Psalms 78:18

78:18 They willfully challenged God ¹ 

by asking for food to satisfy their appetite.

Psalms 105:40

105:40 They asked for food, ²  and he sent quails;

he satisfied them with food from the sky. ³ 

Psalms 109:10

109:10 May his children ⁴  roam around begging,

asking for handouts as they leave their ruined home! ⁵ 

Psalms 122:6

122:6 Pray ⁶  for the peace of Jerusalem!

May those who love her prosper! ⁷ 

Psalms 2:8

2:8 Ask me,

and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, ⁸ 

the ends of the earth as your personal property.

Psalms 35:11

35:11 Violent men perjure themselves, ⁹ 

and falsely accuse me. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 21:4

21:4 He asked you to sustain his life, ¹¹ 

and you have granted him long life and an enduring dynasty. ¹² 

Psalms 40:6

40:6 Receiving sacrifices and offerings are not your primary concern. ¹³ 

You make that quite clear to me! ¹⁴ 

You do not ask for burnt sacrifices and sin offerings.

Psalms 137:3

137:3 for there our captors ask us to compose songs; ¹⁵ 

those who mock us demand that we be happy, saying: ¹⁶ 

“Sing for us a song about Zion!” ¹⁷ 

Psalms 27:4

27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing –

this is what I desire!

I want to live ¹⁸  in the Lord’s house ¹⁹  all the days of my life,

so I can gaze at the splendor ²⁰  of the Lord

and contemplate in his temple.

[78:18]  ¹ tn Heb “and they tested God in their heart.” The “heart” is viewed here as the center of their volition.

[105:40]  ² tn Heb “he [i.e., his people] asked.” The singular form should probably be emended to a plural שָׁאֲלוּ (sha’alu, “they asked”), the vav (ו) having fallen off by haplography (note the vav at the beginning of the following form).

[105:40]  ³ tn Or “bread of heaven.” The reference is to manna (see Exod 16:4, 13-15).

[109:10]  ³ tn Or “sons.”

[109:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and roaming, may his children roam and beg, and seek from their ruins.” Some, following the LXX, emend the term וְדָרְשׁוּ (vÿdoreshu, “and seek”) to יְגֹרְשׁוּ (yÿgoreshu; a Pual jussive, “may they be driven away” [see Job 30:5; cf. NIV, NRSV]), but דָּרַשׁ (darash) nicely parallels שִׁאֵלוּ (shi’elu, “and beg”) in the preceding line.

[122:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “ask [for].”

[122:6]  ⁵ tn Or “be secure.”

[2:8]  ⁵ sn I will give you the nations. The Lord promises the Davidic king universal dominion.

[35:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “witnesses of violence rise up.”

[35:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “[that] which I do not know they ask me.”

[21:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “life he asked from you.” Another option is to translate the perfect verbal forms in v. 4 with the present tense, “he asks…you grant.”

[21:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “you have granted him length of days forever and ever.” The phrase “length of days,” when used of human beings, usually refers to a lengthy period of time (such as one’s lifetime). See, for example, Deut 30:20; Job 12:12; Ps 91:16; Prov 3:2, 16; Lam 5:20. The additional phrase “forever and ever” is hyperbolic. While it seems to attribute eternal life to the king (see Pss 61:6-7; 72:5 as well), the underlying reality is the king’s enduring dynasty. He will live on, as it were, through his descendants, who will continue to rule over his kingdom long after he has passed off the scene.

[40:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “sacrifice and offering you do not desire.” The statement is exaggerated for the sake of emphasis (see Ps 51:16 as well). God is pleased with sacrifices, but his first priority is obedience and loyalty (see 1 Sam 15:22). Sacrifices and offerings apart from genuine allegiance are meaningless (see Isa 1:11-20).

[40:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “ears you hollowed out for me.” The meaning of this odd expression is debated (this is the only collocation of “hollowed out” and “ears” in the OT). It may have been an idiomatic expression referring to making a point clear to a listener. The LXX has “but a body you have prepared for me,” a reading which is followed in Heb 10:5.

[137:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “ask us [for] the words of a song.”

[137:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “our [?] joy.” The derivation and meaning of the Hebrew phrase תוֹלָלֵינוּ (tolalenu, “our [?]”) are uncertain. A derivation from תָּלַל (talal, “to mock”) fits contextually, but this root occurs only in the Hiphil stem. For a discussion of various proposals, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 236.

[137:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from a song of Zion.” Most modern translations read, “one of the songs of Zion,” taking the preposition מִן (min, “from”) as partitive and “song” as collective. The present translation assumes the mem (ם) is enclitic, being misunderstood later as the prefixed preposition.

[27:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my living.”

[27:4]  ¹¹ sn The Lord’s house. This probably refers to the tabernacle (if one accepts Davidic authorship) or the temple (see Judg 19:18; 1 Sam 1:7, 24; 2 Sam 12:20; 1 Kgs 7:12, 40, 45, 51).

[27:4]  ¹² tn Or “beauty.”