Mazmur 2:7

2:7 The king says, ¹  “I will announce the Lord’s decree. He said to me: ² 

‘You are my son! ³  This very day I have become your father!

Mazmur 7:6

7:6 Stand up angrily, ⁴  Lord!

Rise up with raging fury against my enemies! ⁵ 

Wake up for my sake and execute the judgment you have decreed for them! ⁶ 

Mazmur 40:1

Psalm 40 ⁷ 

For the music director; By David, a psalm.

40:1 I relied completely ⁸  on the Lord,

and he turned toward me

and heard my cry for help.

Mazmur 42:10

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ⁹ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 69:16

69:16 Answer me, O Lord, for your loyal love is good! ¹¹ 

Because of your great compassion, turn toward me!

Mazmur 86:16

86:16 Turn toward me and have mercy on me!

Give your servant your strength!

Deliver your slave! ¹² 

Mazmur 101:2

101:2 I will walk in ¹³  the way of integrity.

When will you come to me?

I will conduct my business with integrity in the midst of my palace. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 102:24

102:24 I say, “O my God, please do not take me away in the middle of my life! ¹⁵ 

You endure through all generations. ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 140:6

140:6 I say to the Lord, “You are my God.”

O Lord, pay attention to my plea for mercy!

[2:7]  ¹ tn The words “the king says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The speaker is the Lord’s chosen king.

[2:7]  ² tn Or “I will relate the decree. The Lord said to me” (in accordance with the Masoretic accentuation).

[2:7]  ³ sn ‘You are my son!’ The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26-27). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.

[7:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “in your anger.”

[7:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “Lift yourself up in the angry outbursts of my enemies.” Many understand the preposition prefixed to עַבְרוֹת (’avrot, “angry outbursts”) as adversative, “against,” and the following genitive “enemies” as subjective. In this case one could translate, “rise up against my furious enemies” (cf. NIV, NRSV). The present translation, however, takes the preposition as indicating manner (cf. “in your anger” in the previous line) and understands the plural form of the noun as indicating an abstract quality (“fury”) or excessive degree (“raging fury”). Cf. Job 21:30.

[7:6]  ⁶ tc Heb “Wake up to me [with the] judgment [which] you have commanded.” The LXX understands אֵלִי (’eliy, “my God”) instead of אֵלַי (’elay, “to me”; the LXX reading is followed by NEB, NIV, NRSV.) If the reading of the MT is retained, the preposition probably has the sense of “on account of, for the sake of.” The noun מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “judgment”) is probably an adverbial accusative, modifying the initial imperative, “wake up.” In this case צִוִּיתָ (tsivvita, “[which] you have commanded”) is an asyndetic relative clause. Some take the perfect as precative. In this case one could translate the final line, “Wake up for my sake! Decree judgment!” (cf. NIV). However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.

[40:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).

[40:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “relying, I relied.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form to emphasize the verbal idea. The emphasis is reflected in the translation through the adverb “completely.” Another option is to translate, “I waited patiently” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[42:10]  ⁹ tc Heb “with a shattering in my bones my enemies taunt me.” A few medieval Hebrew mss and Symmachus’ Greek version read “like” instead of “with.”

[42:10]  ¹⁰ sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

[69:16]  ¹¹ tn Or “pleasant”; or “desirable.”

[86:16]  ¹² tn Heb “the son of your female servant.” The phrase “son of a female servant” (see also Ps 116:16) is used of a son born to a secondary wife or concubine (Exod 23:12). In some cases the child’s father is the master of the house (see Gen 21:10, 13; Judg 9:18). The use of the expression here certainly does not imply that the Lord has such a secondary wife or concubine! It is used metaphorically and idiomatically to emphasize the psalmist’s humility before the Lord and his status as the Lord’s servant.

[101:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “take notice of.”

[101:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will walk about in the integrity of my heart in the midst of my house.”

[102:24]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “do not lift me up in the middle of my days.”

[102:24]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in a generation of generations [are] your years.”