Psalms 3:8

3:8 The Lord delivers; ¹ 

you show favor to your people. ²  (Selah)

Psalms 24:5

24:5 Such godly people are rewarded by the Lord, ³ 

and vindicated by the God who delivers them. ⁴ 

Psalms 109:17

109:17 He loved to curse ⁵  others, so those curses have come upon him. ⁶ 

He had no desire to bless anyone, so he has experienced no blessings. ⁷ 

[3:8]  ¹ tn Heb “to the Lord [is] deliverance.”

[3:8]  ² tn Heb “upon your people [is] your blessing.” In this context God’s “blessing” includes deliverance/protection, vindication, and sustained life (see Pss 21:3, 6; 24:5).

[24:5]  ³ tn Heb “he (the righteous individual described in v. 4) lifts up a blessing from the Lord.” The singular subject is representative here, as v. 6 makes clear. The referent (godly people like the individual in v. 4) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The imperfect verbal form is generalizing; such people are typically rewarded for their deeds.

[24:5]  ⁴ tn “and vindication from the God of his deliverance.”

[109:17]  ⁵ sn A curse in OT times consists of a formal appeal to God to bring judgment down upon another. Curses were sometimes justified (such as the one spoken by the psalmist here in vv. 6-19), but when they were not, the one pronouncing the curse was in danger of bringing the anticipated judgment down upon himself.

[109:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “and he loved a curse and it came [upon] him.” A reference to the evil man experiencing a curse seems premature here, for the psalmist is asking God to bring judgment on his enemies. For this reason some (cf. NIV, NRSV) prefer to repoint the vav (ו) on “it came” as conjunctive and translate the verb as a jussive of prayer (“may it come upon him!”). The prefixed form with vav consecutive in the next line is emended in the same way and translated, “may it be far from him.” However, the psalmist may be indicating that the evil man’s lifestyle has already begun to yield its destructive fruit.

[109:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he did not delight in a blessing and it is far from him.”