Mazmur 24:7-9

24:7 Look up, ¹  you gates!

Rise up, ²  you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king ³  will enter! ⁴ 

24:8 Who is this majestic king? ⁵ 

The Lord who is strong and mighty!

The Lord who is mighty in battle!

24:9 Look up, you gates!

Rise up, you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king will enter!

Mazmur 44:4

44:4 You are my ⁶  king, O God!

Decree ⁷  Jacob’s ⁸  deliverance!

Mazmur 47:2

47:2 For the sovereign Lord ⁹  is awe-inspiring; ¹⁰ 

he is the great king who rules the whole earth! ¹¹ 

Mazmur 74:12

74:12 But God has been my ¹²  king from ancient times,

performing acts of deliverance on the earth. ¹³ 

Mazmur 110:5

110:5 O sovereign Lord, ¹⁴  at your right hand

he strikes down ¹⁵  kings in the day he unleashes his anger. ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 136:17-18

136:17 to the one who struck down great kings,

for his loyal love endures,

136:18 and killed powerful kings,

for his loyal love endures,

Mazmur 144:10

144:10 the one who delivers ¹⁷  kings,

and rescued David his servant from a deadly ¹⁸  sword.

Mazmur 148:11

148:11 you kings of the earth and all you nations,

you princes and all you leaders ¹⁹  on the earth,

Mazmur 149:2

149:2 Let Israel rejoice in their Creator!

Let the people ²⁰  of Zion delight in their king! ²¹ 

[24:7]  ¹ tn Heb “lift up your heads.” The gates of the Lord’s dwelling place are here personified. The idiom “lift up the head” often means “be confident, bold” (see Judg 8:28; Job 10:15; Ps 83:2; Zech 1:21).

[24:7]  ² tn Heb “lift yourselves up.”

[24:7]  ³ tn Or “king of glory.”

[24:7]  ⁴ tn Following the imperatives of the preceding lines, the prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[24:8]  ⁵ sn Who is this majestic king? Perhaps the personified gates/doors ask this question, in response to the command given in v. 7.

[44:4]  ⁶ sn The speaker changes here to an individual, perhaps the worship leader or the king. The oscillation between singular (vv. 4, 6) and plural (vv. 1-3, 5, 7-8) in vv. 1-8 may reflect an antiphonal ceremony.

[44:4]  ⁷ tc The LXX assumes a participle here (מְצַוֶּה [mÿtsavveh], “the one who commands/decrees”) which would stand in apposition to “my God.” It is possible that the MT, which has the imperative (צַוֵּה, tsavveh) form, has suffered haplography of the letter mem (ם). Note that the preceding word (אֱלֹהִים, ’elohim) ends in mem. Another option is that the MT is divided in the wrong place; perhaps one could move the final mem from אֱלֹהִים to the beginning of the next word and read מְצַוֶּה אֱלֹהָי (’elohay mÿtsavveh, “[You are my king,] my God, the one who decrees”).

[44:4]  tn Or “command.” This may be the Israelites’ petition prior to the battle. See the introductory note to the psalm.

[44:4]  ⁸ tn That is, Israel. See Pss 14:7; 22:23.

[47:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord Most High.” The divine title “Most High” (עֶלְיוֹן, ’elyon) pictures the Lord as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked.

[47:2]  ¹⁰ tn Or “awesome.” The Niphal participle נוֹרָא (nora’), when used of God in the psalms, focuses on the effect that his royal splendor and powerful deeds have on those witnessing his acts (Pss 66:3, 5; 68:35; 76:7, 12; 89:7; 96:4; 99:3; 111:9). Here it refers to his capacity to fill his defeated foes with terror and his people with fearful respect.

[47:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a great king over all the earth.”

[74:12]  ¹² tn The psalmist speaks as Israel’s representative here.

[74:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the midst of the earth.”

[110:5]  ¹⁴ tn As pointed in the Hebrew text, this title refers to God (many medieval Hebrew mss read יְהוָה, yehveh, “Lord” here). The present translation assumes that the psalmist here addresses the Lord as he celebrates what the king is able to accomplish while positioned at God’s “right hand.” According to this view the king is the subject of the third person verb forms in vv. 5b-7. (2) Another option is to understand the king as the addressee (as in vv. 2-3). In this case “the Lord” is the subject of the third person verbs throughout vv. 5-7 and is depicted as a warrior in a very anthropomorphic manner. In this case the Lord is pictured as being at the psalmist’s right hand (just the opposite of v. 1). See Pss 16:8; 121:5. (3) A third option is to revocalize אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “Lord”) as אֲדֹנִי (’adoniy, “my lord”; see v. 1). In this case one may translate, “My lord, at his [God’s] right hand, strikes down.” In this case the king is the subject of the third person verbs in vv. 5b-7.

[110:5]  ¹⁵ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 5-6 are understood here as descriptive-dramatic or as generalizing. Another option is to take them as rhetorical. In this case the psalmist describes anticipated events as if they had already taken place.

[110:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in the day of his anger.”

[144:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “grants deliverance to.”

[144:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “harmful.”

[148:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or “judges.”

[149:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “sons.”

[149:2]  ²¹ sn The Lord is the king here, as the parallelism in the previous line (“their creator”) indicates.