Mazmur 20:6

20:6 Now I am sure ¹  that the Lord will deliver ²  his chosen king; ³ 

he will intervene for him ⁴  from his holy heavenly temple, ⁵ 

and display his mighty ability to deliver. ⁶ 

Mazmur 58:1

Psalm 58 ⁷ 

For the music director; according to the al-tashcheth style; ⁸  a prayer ⁹  of David.

58:1 Do you rulers really pronounce just decisions? ¹⁰ 

Do you judge people ¹¹  fairly?

Mazmur 58:9

58:9 Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, ¹² 

he ¹³  will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 60:6

60:6 God has spoken in his sanctuary: ¹⁵ 

“I will triumph! I will parcel out Shechem;

the Valley of Succoth I will measure off. ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ¹⁷ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ¹⁸ 

[20:6]  ¹ tn Or “know.”

[20:6]  sn Now I am sure. The speaker is not identified. It is likely that the king, referring to himself in the third person (note “his chosen king”), responds to the people’s prayer. Perhaps his confidence is due to the reception of a divine oracle of salvation.

[20:6]  ² tn The perfect verbal form is probably used rhetorically to state that the deliverance is as good as done. In this way the speaker emphasizes the certainty of the deliverance. Another option is to take the statement as generalizing; the psalmist affirms that the Lord typically delivers the king.

[20:6]  ³ tn Heb “his anointed one.” This title refers to the Davidic king. See Pss 2:2 and 18:50.

[20:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “he will answer him.”

[20:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “from his holy heavens.”

[20:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “with mighty acts of deliverance of his right hand.” The Lord’s “right hand” here symbolizes his power to protect and deliver (see Ps 17:7).

[58:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 58. The psalmist calls on God to punish corrupt judges because a vivid display of divine judgment will convince observers that God is the just judge of the world who vindicates the godly.

[58:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “do not destroy.” Perhaps this refers to a particular style of music, a tune title, or a musical instrument. These words also appear in the heading to Pss 57, 59, and 75.

[58:1]  ⁹ tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew word מִכְתָּם (miktam) which also appears in the heading to Pss 16 and 56-57, 59-60 is uncertain. HALOT 582-83 s.v. defines it as “inscription.”

[58:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Really [in] silence, what is right do you speak?” The Hebrew noun אֵלֶם (’elem, “silence”) makes little, if any, sense in this context. Some feel that this is an indictment of the addressees’ failure to promote justice; they are silent when they should make just decisions. The present translation assumes an emendation to אֵלִם (’elim), which in turn is understood as a defectively written form of אֵילִים (’elim, “rulers,” a metaphorical use of אַיִל, ’ayil, “ram”; see Exod 15:15; Ezek 17:13). The rhetorical question is sarcastic, challenging their claim to be just. Elsewhere the collocation of דָּבַר (davar, “speak”) with צֶדֶק (tsedeq, “what is right”) as object means “to speak the truth” (see Ps 52:3; Isa 45:19). Here it refers specifically to declaring what is right in a legal setting, as the next line indicates.

[58:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the sons of mankind.” The translation assumes the phrase is the object of the verb “to judge.” Some take it as a vocative, “Do you judge fairly, O sons of mankind?” (Cf. NASB; see Ezek 20:4; 22:2; 23:36.)

[58:9]  ¹² tn Heb “before your pots perceive thorns.”

[58:9]  ¹³ tn Apparently God (v. 6) is the subject of the verb here.

[58:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “like living, like burning anger he will sweep it away.” The meaning of the text is unclear. The translation assumes that within the cooking metaphor (see the previous line) חַי (khay, “living”) refers here to raw meat (as in 1 Sam 2:15, where it modifies בָּשָׂר, basar, “flesh”) and that חָרוּן (kharun; which always refers to God’s “burning anger” elsewhere) here refers to food that is cooked. The pronominal suffix on the verb “sweep away” apparently refers back to the “thorns” of the preceding line. The image depicts swift and sudden judgment. Before the fire has been adequately kindled and all the meat cooked, the winds of judgment will sweep away everything in their path.

[60:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in his holy place.”

[60:6]  ¹⁶ sn Shechem stands for the territory west of the Jordan, the Valley of Succoth for the region east of the Jordan.

[139:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.

[139:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).