Mazmur 26:1

Psalm 26 ¹ 

By David.

26:1 Vindicate me, O Lord,

for I have integrity, ² 

and I trust in the Lord without wavering.

Mazmur 30:9

30:9 “What ³  profit is there in taking my life, ⁴ 

in my descending into the Pit? ⁵ 

Can the dust of the grave ⁶  praise you?

Can it declare your loyalty? ⁷ 

Mazmur 34:1

Psalm 34 ⁸ 

Written by David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, causing the king to send him away. ⁹ 

34:1 I will praise ¹⁰  the Lord at all times;

my mouth will continually praise him. ¹¹ 

Mazmur 39:1

Psalm 39 ¹² 

For the music director, Jeduthun; a psalm of David.

39:1 I decided, ¹³  “I will watch what I say

and make sure I do not sin with my tongue. ¹⁴ 

I will put a muzzle over my mouth

while in the presence of an evil man.” ¹⁵ 

Mazmur 40:10

40:10 I have not failed to tell about your justice; ¹⁶ 

I spoke about your reliability and deliverance;

I have not neglected to tell the great assembly about your loyal love and faithfulness. ¹⁷ 

[26:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 26. The author invites the Lord to test his integrity, asserts his innocence and declares his loyalty to God.

[26:1]  ² tn Heb “for I in my integrity walk.”

[30:9]  ³ sn The following two verses (vv. 9-10) contain the prayer (or an excerpt of the prayer) that the psalmist offered to the Lord during his crisis.

[30:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.

[30:9]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4).

[30:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[30:9]  ⁷ tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”

[30:9]  sn According to the OT, those who descend into the realm of death/Sheol are cut off from God’s mighty deeds and from the worshiping covenant community that experiences divine intervention (Pss 6:5; 88:10-12; Isa 38:18). In his effort to elicit a positive divine response, the psalmist reminds God that he will receive no praise or glory if he allows the psalmist to die. Dead men do not praise God!

[34:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 34. In this song of thanksgiving the psalmist praises God for delivering him from distress. He encourages others to be loyal to the Lord, tells them how to please God, and assures them that the Lord protects his servants. The psalm is an acrostic; vv. 1-21 begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. (Verse 6 begins with the letter he (ה) and v. 7 with the letter zayin (ז). The letter vav (ו), which comes between ה and ז, seems to be omitted, although it does appear at the beginning of v. 6b. The final verse of the psalm, which begins with the letter pe (פ), is outside the acrostic scheme.

[34:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “By David, when he changed his sense before Abimelech and he drove him away and he went.”

[34:1]  sn Pretended to be insane. The psalm heading appears to refer to the account in 1 Sam 21:10-15 which tells how David, fearful that King Achish of Gath might kill him, pretended to be insane in hopes that the king would simply send him away. The psalm heading names the king Abimelech, not Achish, suggesting that the tradition is confused on this point. However, perhaps “Abimelech” was a royal title, rather than a proper name. See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 278.

[34:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “bless.”

[34:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “continually [will] his praise [be] in my mouth.”

[39:1]  ¹² sn Psalm 39. The psalmist laments his frailty and mortality as he begs the Lord to take pity on him and remove his disciplinary hand.

[39:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “I said.”

[39:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will watch my ways, from sinning with my tongue.”

[39:1]  ¹⁵ sn The psalmist wanted to voice a lament to the Lord (see vv. 4-6), but he hesitated to do so in the presence of evil men, for such words might be sinful if they gave the wicked an occasion to insult God. See C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms (ICC), 1:345.

[40:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “your justice I have not hidden in the midst of my heart.”

[40:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I have not hidden your loyal love and reliability.”