Mazmur 112:1

Psalm 112 ¹ 

112:1 Praise the Lord!

How blessed is the one ²  who obeys ³  the Lord,

who takes great delight in keeping his commands. ⁴ 

Yesaya 56:2

56:2 The people who do this will be blessed, ⁵ 

the people who commit themselves to obedience, ⁶ 

who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. ⁷ 

[112:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 112. This wisdom psalm lists some of the benefits of living a godly life. The psalm is an acrostic. After the introductory call to praise, every poetic line (twenty-two in all) begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[112:1]  ² tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man.” Hebrew wisdom literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The individual is representative of a larger group, called the “godly” in vv. 3-4. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender specific “man” with the more neutral “one.” The generic masculine pronoun is used in the following verses.

[112:1]  ³ tn Heb “fears.”

[112:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “in his commands he delights very much.” The words “in keeping” are supplied in the translation for clarification. Taking delight in the law is metonymic here for obeying God’s moral will. See Ps 1:2.

[56:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “blessed is the man who does this.”

[56:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “the son of mankind who takes hold of it.”

[56:2]  ⁷ tn Heb and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”