Discovery BoxPsalms 8:1
ContextFor the music director, according to the gittith style; 2 a psalm of David.
how magnificent 4 is your reputation 5 throughout the earth!
You reveal your majesty in the heavens above! 6
Psalms 46:9
Context46:9 He brings an end to wars throughout the earth; 7
he shatters 8 the bow and breaks 9 the spear;
he burns 10 the shields with fire. 11
Psalms 48:2
Context48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, 12
a source of joy to the whole earth. 13
Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; 14
it is the city of the great king.
Psalms 59:13
Context59:13 Angrily wipe them out! Wipe them out so they vanish!
Let them know that God rules
in Jacob and to the ends of the earth! (Selah)
Psalms 65:9
Context65:9 You visit the earth and give it rain; 15
you make it rich and fertile 16
with overflowing streams full of water. 17
You provide grain for them, 18
for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. 19
Psalms 72:16
Context72:16 May there be 20 an abundance 21 of grain in the earth;
on the tops 22 of the mountains may it 23 sway! 24
May its 25 fruit trees 26 flourish 27 like the forests of Lebanon! 28
May its crops 29 be as abundant 30 as the grass of the earth! 31
Psalms 96:13
Context96:13 before the Lord, for he comes!
For he comes to judge the earth!
He judges the world fairly, 32
and the nations in accordance with his justice. 33
Psalms 104:35
Context104:35 May sinners disappear 34 from the earth,
and the wicked vanish!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
Praise the Lord!
Psalms 106:38
Context106:38 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. 35
[8:1] 1 sn Psalm 8. In this hymn to the sovereign creator, the psalmist praises God’s majesty and marvels that God has given mankind dominion over the created order.
[8:1] 2 tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הגתית is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or type of instrument.
[8:1] 3 tn The plural form of the title emphasizes the
[8:1] 4 tn Or “awesome”; or “majestic.”
[8:1] 5 tn Heb “name,” which here stands metonymically for God’s reputation.
[8:1] 6 tc Heb “which, give, your majesty on the heavens.” The verb form תְּנָה (tÿnah; an imperative?) is corrupt. The form should be emended to a second masculine singular perfect (נָתַתָּה, natatah) or imperfect (תִתֵן, titen) form. The introductory אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) can be taken as a relative pronoun (“you who”) or as a causal conjunction (“because”). One may literally translate, “you who [or “because you”] place your majesty upon the heavens.” For other uses of the phrase “place majesty upon” see Num 27:20 and 1 Chr 29:25.
[46:9] 7 tn Heb “[the] one who causes wars to cease unto the end of the earth.” The participle continues the description begun in v. 8b and indicates that this is the
[46:9] 8 tn The verb שָׁבַר (shavar, “break”) appears in the Piel here (see Ps 29:5). In the OT it occurs thirty-six times in the Piel, always with multiple objects (the object is either a collective singular or grammatically plural or dual form). The Piel may highlight the repetition of the pluralative action, or it may suggest an intensification of action, indicating repeated action comprising a whole, perhaps with the nuance “break again and again, break in pieces.” Another option is to understand the form as resultative: “make broken” (see IBHS 404-7 §24.3). The imperfect verbal form carries on and emphasizes the generalizing nature of the description.
[46:9] 9 tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive carries along the generalizing emphasis of the preceding imperfect.
[46:9] 10 tn The imperfect verbal form carries on and emphasizes the generalizing nature of the description.
[46:9] 11 tn Heb “wagons he burns with fire.” Some read “chariots” here (cf. NASB), but the Hebrew word refers to wagons or carts, not chariots, elsewhere in the OT. In this context, where military weapons are mentioned, it is better to revocalize the form as עֲגִלוֹת (’agilot, “round shields”), a word which occurs only here in the OT, but is attested in later Hebrew and Aramaic.
[48:2] 13 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] 14 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] 15 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
[65:9] 19 tn The verb form is a Polel from שׁוּק (shuq, “be abundant”), a verb which appears only here and in Joel 2:24 and 3:13, where it is used in the Hiphil stem and means “overflow.”
[65:9] 20 tn Heb “you greatly enrich it.”
[65:9] 21 tn Heb “[with] a channel of God full of water.” The divine name is probably used here in a superlative sense to depict a very deep stream (“a stream fit for God,” as it were).
[65:9] 22 tn The pronoun apparently refers to the people of the earth, mentioned in v. 8.
[65:9] 23 tn Heb “for thus [referring to the provision of rain described in the first half of the verse] you prepare it.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix attached to the verb “prepare” refers back to the “earth,” which is a feminine noun with regard to grammatical form.
[72:16] 25 tn The prefixed verbal form is jussive, not imperfect. The translation assumes the subject is impersonal (rather than the king).
[72:16] 26 tn The Hebrew noun פִסַּה (pissah; which appears here in the construct form) occurs only here in the OT. Perhaps the noun is related to the verbal root פָּשָׂה (pasah, “to spread,” see BDB 832 s.v.; the root appears as פָּסָה [pasah] in postbiblical Hebrew), which is used in postbiblical Hebrew of the rising sun’s rays spreading over the horizon and a tree’s branches spreading out (see Jastrow 1194 s.v. פסי, פָּסָה, פָּשָׂה). In Ps 72:16 a “spreading of grain” would refer to grain fields extending out over the land. C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs (Psalms [ICC], 2:139) emend the form to סְפִיחַ (sÿfiakh, “second growth”).
[72:16] 27 tn Heb “top” (singular).
[72:16] 28 tn That is, the grain.
[72:16] 29 tn According to the traditional accentuation of the MT, this verb belongs with what follows. See the translator’s note at the end of the verse for a discussion of the poetic parallelism and interpretation of the verse.
[72:16] 30 tn The antecedent of the third masculine singular pronominal suffix is unclear. It is unlikely that the antecedent is אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) because this noun is normally grammatically feminine. Perhaps רֹאשׁ (ro’sh, “top [of the mountains]”) is the antecedent. Another option is to understand the pronoun as referring to the king, who would then be viewed as an instrument of divine agricultural blessing (see v. 6).
[72:16] 32 tc According to the traditional accentuation of the MT, this verb belongs with what follows. See the note on the word “earth” at the end of the verse for a discussion of the poetic parallelism and interpretation of the verse. The present translation takes it with the preceding words, “like Lebanon its fruit” and emends the verb form from וְיָצִיצוּ (vÿyatsitsu; Qal imperfect third masculine plural with prefixed vav, [ו]) to יָצִיץ (yatsits; Qal imperfect third masculine singular). The initial vav is eliminated as dittographic (note the vav on the ending of the preceding form פִּרְיוֹ, piryo, “its/his fruit”) and the vav at the end of the form is placed on the following emended form (see the note on the word “crops”), yielding וַעֲמִיר (va’amir, “and [its] crops”).
[72:16] 33 tn Heb “like Lebanon.”
[72:16] 34 tc The MT has “from the city.” The translation assumes an emendation to עֲמִיר (’amir, “crops”).
[72:16] 35 tn The translation assumes that the verb צוץ (“flourish”) goes with the preceding line. The words “be as abundant” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
[72:16] 36 tc The traditional accentuation and vocalization of the MT differ from the text assumed by the present translation. The MT reads as follows: “May there be an abundance of grain in the earth, / and on the tops of the mountains! / May its [or “his”?] fruit [trees?] rustle like [the trees of] Lebanon! / May they flourish from the city, like the grass of the earth!” If one follows the MT, then it would appear that the “fruit” of the third line is a metaphorical reference to the king’s people, who flow out from the cities to populate the land (see line 4). Elsewhere in the OT people are sometimes compared to grass that sprouts up from the land (see v. 7, as well as Isa 27:6; Pss 92:7; 103:15). The translation understands a different poetic structural arrangement and, assuming the emendations mentioned in earlier notes, interprets each line of the verse to be a prayer for agricultural abundance.
[96:13] 31 tn The verbal forms in v. 13 probably describe God’s typical, characteristic behavior, though they may depict in dramatic fashion the outworking of divine judgment or anticipate a future judgment of worldwide proportions, in which case they could be translated “will judge the world.”
[96:13] 32 tn Heb “and the nations with his integrity.”
[104:35] 37 tn Or “be destroyed.”
[106:38] 43 sn Num 35:33-34 explains that bloodshed defiles a land.
