Psalms 9:14

9:14 Then I will ¹  tell about all your praiseworthy acts; ² 

in the gates of Daughter Zion ³  I will rejoice because of your deliverance.” ⁴ 

Psalms 43:4-5

43:4 Then I will go ⁵  to the altar of God,

to the God who gives me ecstatic joy, ⁶ 

so that I express my thanks to you, ⁷  O God, my God, with a harp.

43:5 Why are you depressed, ⁸  O my soul? ⁹ 

Why are you upset? ¹⁰ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ¹¹ 

Psalms 51:12

51:12 Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance!

Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey! ¹² 

Psalms 119:81

כ (Kaf)

119:81 I desperately long for ¹³  your deliverance.

I find hope in your word.

Psalms 119:1

Psalm 119 ¹⁴ 

א (Alef)

119:1 How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, ¹⁵ 

who obey ¹⁶  the law of the Lord.

Psalms 2:1

Psalm 2 ¹⁷ 

2:1 Why ¹⁸  do the nations rebel? ¹⁹ 

Why ²⁰  are the countries ²¹  devising ²²  plots that will fail? ²³ 

Habakkuk 3:18

3:18 I will rejoice because of ²⁴  the Lord;

I will be happy because of the God who delivers me!

Luke 1:47

1:47 and my spirit has begun to rejoice ²⁵  in God my Savior,

Luke 2:20

2:20 So ²⁶  the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising ²⁷  God for all they had heard and seen; everything was just as they had been told. ²⁸ 

[9:14]  ¹ tn Or “so that I might.”

[9:14]  ² tn Heb “all your praise.” “Praise” stands by metonymy for the mighty acts that prompt it.

[9:14]  ³ sn Daughter Zion is an idiomatic title for Jerusalem. It appears frequently in the prophets, but only here in the psalms.

[9:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “in your deliverance.”

[43:4]  ⁵ tn The cohortative expresses the psalmist’s resolve. Prefixed with the vav (ו) conjunctive it also expresses the result or outcome of the preceding verbs “lead” and “escort.”

[43:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “to God, the joy of my happiness.” The phrase “joy of my happiness” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the degree of the psalmist’s joy. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[43:4]  ⁷ tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive probably indicates purpose (“so that”) or intention.

[43:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[43:5]  ⁹ sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[43:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

[43:5]  ¹¹ tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of my face and my God.” The last line should be emended to read יְשׁוּעֹת פְנֵי אֱלֹהָי (yÿshu’ot fÿney ’elohay, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God,” that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention. This refrain is identical to the one in Ps 42:11. See also 42:5, which differs only slightly.

[51:12]  ¹² tn Heb “and [with] a willing spirit sustain me.” The psalmist asks that God make him the kind of person who willingly obeys the divine commandments. The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[119:81]  ¹³ tn Heb “my soul pines for.” See Ps 84:2.

[119:1]  ¹⁴ sn Psalm 119. The psalmist celebrates God’s law and the guidance it provides his people. He expresses his desire to know God’s law thoroughly so that he might experience the blessings that come to those who obey it. This lengthy psalm exhibits an elaborate acrostic pattern. The psalm is divided into twenty-two sections (corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each of which is comprised of eight verses. Each of the verses in the first section (vv. 1-8) begins with the letter alef (א), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern continues throughout the psalm as each new section highlights a successive letter of the alphabet. Each verse in section two (vv. 9-16) begins with the second letter of the alphabet, each verse in section three (vv. 17-24) with the third letter, etc. This rigid pattern creates a sense of order and completeness and may have facilitated memorization.

[119:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness of those who are blameless of way.”

[119:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “walk in.”

[2:1]  ¹⁷ sn Psalm 2. In this royal psalm the author asserts the special status of the divinely chosen Davidic king and warns the nations and their rulers to submit to the authority of God and his chosen vice-regent.

[2:1]  ¹⁸ tn The question is rhetorical. Rather than seeking information, the psalmist expresses his outrage that the nations would have the audacity to rebel against God and his chosen king.

[2:1]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew verb רָגַשׁ (ragash) occurs only here. In Dan 6:6, 11, 15 the Aramaic cognate verb describes several officials acting as a group. A Hebrew nominal derivative is used in Ps 55:14 of a crowd of people in the temple.

[2:1]  ²⁰ tn The interrogative לָמָּה (lamah, “why?”) is understood by ellipsis in the second line.

[2:1]  ²¹ tn Or “peoples” (so many English versions).

[2:1]  ²² tn The Hebrew imperfect form describes the rebellion as underway. The verb הָגָה (hagah), which means “to recite quietly, meditate,” here has the metonymic nuance “devise, plan, plot” (see Ps 38:12; Prov 24:2).

[2:1]  ²³ tn Heb “devising emptiness.” The noun רִיק (riq, “emptiness”) may characterize their behavior as “worthless, morally bankrupt” but more likely refers to the outcome of their plots (i.e., failure). As the rest of the psalm emphasizes, their rebellion will fail.

[3:18]  ²⁴ tn Or “in.”

[1:47]  ²⁵ tn Or “rejoices.” The translation renders this aorist, which stands in contrast to the previous line’s present tense, as ingressive, which highlights Mary’s joyous reaction to the announcement. A comprehensive aorist is also possible here.

[2:20]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the conclusion of the topic.

[2:20]  ²⁷ sn The mention of glorifying and praising God is the second note of praise in this section; see Luke 2:13-14.

[2:20]  ²⁸ tn Grk “just as [it] had been spoken to them.” This has been simplified in the English translation by making the prepositional phrase (“to them”) the subject of the passive verb.