Mazmur 6:3

6:3 I am absolutely terrified, ¹ 

and you, Lord – how long will this continue? ² 

Mazmur 10:11

10:11 He says to himself, ³ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ⁴ 

Mazmur 10:13

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ⁵ 

He says to himself, ⁶  “You ⁷  will not hold me accountable.” ⁸ 

Mazmur 16:8

16:8 I constantly trust in the Lord; ⁹ 

because he is at my right hand, I will not be upended.

Mazmur 73:17

73:17 Then I entered the precincts of God’s temple, ¹⁰ 

and understood the destiny of the wicked. ¹¹ 

Mazmur 77:3

77:3 I said, “I will remember God while I groan;

I will think about him while my strength leaves me.” ¹²  (Selah)

Mazmur 107:43

107:43 Whoever is wise, let him take note of these things!

Let them consider the Lord’s acts of loyal love!

Mazmur 119:55

119:55 I remember your name during the night, O Lord,

and I will keep ¹³  your law.

Mazmur 119:70

119:70 Their hearts are calloused, ¹⁴ 

but I find delight in your law.

Mazmur 119:95

119:95 The wicked prepare to kill me, ¹⁵ 

yet I concentrate on your rules.

Mazmur 119:99

119:99 I have more insight than all my teachers,

for I meditate on your rules.

Mazmur 119:130

119:130 Your instructions are a doorway through which light shines. ¹⁶ 

They give ¹⁷  insight to the untrained. ¹⁸ 

Mazmur 119:165

119:165 Those who love your law are completely secure; ¹⁹ 

nothing causes them to stumble. ²⁰ 

Mazmur 139:18

139:18 If I tried to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

Even if I finished counting them,

I would still have to contend with you. ²¹ 

Mazmur 145:5

145:5 I will focus on your honor and majestic splendor,

and your amazing deeds! ²² 

[6:3]  ¹ tn Heb “my being is very terrified.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.

[6:3]  ² tn Heb “and you, Lord, how long?” The suffering psalmist speaks in broken syntax. He addresses God, but then simply cries out with a brief, but poignant, question: How long will this (= his suffering) continue?

[10:11]  ³ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[10:13]  ⁵ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ⁷ tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”

[16:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “I set the Lord before me continually.” This may mean that the psalmist is aware of the Lord’s presence and sensitive to his moral guidance (see v. 7), or that he trusts in the Lord’s protection (see the following line).

[73:17]  ¹⁰ tn The plural of the term מִקְדָּשׁ (miqdash) probably refers to the temple precincts (see Ps 68:35; Jer 51:51).

[73:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I discerned their end.” At the temple the psalmist perhaps received an oracle of deliverance announcing his vindication and the demise of the wicked (see Ps 12) or heard songs of confidence (for example, Ps 11), wisdom psalms (for example, Pss 1, 37), and hymns (for example, Ps 112) that describe the eventual downfall of the proud and wealthy.

[77:3]  ¹² tn Heb “I will remember God and I will groan, I will reflect and my spirit will grow faint.” The first three verbs are cohortatives, the last a perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The psalmist’s statement in v. 4 could be understood as concurrent with v. 1, or, more likely, as a quotation of what he had said earlier as he prayed to God (see v. 2). The words “I said” are supplied in the translation at the beginning of the verse to reflect this interpretation (see v. 10).

[119:55]  ¹³ tn The cohortative verbal form expresses the psalmist’s resolve to obey the law.

[119:70]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “their heart is insensitive like fat.”

[119:95]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the wicked wait for me to kill me.”

[119:130]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the doorway of your words gives light.” God’s “words” refer here to the instructions in his law (see vv. 9, 57).

[119:130]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “it [i.e., the doorway] gives.”

[119:130]  ¹⁸ tn Or “the [morally] naive,” that is, the one who is young and still in the process of learning right from wrong and distinguishing wisdom from folly. See Pss 19:7; 116:6.

[119:165]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “great peace [is] to the lovers of your law.”

[119:165]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and there is no stumbling to them.”

[139:18]  ²¹ tc Heb “I awake and I [am] still with you.” A reference to the psalmist awaking from sleep makes little, if any, sense contextually. For this reason some propose an emendation to הֲקִצּוֹתִי (haqitsoti), a Hiphil perfect form from an otherwise unattested verb קָצַץ (qatsats) understood as a denominative of קֵץ (qets, “end”). See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252-53.

[145:5]  ²² tn Heb “the splendor of the glory of your majesty, and the matters of your amazing deeds I will ponder.”