Mazmur 6:9

6:9 The Lord has heard my appeal for mercy;

the Lord has accepted ¹  my prayer.

Mazmur 48:4

48:4 For ²  look, the kings assemble; ³ 

they advance together.

Mazmur 82:6

82:6 I thought, ⁴  ‘You are gods;

all of you are sons of the Most High.’ ⁵ 

[6:9]  ¹ tn The prefixed verbal form is probably a preterite here; it is parallel to a perfect and refers to the fact that the Lord has responded favorably to the psalmist’s request.

[48:4]  ² tn The logical connection between vv. 3-4 seems to be this: God is the protector of Zion and reveals himself as the city’s defender – this is necessary because hostile armies threaten the city.

[48:4]  ³ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 4-6 are understood as descriptive. In dramatic style (note הִנֵּה, hinneh, “look”) the psalm describes an enemy attack against the city as if it were occurring at this very moment. Another option is to take the perfects as narrational (“the kings assembled, they advanced”), referring to a particular historical event, such as Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701 b.c. (cf. NIV, NRSV). Even if one translates the verses in a dramatic-descriptive manner (as the present translation does), the Lord’s victory over the Assyrians was probably what served as the inspiration of the description (see v. 8).

[82:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “said.”

[82:6]  ⁵ sn Normally in the OT the title Most High belongs to the God of Israel, but in this context, where the mythological overtones are so strong, it probably refers to the Canaanite high god El (see v. 1, as well as Isa 14:13).