Mazmur 38:6

38:6 I am dazed ¹  and completely humiliated; ² 

all day long I walk around mourning.

Mazmur 42:5

42:5 Why are you depressed, ³  O my soul? ⁴ 

Why are you upset? ⁵ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ⁶ 

Mazmur 146:8

146:8 The Lord gives sight to the blind.

The Lord lifts up all who are bent over. ⁷ 

The Lord loves the godly.

[38:6]  ¹ tn The verb’s precise shade of meaning in this context is not entirely clear. The verb, which literally means “to bend,” may refer to the psalmist’s posture. In Isa 21:3 it seems to mean “be confused, dazed.”

[38:6]  ² tn Heb “I am bowed down to excess.”

[42:5]  ³ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[42:5]  ⁴ sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[42:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and [why] are you in turmoil upon me?” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries on the descriptive present nuance of the preceding imperfect. See GKC 329 §111.t.

[42:5]  ⁶ tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of his face.” The verse division in the Hebrew text is incorrect. אֱלֹהַי (’elohay, “my God”) at the beginning of v. 7 belongs with the end of v. 6 (see the corresponding refrains in 42:11 and 43:5, both of which end with “my God” after “saving acts of my face”). The Hebrew term פָּנָיו (panayv, “his face”) should be emended to פְּנֵי (pÿney, “face of”). The emended text reads, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God,” that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention.

[146:8]  ⁷ tn Perhaps “discouraged” (see Ps 57:6).