Psalms 37:26

37:26 All day long he shows compassion and lends to others, ¹ 

and his children ²  are blessed.

Psalms 3:8

3:8 The Lord delivers; ³ 

you show favor to your people. ⁴  (Selah)

Psalms 24:5

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

and vindicated by the God who delivers them. ⁶ 

Psalms 109:17

109:17 He loved to curse ⁷  others, so those curses have come upon him. ⁸ 

He had no desire to bless anyone, so he has experienced no blessings. ⁹ 

Psalms 21:3

21:3 For you bring him ¹⁰  rich ¹¹  blessings; ¹² 

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. ¹³ 

Psalms 84:6

84:6 As they pass through the Baca Valley, ¹⁴ 

he provides a spring for them. ¹⁵ 

The rain ¹⁶  even covers it with pools of water. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 129:8

129:8 Those who pass by will not say, ¹⁸ 

“May you experience the Lord’s blessing!

We pronounce a blessing on you in the name of the Lord.”

Psalms 133:3

133:3 It is like the dew of Hermon, ¹⁹ 

which flows down upon the hills of Zion. ²⁰ 

Indeed ²¹  that is where the Lord has decreed

a blessing will be available – eternal life. ²² 

[37:26]  ¹ tn The active participles describe characteristic behavior.

[37:26]  ² tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

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

[3:8]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn “and vindication from the God of his deliverance.”

[109:17]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he did not delight in a blessing and it is far from him.”

[21:3]  ⁹ tn Or “meet him [with].”

[21:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “good.”

[21:3]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹¹ 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.

[84:6]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn This rare word may refer to the early (or autumn) rains (see Joel 2:23).

[84:6]  ¹⁶ tc The MT reads בְּרָכוֹת (bÿrakhot, “blessings”) but the preceding reference to a “spring” favors an emendation to בְּרֵכוֹת (bÿrekhot, “pools”).

[129:8]  ¹⁵ tn The perfect verbal form is used for rhetorical effect; it describes an anticipated development as if it were already reality.

[133:3]  ¹⁷ sn Hermon refers to Mount Hermon, located north of Israel.

[133:3]  ¹⁸ sn The hills of Zion are those surrounding Zion (see Pss 87:1; 125:2). The psalmist does not intend to suggest that the dew from Mt. Hermon in the distant north actually flows down upon Zion. His point is that the same kind of heavy dew that replenishes Hermon may also be seen on Zion’s hills. See A. Cohen, Psalms (SoBB), 439. “Dew” here symbolizes divine blessing, as the next line suggests.

[133:3]  ¹⁹ tn Or “for.”

[133:3]  ²⁰ tn Heb “there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forever.”