Psalms 96:1

Psalm 96 ¹ 

96:1 Sing to the Lord a new song! ² 

Sing to the Lord, all the earth!

Psalms 33:3

33:3 Sing to him a new song! ³ 

Play skillfully as you shout out your praises to him! ⁴ 

Psalms 68:32

68:32 O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God!

Sing praises to the Lord, (Selah)

Psalms 96:2

96:2 Sing to the Lord! Praise his name!

Announce every day how he delivers! ⁵ 

Psalms 105:2

105:2 Sing to him!

Make music to him!

Tell about all his miraculous deeds!

Psalms 42:8

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, ⁶ 

and by night he gives me a song, ⁷ 

a prayer ⁸  to the living God.

Psalms 68:4

68:4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his name!

Exalt the one who rides on the clouds! ⁹ 

For the Lord is his name! ¹⁰ 

Rejoice before him!

Psalms 137:3

137:3 for there our captors ask us to compose songs; ¹¹ 

those who mock us demand that we be happy, saying: ¹² 

“Sing for us a song about Zion!” ¹³ 

Psalms 149:1

Psalm 149 ¹⁴ 

149:1 Praise the Lord!

Sing to the Lord a new song!

Praise him in the assembly of the godly! ¹⁵ 

Psalms 98:1

Psalm 98 ¹⁶ 

A psalm.

98:1 Sing to the Lord a new song, ¹⁷ 

for he performs ¹⁸  amazing deeds!

His right hand and his mighty arm

accomplish deliverance. ¹⁹ 

[96:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 96. The psalmist summons everyone to praise the Lord, the sovereign creator of the world who preserves and promotes justice in the earth.

[96:1]  ² sn A new song is appropriate because the Lord is constantly intervening in the world as its just king. See also Pss 33:3; 40:3; 98:1.

[33:3]  ³ sn A new song is appropriate because the Lord is constantly intervening in the lives of his people in fresh and exciting ways.

[33:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “play skillfully with a loud shout.”

[96:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “announce from day to day his deliverance.”

[42:8]  ⁷ sn The psalmist believes that the Lord has not abandoned him, but continues to extend his loyal love. To this point in the psalm, the author has used the name “God,” but now, as he mentions the divine characteristic of loyal love, he switches to the more personal divine name Yahweh (rendered in the translation as “the Lord”).

[42:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

[42:8]  ⁹ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).

[68:4]  ⁹ tn Traditionally the Hebrew term עֲרָבוֹת (’aravot) is taken as “steppe-lands” (often rendered “deserts”), but here the form is probably a homonym meaning “clouds.” Verse 33, which depicts God as the one who “rides on the sky” strongly favors this (see as well Deut 33:26), as does the reference in v. 9 to God as the source of rain. The term עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “cloud”) is cognate with Akkadian urpatu/erpetu and with Ugaritic ’rpt. The phrase rkb ’rpt (“one who rides on the clouds”) appears in Ugaritic mythological texts as an epithet of the storm god Baal. The nonphonemic interchange of the bilabial consonants b and p is attested elsewhere in roots common to Hebrew and Ugaritic, though the phenomenon is relatively rare.

[68:4]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “in the Lord his name.” If the MT is retained, the preposition -בְ (bet) is introducing the predicate (the so-called bet of identity), “the Lord is his name.” However, some prefer to emend the text to כִּי יָהּ שְׁמוֹ (ki yah shÿmo, “for Yah is his name”). This emendation, reflected in the present translation, assumes a confusion of bet (ב) and kaf (כ) and haplography of yod (י).

[137:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “ask us [for] the words of a song.”

[137:3]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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.

[149:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 149. The psalmist calls upon God’s people to praise him because he is just and avenges them.

[149:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “his praise in the assembly of the godly ones.”

[98:1]  ¹⁵ sn Psalm 98. The psalmist summons the whole earth to praise God because he reveals his justice and delivers Israel.

[98:1]  ¹⁶ sn A new song is appropriate because the Lord is constantly intervening in the world as its just king. See Ps 96:1.

[98:1]  ¹⁷ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 1-3 are understood here as describing characteristic divine activities. Another option is to translate them as present perfects, “has performed…has accomplished deliverance, etc.” referring to completed actions that have continuing results.

[98:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his right hand delivers for him and his holy arm.” The right hand and arm symbolize his power as a warrior-king (see Isa 52:10). His arm is “holy” in the sense that it is in a category of its own; God’s power is incomparable.