Mazmur 5:2

5:2 Pay attention to my cry for help,

my king and my God,

for I am praying to you!

Mazmur 44:16

44:16 before the vindictive enemy

who ridicules and insults me. ¹ 

Mazmur 45:11

45:11 Then ²  the king will be attracted by ³  your beauty.

After all, he is your master! Submit ⁴  to him! ⁵ 

Mazmur 12:1

Psalm 12 ⁶ 

For the music director; according to the sheminith style; ⁷  a psalm of David.

12:1 Deliver, Lord!

For the godly ⁸  have disappeared; ⁹ 

people of integrity ¹⁰  have vanished. ¹¹ 

Mazmur 7:8

7:8 The Lord judges the nations. ¹² 

Vindicate me, Lord, because I am innocent, ¹³ 

because I am blameless, ¹⁴  O Exalted One! ¹⁵ 

Mazmur 5:10

5:10 Condemn them, ¹⁶  O God!

May their own schemes be their downfall! ¹⁷ 

Drive them away ¹⁸  because of their many acts of insurrection, ¹⁹ 

for they have rebelled against you.

Mazmur 45:7

45:7 You love ²⁰  justice and hate evil. ²¹ 

For this reason God, your God ²²  has anointed you ²³ 

with the oil of joy, ²⁴  elevating you above your companions. ²⁵ 

Mazmur 52:9

52:9 I will continually ²⁶  thank you when ²⁷  you execute judgment; ²⁸ 

I will rely ²⁹  on you, ³⁰  for your loyal followers know you are good. ³¹ 

Mazmur 55:15

55:15 May death destroy them! ³² 

May they go down alive into Sheol! ³³ 

For evil is in their dwelling place and in their midst.

Mazmur 55:19

55:19 God, the one who has reigned as king from long ago,

will hear and humiliate them. ³⁴  (Selah)

They refuse to change,

and do not fear God. ³⁵ 

Mazmur 59:3

59:3 For look, they wait to ambush me; ³⁶ 

powerful men stalk ³⁷  me,

but not because I have rebelled or sinned, O Lord. ³⁸ 

Mazmur 67:4

67:4 Let foreigners ³⁹  rejoice and celebrate!

For you execute justice among the nations,

and govern the people living on earth. ⁴⁰  (Selah)

[44:16]  ¹ tn Heb “from the voice of one who ridicules and insults, from the face of an enemy and an avenger.” See Ps 8:2.

[45:11]  ² tn After the preceding imperatives, the jussive verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive is best understood as introducing a purpose (“so that the king might desire your beauty”) or result clause (see the present translation and cf. also NASB). The point seems to be this: The bride might tend to be homesick, which in turn might cause her to mourn and diminish her attractiveness. She needs to overcome this temptation to unhappiness and enter into the marriage with joy. Then the king will be drawn to her natural beauty.

[45:11]  ³ tn Or “desire.”

[45:11]  ⁴ tn Or “bow down.”

[45:11]  ⁵ sn Submit to him. The poet here makes the point that the young bride is obligated to bring pleasure to her new husband. Though a foreign concept to modern western culture, this was accepted as the cultural norm in the psalmist’s day.

[12:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 12. The psalmist asks the Lord to intervene, for society is overrun by deceitful, arrogant oppressors and godly individuals are a dying breed. When the Lord announces his intention to defend the oppressed, the psalmist affirms his confidence in the divine promise.

[12:1]  ⁷ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term שְׁמִינִית (shÿminit) is uncertain; perhaps it refers to a particular style of music. See 1 Chr 15:21.

[12:1]  ⁸ tn The singular form is collective or representative. Note the plural form “faithful [ones]” in the following line. A “godly [one]” (חָסִיד, khasid) is one who does what is right in God’s eyes and remains faithful to God (see Pss 4:3; 18:25; 31:23; 37:28; 86:2; 97:10).

[12:1]  ⁹ tn Or “have come to an end.”

[12:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the faithful [ones] from the sons of man.”

[12:1]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּסַס (pasas) occurs only here. An Akkadian cognate means “efface, blot out.”

[7:8]  ¹² sn The Lord judges the nations. In hyperbolic fashion the psalmist pictures the nations assembled around the divine throne (v. 7a). He urges God to take his rightful place on the throne (v. 7b) and then pictures him making judicial decisions that vindicate the innocent (see vv. 8-16).

[7:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “judge me, O Lord, according to my innocence.”

[7:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “according to my blamelessness.” The imperative verb translated “vindicate” governs the second line as well.

[7:8]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew form עָלָי (’alay) has been traditionally understood as the preposition עַל (’al, “over”) with a first person suffix. But this is syntactically awkward and meaningless. The form is probably a divine title derived from the verbal root עָלָה (’alah, “ascend”). This relatively rare title appears elsewhere in the OT (see HALOT 824-25 s.v. I עַל, though this text is not listed) and in Ugaritic as an epithet for Baal (see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 98). See M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:44-45, and P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 98.

[5:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “declare/regard them as guilty.” Declaring the psalmist’s adversaries guilty is here metonymic for judging them or paying them back for their wrongdoing.

[5:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “may they fall from their plans.” The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation. The psalmist calls judgment down on the evildoers. Their plans will be their downfall in that God will judge them for their evil schemes.

[5:10]  ¹⁸ tn Or “banish them.”

[5:10]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew noun used here, פֶּשַׁע (pesha’), refers to rebellious actions. The psalmist pictures his enemies as rebels against God (see the next line).

[45:7]  ²⁰ sn To love justice means to actively promote it.

[45:7]  ²¹ sn To hate evil means to actively oppose it.

[45:7]  ²² tn For other examples of the repetition of Elohim, “God,” see Pss 43:4; 48:8, 14; 50:7; 51:14; 67:7. Because the name Yahweh (“Lord”) is relatively rare in Pss 42-83, where the name Elohim (“God”) predominates, this compounding of Elohim may be an alternative form of the compound name “the Lord my/your/our God.”

[45:7]  ²³ sn Anointed you. When read in the light of the preceding context, the anointing is most naturally taken as referring to the king’s coronation. However, the following context (vv. 8-9) focuses on the wedding ceremony, so some prefer to see this anointing as part of the king’s preparations for the wedding celebration. Perhaps the reference to his anointing at his coronation facilitates the transition to the description of the wedding, for the king was also anointed on this occasion.

[45:7]  ²⁴ sn The phrase oil of joy alludes to the fact that the coronation of the king, which was ritually accomplished by anointing his head with olive oil, was a time of great celebration and renewed hope. (If one understands the anointing in conjunction with the wedding ceremony, the “joy” would be that associated with the marriage.) The phrase “oil of joy” also appears in Isa 61:3, where mourners are granted “oil of joy” in conjunction with their deliverance from oppression.

[45:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “from your companions.” The “companions” are most naturally understood as others in the royal family or, more generally, as the king’s countrymen.

[45:7]  sn Verses 6-7 are quoted in Heb 1:8-9, where they are applied to Jesus.

[52:9]  ²⁶ tn Or, hyperbolically, “forever.”

[52:9]  ²⁷ tn Or “for.”

[52:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “you have acted.” The perfect verbal form (1) probably indicates a future perfect here. The psalmist promises to give thanks when the expected vindication has been accomplished. Other options include (2) a generalizing (“for you act”) or (3) rhetorical (“for you will act”) use.

[52:9]  ²⁹ tn Or “wait.”

[52:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “your name.” God’s “name” refers here to his reputation and revealed character.

[52:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “for it is good in front of your loyal followers.”

[55:15]  ³² tc The meaning of the MT is unclear. The Kethib (consonantal text) reads יַשִּׁימָוֶת עָלֵימוֹ (yashimavet ’alemo, “May devastation [be] upon them!”). The proposed noun יַשִּׁימָוֶת occurs only here and perhaps in the place name Beth-Jeshimoth in Num 33:49. The Qere (marginal text) has יַשִּׁי מָוֶת עָלֵימוֹ (yashi mavet ’alemo). The verbal form יַשִּׁי is apparently an alternate form of יַשִּׁיא (yashi’), a Hiphil imperfect from נָשַׁא (nasha’, “deceive”). In this case one might read “death will come deceptively upon them.” This reading has the advantage of reading מָוֶת (mavet, “death”) which forms a natural parallel with “Sheol” in the next line. The present translation is based on the following reconstruction of the text: יְשִׁמֵּם מָוֶת (yeshimmem mavet). The verb assumed in the reconstruction is a Hiphil jussive third masculine singular from שָׁמַם (shamam, “be desolate”) with a third masculine plural pronominal suffix attached. This reconstruction assumes that (1) haplography has occurred in the traditional text (the original sequence of three mems [מ] was lost with only one mem remaining), resulting in the fusion of originally distinct forms in the Kethib, and (2) that עָלֵימוֹ (’alemo, “upon them”) is a later scribal addition attempting to make sense of a garbled and corrupt text. The preposition עַל (’al) does occur with the verb שָׁמַם (shamam), but in such cases the expression means “be appalled at/because of” (see Jer 49:20; 50:45). If one were to retain the prepositional phrase here, one would have to read the text as follows: יַשִּׁים מָוֶת עָלֵימוֹ (yashim mavet ’alemo, “Death will be appalled at them”). The idea seems odd, to say the least. Death is not collocated with this verb elsewhere.

[55:15]  ³³ sn Go down alive. This curse imagines a swift and sudden death for the psalmist’s enemies.

[55:19]  ³⁴ tc Heb “God will hear and answer them, even [the] one who sits [from] ancient times.” The prefixed verbal from with vav (ו) consecutive carries on the anticipatory force of the preceding imperfect. The verb appears to be a Qal form from עָנָה (’anah, “to answer”). If this reading is retained, the point would be that God “answered” them in judgment. The translation assumes an emendation to the Piel וַיְעַנֵּם (vay’annem; see 2 Kgs 17:20) and understands the root as עָנָה (’anah, “to afflict”; see also 1 Kgs 8:35).

[55:19]  ³⁵ tn Heb “[the ones] for whom there are no changes, and they do not fear God.”

[59:3]  ³⁶ tn Heb “my life.”

[59:3]  ³⁷ tn The Hebrew verb is from the root גּוּר (gur), which means “to challenge, attack” in Isa 54:15 and “to stalk” (with hostile intent) in Ps 56:8.

[59:3]  ³⁸ sn The point is that the psalmist’s enemies have no justifiable reason for attacking him. He has neither rebelled or sinned against the Lord.

[67:4]  ³⁹ tn Or “peoples.”

[67:4]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “for you judge nations fairly, and [as for the] peoples in the earth, you lead them.” The imperfects are translated with the present tense because the statement is understood as a generalization about God’s providential control of the world. Another option is to understand the statement as anticipating God’s future rule (“for you will rule…and govern”).