Psalms 42:4

42:4 I will remember and weep! ¹ 

For I was once walking along with the great throng to the temple of God,

shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival. ² 

Psalms 62:8

62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people!

Pour out your hearts before him! ³ 

God is our shelter! (Selah)

Psalms 79:6

79:6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you, ⁴ 

on the kingdoms that do not pray to you! ⁵ 

Psalms 102:1

Psalm 102 ⁶ 

The prayer of an oppressed man, as he grows faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.

102:1 O Lord, hear my prayer!

Pay attention to my cry for help! ⁷ 

Psalms 106:38

106:38 They shed innocent blood –

the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

The land was polluted by bloodshed. ⁸ 

[42:4]  ¹ tn Heb “These things I will remember and I will pour out upon myself my soul.” “These things” are identified in the second half of the verse as those times when the psalmist worshiped in the Lord’s temple. The two cohortative forms indicate the psalmist’s resolve to remember and weep. The expression “pour out upon myself my soul” refers to mourning (see Job 30:16).

[42:4]  ² tc Heb “for I was passing by with the throng [?], I was walking with [?] them to the house of God; with a voice of a ringing shout and thanksgiving a multitude was observing a festival.” The Hebrew phrase בַּסָּךְ אֶדַּדֵּם (bassakh ’eddaddem, “with the throng [?] I was walking with [?]”) is particularly problematic. The noun סָךְ (sakh) occurs only here. If it corresponds to הָמוֹן (hamon, “multitude”) then one can propose a meaning “throng.” The present translation assumes this reading (cf. NIV, NRSV). The form אֶדַּדֵּם (“I will walk with [?]”) is also very problematic. The form can be taken as a Hitpael from דָּדָה (dadah; this verb possibly appears in Isa 38:15), but the pronominal suffix is problematic. For this reason many emend the form to ם[י]אַדִּרִ (’adirim, “nobles”) or ם-רִ[י]אַדִ (’adirim, “great,” with enclitic mem [ם]). The present translation understands the latter and takes the adjective “great” as modifying “throng.” If one emends סָךְ (sakh, “throng [?]”) to סֹךְ (sokh, “shelter”; see the Qere of Ps 27:5), then ר[י]אַדִּ (’addir) could be taken as a divine epithet, “[in the shelter of] the majestic one,” a reading which may find support in the LXX and Syriac Peshitta.

[62:8]  ³ tn To “pour out one’s heart” means to offer up to God intense, emotional lamentation and petitionary prayers (see Lam 2:19).

[79:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “which do not know you.” Here the Hebrew term “know” means “acknowledge the authority of.”

[79:6]  ⁶ sn The kingdoms that do not pray to you. The people of these kingdoms pray to other gods, not the Lord, because they do not recognize his authority over them.

[102:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 102. The psalmist laments his oppressed state, but longs for a day when the Lord will restore Jerusalem and vindicate his suffering people.

[102:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “and may my cry for help come to you.”

[106:38]  ⁹ sn Num 35:33-34 explains that bloodshed defiles a land.