Mazmur 9:10

9:10 Your loyal followers trust in you, ¹ 

for you, Lord, do not abandon those who seek your help. ² 

Mazmur 53:4

53:4 All those who behave wickedly ³  do not understand ⁴  –

those who devour my people as if they were eating bread,

and do not call out to God.

Mazmur 95:10

95:10 For forty years I was continually disgusted ⁵  with that generation,

and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray; ⁶ 

they do not obey my commands.’ ⁷ 

Mazmur 143:8

143:8 May I hear about your loyal love in the morning, ⁸ 

for I trust in you.

Show me the way I should go, ⁹ 

because I long for you. ¹⁰ 

[9:10]  ¹ tn Heb “and the ones who know your name trust in you.” The construction vav (ו) conjunctive + imperfect at the beginning of the verse expresses another consequence of the statement made in v. 8. “To know” the Lord’s “name” means to be his follower, recognizing his authority and maintaining loyalty to him. See Ps 91:14, where “knowing” the Lord’s “name” is associated with loving him.

[9:10]  ² tn Heb “the ones who seek you.”

[53:4]  ³ tn Heb “the workers of wickedness.” See Pss 5:5; 6:8. Ps 14:4 adds כֹּל (kol, “all of”) before “workers of wickedness.”

[53:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “Do they not understand?” The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s amazement at their apparent lack of understanding. This may refer to their lack of moral understanding, but it more likely refers to their failure to anticipate God’s defense of his people (see vv. 5-6).

[95:10]  ⁵ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form.

[95:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.”

[95:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they do not know my ways.” In this context the Lord’s “ways” are his commands, viewed as a pathway from which his people, likened to wayward sheep (see v. 7), wander.

[143:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “cause me to hear in the morning your loyal love.” Here “loyal love” probably stands metonymically for an oracle of assurance promising God’s intervention as an expression of his loyal love.

[143:8]  sn The morning is sometimes viewed as the time of divine intervention (see Pss 30:5; 59:16; 90:14).

[143:8]  ⁹ sn The way probably refers here to God’s moral and ethical standards and requirements (see v. 10).

[143:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for to you I lift up my life.” The Hebrew expression נָאָשׂ נֶפֶשׁ (na’as nefesh, “to lift up [one’s] life”) means “to desire; to long for” (see Deut 24:15; Prov 19:18; Jer 22:27; 44:14; Hos 4:8, as well as H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 16).