Mazmur 8:1

Psalm 8 ¹ 

For the music director, according to the gittith style; ²  a psalm of David.

8:1 O Lord, our Lord, ³ 

how magnificent ⁴  is your reputation ⁵  throughout the earth!

You reveal your majesty in the heavens above! ⁶ 

Mazmur 34:1

Psalm 34 ⁷ 

Written by David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, causing the king to send him away. ⁸ 

34:1 I will praise ⁹  the Lord at all times;

my mouth will continually praise him. ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 59:13

59:13 Angrily wipe them out! Wipe them out so they vanish!

Let them know that God rules

in Jacob and to the ends of the earth! (Selah)

Mazmur 68:16

68:16 Why do you look with envy, ¹¹  O mountains ¹²  with many peaks,

at the mountain where God has decided to live? ¹³ 

Indeed ¹⁴  the Lord will live there ¹⁵  permanently!

[8:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 8. In this hymn to the sovereign creator, the psalmist praises God’s majesty and marvels that God has given mankind dominion over the created order.

[8:1]  ² tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הגתית is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or type of instrument.

[8:1]  ³ tn The plural form of the title emphasizes the Lord’s absolute sovereignty.

[8:1]  ⁴ tn Or “awesome”; or “majestic.”

[8:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “name,” which here stands metonymically for God’s reputation.

[8:1]  ⁶ tc Heb “which, give, your majesty on the heavens.” The verb form תְּנָה (tÿnah; an imperative?) is corrupt. The form should be emended to a second masculine singular perfect (נָתַתָּה, natatah) or imperfect (תִתֵן, titen) form. The introductory אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) can be taken as a relative pronoun (“you who”) or as a causal conjunction (“because”). One may literally translate, “you who [or “because you”] place your majesty upon the heavens.” For other uses of the phrase “place majesty upon” see Num 27:20 and 1 Chr 29:25.

[34:1]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “bless.”

[34:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “continually [will] his praise [be] in my mouth.”

[68:16]  ¹¹ tn The meaning of the Hebrew verb רָצַד (ratsad), translated here “look with envy,” is uncertain; it occurs only here in the OT. See BDB 952-53. A cognate verb occurs in later Aramaic with the meaning “to lie in wait; to watch” (Jastrow 1492 s.v. רְצַד).

[68:16]  ¹² tn Perhaps the apparent plural form should be read as a singular with enclitic mem (ם; later misinterpreted as a plural ending). The preceding verse has the singular form.

[68:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “[at] the mountain God desires for his dwelling place.” The reference is to Mount Zion/Jerusalem.

[68:16]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew particle אַף (’af) has an emphasizing function here.

[68:16]  ¹⁵ tn The word “there” is supplied in the translation for clarification.