66:8 Praise 1 our God, you nations!
Loudly proclaim his praise! 2
66:9 He preserves our lives 3
and does not allow our feet to slip.
66:10 For 4 you, O God, tested us;
you purified us like refined silver.
66:11 You led us into a trap; 5
you caused us to suffer. 6
66:12 You allowed men to ride over our heads;
we passed through fire and water,
but you brought us out into a wide open place. 7
66:13 I will enter 8 your temple with burnt sacrifices;
I will fulfill the vows I made to you,
66:14 which my lips uttered
and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.
66:15 I will offer up to you fattened animals as burnt sacrifices,
along with the smell of sacrificial rams.
I will offer cattle and goats. (Selah)
66:16 Come! Listen, all you who are loyal to God! 9
I will declare what he has done for me.
1 tn Heb “bless,” in the sense of declaring “God to be the source of…special power” (see HALOT 160 s.v. II ברך pi).
2 tn Heb “cause the voice of his praise to be heard.”
3 tn Heb “the one who places our soul in life.”
4 tn Or “indeed.”
5 tn Heb “you brought us into a net.” This rare word for “net” also occurs in Ezek 12:13; 13:21; 17:20.
6 tn Heb “you placed suffering on our hips.” The noun מוּעָקָה (mu’aqah, “suffering”) occurs only here in the OT.
7 tc The MT reads רְוָיָה (“saturation”) but this should be emended to רְוָחָה (rÿvakhah, “wide open place”; i.e., “relief”), a reading supported by several ancient versions (LXX, Syriac, Jerome, Targum).
8 sn Here the psalmist switches to the singular; he speaks as the representative of the nation.
9 tn Heb “all of the fearers of God.”