Discovery BoxPsalms 34:1
ContextWritten by David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, causing the king to send him away. 2
34:1 I will praise 3 the Lord at all times;
my mouth will continually praise him. 4
Psalms 79:1
ContextA psalm of Asaph.
79:1 O God, foreigners 6 have invaded your chosen land; 7
they have polluted your holy temple
and turned Jerusalem 8 into a heap of ruins.
Psalms 127:5
Context127:5 How blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!
They will not be put to shame 9 when they confront 10 enemies at the city gate.
[34:1] 1 sn Psalm 34. In this song of thanksgiving the psalmist praises God for delivering him from distress. He encourages others to be loyal to the Lord, tells them how to please God, and assures them that the Lord protects his servants. The psalm is an acrostic; vv. 1-21 begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. (Verse 6 begins with the letter he (ה) and v. 7 with the letter zayin (ז). The letter vav (ו), which comes between ה and ז, seems to be omitted, although it does appear at the beginning of v. 6b. The final verse of the psalm, which begins with the letter pe (פ), is outside the acrostic scheme.
[34:1] 2 tn Heb “By David, when he changed his sense before Abimelech and he drove him away and he went.”
[34:1] 4 tn Heb “continually [will] his praise [be] in my mouth.”
[79:1] 5 sn Psalm 79. The author laments how the invading nations have destroyed the temple and city of Jerusalem. He asks God to forgive his people and to pour out his vengeance on those who have mistreated them.
[79:1] 7 tn Heb “have come into your inheritance.”
[79:1] 8 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
[127:5] 9 tn Being “put to shame” is here metonymic for being defeated, probably in a legal context, as the reference to the city gate suggests. One could be humiliated (Ps 69:12) or deprived of justice (Amos 5:12) at the gate, but with strong sons to defend the family interests this was less likely to happen.
