Mazmur 22:26

22:26 Let the oppressed eat and be filled! ¹ 

Let those who seek his help praise the Lord!

May you ²  live forever!

Mazmur 27:4

27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing –

this is what I desire!

I want to live ³  in the Lord’s house ⁴  all the days of my life,

so I can gaze at the splendor ⁵  of the Lord

and contemplate in his temple.

Mazmur 27:6

27:6 Now I will triumph

over my enemies who surround me! ⁶ 

I will offer sacrifices in his dwelling place and shout for joy! ⁷ 

I will sing praises to the Lord!

Mazmur 30:1

Psalm 30 ⁸ 

A psalm – a song used at the dedication of the temple; ⁹  by David.

30:1 I will praise you, O Lord, for you lifted me up, ¹⁰ 

and did not allow my enemies to gloat ¹¹  over me.

Mazmur 30:5

30:5 For his anger lasts only a brief moment,

and his good favor restores one’s life. ¹² 

One may experience sorrow during the night,

but joy arrives in the morning. ¹³ 

Mazmur 40:6

40:6 Receiving sacrifices and offerings are not your primary concern. ¹⁴ 

You make that quite clear to me! ¹⁵ 

You do not ask for burnt sacrifices and sin offerings.

Mazmur 48:2

48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, ¹⁶ 

a source of joy to the whole earth. ¹⁷ 

Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; ¹⁸ 

it is the city of the great king.

Mazmur 51:19

51:19 Then you will accept ¹⁹  the proper sacrifices, burnt sacrifices and whole offerings;

then bulls will be sacrificed ²⁰  on your altar. ²¹ 

Mazmur 67:1

Psalm 67 ²² 

For the music director; to be accompanied by stringed instruments; a psalm, a song.

67:1 May God show us his favor ²³  and bless us! ²⁴ 

May he smile on us! ²⁵  (Selah)

Mazmur 68:6

68:6 God settles those who have been deserted in their own homes; ²⁶ 

he frees prisoners and grants them prosperity. ²⁷ 

But sinful rebels live in the desert. ²⁸ 

Mazmur 77:2

77:2 In my time of trouble I sought ²⁹  the Lord.

I kept my hand raised in prayer throughout the night. ³⁰ 

I ³¹  refused to be comforted.

Mazmur 106:47

106:47 Deliver us, O Lord, our God!

Gather us from among the nations!

Then we will give thanks ³²  to your holy name,

and boast about your praiseworthy deeds. ³³ 

Mazmur 126:2

126:2 At that time we laughed loudly

and shouted for joy. ³⁴ 

At that time the nations said, ³⁵ 

“The Lord has accomplished great things for these people.”

Mazmur 137:3

137:3 for there our captors ask us to compose songs; ³⁶ 

those who mock us demand that we be happy, saying: ³⁷ 

“Sing for us a song about Zion!” ³⁸ 

Mazmur 142:7

142:7 Free me ³⁹  from prison,

that I may give thanks to your name.

Because of me the godly will assemble, ⁴⁰ 

for you will vindicate me. ⁴¹ 

[22:26]  ¹ sn Eat and be filled. In addition to praising the Lord, the psalmist also offers a thank offering to the Lord and invites others to share in a communal meal.

[22:26]  ² tn Heb “may your heart[s].”

[27:4]  ³ tn Heb “my living.”

[27:4]  ⁴ sn The Lord’s house. This probably refers to the tabernacle (if one accepts Davidic authorship) or the temple (see Judg 19:18; 1 Sam 1:7, 24; 2 Sam 12:20; 1 Kgs 7:12, 40, 45, 51).

[27:4]  ⁵ tn Or “beauty.”

[27:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “and now my head will be lifted up over my enemies all around me.”

[27:6]  sn In vv. 1-3 the psalmist generalizes, but here we discover that he is facing a crisis and is under attack from enemies (see vv. 11-12).

[27:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will sacrifice in his tent sacrifices of a shout for joy” (that is, “sacrifices accompanied by a joyful shout”).

[30:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 30. The author thanks the Lord for delivering him from death and urges others to join him in praise. The psalmist experienced divine discipline for a brief time, but when he cried out for help the Lord intervened and restored his favor.

[30:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “a song of the dedication of the house.” The referent of “house” is unclear. It is possible that David wrote this psalm for the dedication ceremony of Solomon’s temple. Another possibility is that the psalm was used on the occasion of the dedication of the second temple following the return from exile, or on the occasion of the rededication of the temple in Maccabean times.

[30:1]  ¹⁰ tn Elsewhere the verb דָּלָה (dalah) is used of drawing water from a well (Exod 2:16, 19; Prov 20:5). The psalmist was trapped in the pit leading to Sheol (see v. 3), but the Lord hoisted him up. The Piel stem is used here, perhaps suggesting special exertion on the Lord’s part.

[30:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “rejoice.”

[30:5]  ¹² tn Heb “for [there is] a moment in his anger, [but] life in his favor.” Because of the parallelism with “moment,” some understand חַיִּים (khayyim) in a quantitative sense: “lifetime” (cf. NIV, NRSV). However, the immediate context, which emphasizes deliverance from death (see v. 3), suggests that חַיִּים has a qualitative sense: “physical life” or even “prosperous life” (cf. NEB “in his favour there is life”).

[30:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the evening weeping comes to lodge, but at morning a shout of joy.” “Weeping” is personified here as a traveler who lodges with one temporarily.

[40:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “sacrifice and offering you do not desire.” The statement is exaggerated for the sake of emphasis (see Ps 51:16 as well). God is pleased with sacrifices, but his first priority is obedience and loyalty (see 1 Sam 15:22). Sacrifices and offerings apart from genuine allegiance are meaningless (see Isa 1:11-20).

[40:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “ears you hollowed out for me.” The meaning of this odd expression is debated (this is the only collocation of “hollowed out” and “ears” in the OT). It may have been an idiomatic expression referring to making a point clear to a listener. The LXX has “but a body you have prepared for me,” a reading which is followed in Heb 10:5.

[48:2]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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 Lord God of Israel lives and rules over the nations. See P. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 353, and T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 103.

[51:19]  ¹⁹ tn Or “desire, take delight in.”

[51:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “then they will offer up bulls.” The third plural subject is indefinite.

[51:19]  ²¹ sn Verses 18-19 appear to reflect the exilic period, when the city’s walls lay in ruins and the sacrificial system had been disrupted.

[67:1]  ²² sn Psalm 67. The psalmist prays for God’s blessing upon his people and urges the nations to praise him for he is the just ruler of the world.

[67:1]  ²³ tn Or “have mercy on us.”

[67:1]  ²⁴ tn The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives expressing the psalmist’s prayer. Note the jussive form יָאֵר (ya’er) in the next line.

[67:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “may he cause his face to shine with us.”

[68:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “God causes the solitary ones to dwell in a house.” The participle suggests this is what God typically does.

[68:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he brings out prisoners into prosperity.” Another option is to translate, “he brings out prisoners with singing” (cf. NIV). The participle suggests this is what God typically does.

[68:6]  ²⁸ tn Or “in a parched [land].”

[68:6]  sn God delivers the downtrodden and oppressed, but sinful rebels who oppose his reign are treated appropriately.

[77:2]  ²⁹ tn Here the psalmist refers back to the very recent past, when he began to pray for divine help.

[77:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “my hand [at] night was extended and was not growing numb.” The verb נָגַר (nagar), which can mean “flow” in certain contexts, here has the nuance “be extended.” The imperfect form (תָפוּג, tafug, “to be numb”) is used here to describe continuous action in the past.

[77:2]  ³¹ tn Or “my soul.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[106:47]  ³² tn Heb “to give thanks.” The infinitive construct indicates result after the imperative.

[106:47]  ³³ tn Heb “to boast in your praise.”

[126:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with a shout.”

[126:2]  ³⁵ tn Heb “they said among the nations.”

[137:3]  ³⁶ tn Heb “ask us [for] the words of a song.”

[137:3]  ³⁷ 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]  ³⁸ 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.

[142:7]  ³⁹ tn Heb “bring out my life.”

[142:7]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “gather around.”

[142:7]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew idiom גָּמַל עַל (gamal ’al) means “to repay,” here in a positive sense.