Mazmur 119:121

ע (Ayin)

119:121 I do what is fair and right. ¹ 

Do not abandon me to my oppressors!

Mazmur 119:166

119:166 I hope for your deliverance, O Lord,

and I obey ²  your commands.

Mazmur 7:3

7:3 O Lord my God, if I have done what they say, ³ 

or am guilty of unjust actions, ⁴ 

Mazmur 51:4

51:4 Against you – you above all ⁵  – I have sinned;

I have done what is evil in your sight.

So ⁶  you are just when you confront me; ⁷ 

you are right when you condemn me. ⁸ 

Mazmur 139:15

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,

when ⁹  I was made in secret

and sewed together in the depths of the earth. ¹⁰ 

[119:121]  ¹ tn Heb “do justice and righteousness.”

[119:166]  ² tn Heb “do.”

[7:3]  ³ tn Heb “if I have done this.”

[7:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “if there is injustice in my hands.” The “hands” figuratively suggest deeds or actions.

[51:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “only you,” as if the psalmist had sinned exclusively against God and no other. Since the Hebrew verb חָטָא (hata’, “to sin”) is used elsewhere of sinful acts against people (see BDB 306 s.v. 2.a) and David (the presumed author) certainly sinned when he murdered Uriah (2 Sam 12:9), it is likely that the psalmist is overstating the case to suggest that the attack on Uriah was ultimately an attack on God himself. To clarify the point of the hyperbole, the translation uses “especially,” rather than the potentially confusing “only.”

[51:4]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) normally indicates purpose (“in order that”), but here it introduces a logical consequence of the preceding statement. (Taking the clause as indicating purpose here would yield a theologically preposterous idea – the psalmist purposely sinned so that God’s justice might be vindicated!) For other examples of לְמַעַן indicating result, see 2 Kgs 22:17; Jer 27:15; Amos 2:7, as well as IBHS 638-40 §38.3.

[51:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “when you speak.” In this context the psalmist refers to God’s word of condemnation against his sin delivered through Nathan (cf. 2 Sam 12:7-12).

[51:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “when you judge.”

[139:15]  ⁹ tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (ka’asher, “when”). The kaf (כ) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).

[139:15]  ¹⁰ sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.