Psalms 35:27

35:27 May those who desire my vindication shout for joy and rejoice!

May they continually say, ¹  “May the Lord be praised, ²  for he wants his servant to be secure.” ³ 

Psalms 48:2

48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, ⁴ 

a source of joy to the whole earth. ⁵ 

Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; ⁶ 

it is the city of the great king.

Psalms 101:3

101:3 I will not even consider doing what is dishonest. ⁷ 

I hate doing evil; ⁸ 

I will have no part of it. ⁹ 

Psalms 142:4

142:4 Look to the right and see!

No one cares about me. ¹⁰ 

I have nowhere to run; ¹¹ 

no one is concerned about my life. ¹² 

[35:27]  ¹ tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 27a are understood as jussives (see vv. 24b-26).

[35:27]  ² tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive, “may the Lord be magnified [in praise].” Another option is to take the verb as an imperfect, “the Lord is great.”

[35:27]  ³ tn Heb “the one who desires the peace of his servant.”

[48:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “beautiful of height.” The Hebrew term נוֹף (nof, “height”) is a genitive of specification after the qualitative noun “beautiful.” The idea seems to be that Mount Zion, because of its lofty appearance, is pleasing to the sight.

[48:2]  ⁵ sn A source of joy to the whole earth. The language is hyperbolic. Zion, as the dwelling place of the universal king, is pictured as the world’s capital. The prophets anticipated this idealized picture becoming a reality in the eschaton (see Isa 2:1-4).

[48:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “Mount Zion, the peaks of Zaphon.” Like all the preceding phrases in v. 2, both phrases are appositional to “city of our God, his holy hill” in v. 1, suggesting an identification in the poet’s mind between Mount Zion and Zaphon. “Zaphon” usually refers to the “north” in a general sense (see Pss 89:12; 107:3), but here, where it is collocated with “peaks,” it refers specifically to Mount Zaphon, located in the vicinity of ancient Ugarit and viewed as the mountain where the gods assembled (see Isa 14:13). By alluding to West Semitic mythology in this way, the psalm affirms that Mount Zion is the real divine mountain, for it is here that the Lord God of Israel lives and rules over the nations. See P. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 353, and T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 103.

[101:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will not set before my eyes a thing of worthlessness.”

[101:3]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “it [i.e., the doing of evil deeds] does not cling to me.”

[142:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “there is no one who recognizes me.”

[142:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “ a place of refuge perishes from me.”

[142:4]  ¹² tn Heb “there is no one who seeks for the sake of my life.”