 18:11 may include a conflation of synonyms (“his hiding place” and “his covering”) or 2 Sam 22:12 may be the result of haplography/homoioarcton. Note that three successive words in Ps 18:11 begin with the Hebrew letter samek: סִתְרוֹ סְבִיבוֹתָיו סֻכָּתוֹ (sitro sÿvivotayv sukkato).

[18:11]  ⁸ tc Heb “darkness of water, clouds of clouds.” The noun “darkness” (חֶשְׁכַת, kheshkhat) is probably a corruption of an original reading חשׁרת, a form that is preserved in 2 Sam 22:12. The latter is a construct form of חַשְׁרָה (khashrah, “sieve”) which occurs only here in the OT. A cognate Ugaritic noun means “sieve,” and a related verb חָשַׁר (khashar, “to sift”) is attested in postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic. The phrase חַשְׁרַת מַיִם (khashrat mayim) means literally “a sieve of water.” It pictures the rain clouds as a sieve through which the rain falls to the ground (see F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry [SBLDS], 146, n. 33).

[21:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “meet him [with].”

[21:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “good.”

[21:3]  ¹² sn You bring him rich blessings. The following context indicates that God’s “blessings” include deliverance/protection, vindication, sustained life, and a long, stable reign (see also Pss 3:8; 24:5).

[21:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “you make him happy with joy with [i.e., “close by” or “in”] your face.” On the idiom “with your face” (i.e., “in your presence”) see Ps 16:11 and BDB 816 s.v. פָּנֻה II.2.a.

[21:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[45:16]  ¹⁹ tn The pronoun is second masculine singular, indicating the king is being addressed from this point to the end of the psalm.

[45:16]  ²⁰ tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive and the statement interpreted as a prayer, “May your sons carry on the dynasty of your ancestors!” The next line could then be taken as a relative clause, “[your sons] whom you will make princes throughout the land.”

[45:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “in place of your fathers will be your sons.”

[48:13]  ²² tn Heb “set your heart to its rampart.”

[48:13]  ²³ tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew word translated “walk through,” which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain. Cf. NEB “pass…in review”; NIV “view.”

[48:13]  ²⁴ sn The city’s towers, defenses, and fortresses are outward reminders and tangible symbols of the divine protection the city enjoys.

[73:28]  ²⁵ tn Heb “but as for me, the nearness of God for me [is] good.”

[73:28]  ²⁶ tn The infinitive construct with -לְ (lÿ) is understood here as indicating an attendant circumstance. Another option is to take it as indicating purpose (“so that I might declare”) or result (“with the result that I declare”).

[83:11]  ²⁸ sn Oreb and Zeeb were the generals of the Midianite army that was defeated by Gideon. The Ephraimites captured and executed both of them and sent their heads to Gideon (Judg 7:24-25).

[83:11]  ²⁹ sn Zebah and Zalmunna were the Midianite kings. Gideon captured them and executed them (Judg 8:1-21).

[84:6]  ³¹ tn The translation assumes that the Hebrew phrase עֵמֶק הַבָּכָא (’emeq habbakha’) is the name of an otherwise unknown arid valley through which pilgrims to Jerusalem passed. The term בָּכָא (bakha’) may be the name of a particular type of plant or shrub that grew in this valley. O. Borowski (Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 130) suggests it is the black mulberry. Some take the phrase as purely metaphorical and relate בָּכָא to the root בָּכָה (bakhah, “to weep”). In this case one might translate, “the valley of weeping” or “the valley of affliction.”

[84:6]  ³² tc The MT reads “a spring they make it,” but this makes little sense. Many medieval Hebrew mss, as well as the LXX, understand God to be the subject and the valley to be the object, “he [God] makes it [the valley] [into] a spring.”

[84:6]  ³³ tn This rare word may refer to the early (or autumn) rains (see Joel 2:23).

[84:6]  ³⁴ tc The MT reads בְּרָכוֹת (bÿrakhot, “blessings”) but the preceding reference to a “spring” favors an emendation to בְּרֵכוֹת (bÿrekhot, “pools”).

[88:8]  ³⁴ tn Heb “[I am] confined and I cannot go out.”

[101:3]  ³⁷ tn Heb “I will not set before my eyes a thing of worthlessness.”

[101:3]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the doing of swerving [deeds] I hate.” The Hebrew term סֵטִים (setim) is probably an alternate spelling of שֵׂטִים (setim), which appears in many medieval Hebrew mss. The form appears to be derived from a verbal root שׂוּט (sut, “to fall away; to swerve”; see Ps 40:4).

[101:3]  ³⁹ tn Heb “it [i.e., the doing of evil deeds] does not cling to me.”

[104:20]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “you make darkness, so that it might be night.”

[110:1]  ⁴³ sn Psalm 110. In this royal psalm the psalmist announces God’s oracle to the Davidic king. The first part of the oracle appears in v. 1, the second in v. 4. In vv. 2-3 the psalmist addresses the king, while in vv. 5-7 he appears to address God.

[110:1]  ⁴⁴ tn The word נְאֻם (nÿ’um) is used frequently in the OT of a formal divine announcement through a prophet.

[110:1]  ⁴⁵ sn My lord. In the psalm’s original context the speaker is an unidentified prophetic voice in the royal court. In the course of time the psalm is applied to each successive king in the dynasty and ultimately to the ideal Davidic king. NT references to the psalm understand David to be speaking about his “lord,” the Messiah. (See Matt 22:43-45; Mark 12:36-37; Luke 20:42-44; Acts 2:34-35).

[110:1]  ⁴⁶ tn To sit at the “right hand” of the king was an honor (see 1 Kgs 2:19). In Ugaritic myth (CTA 4 v. 108-10) the artisan god Kothar-and Khasis is described as sitting at the right hand of the storm god Baal. See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 61-62.

[110:1]  ⁴⁷ sn When the Lord made his covenant with David, he promised to subdue the king’s enemies (see 2 Sam 7:9-11; Ps 89:22-23).

[132:11]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “the Lord swore an oath to David [in] truth.”

[132:11]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “he will not turn back from it.”

[132:11]  ⁴⁸ tn The words “he said” are supplied in the translation to clarify that what follows are the Lord’s words.

[132:11]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “the fruit of your body.”