Mazmur 9:19

9:19 Rise up, Lord! ¹ 

Don’t let men be defiant! ² 

May the nations be judged in your presence!

Mazmur 20:4

20:4 May he grant your heart’s desire; ³ 

may he bring all your plans to pass! ⁴ 

Mazmur 20:9

20:9 The Lord will deliver the king; ⁵ 

he will answer us ⁶  when we call to him for help! ⁷ 

Mazmur 44:23

44:23 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?

Wake up! ⁸  Do not reject us forever!

Mazmur 90:13

90:13 Turn back toward us, O Lord!

How long must this suffering last? ⁹ 

Have pity on your servants! ¹⁰ 

[9:19]  ¹ sn Rise up, Lord! …May the nations be judged. The psalm concludes with a petition that the Lord would continue to exercise his justice as he has done in the recent crisis.

[9:19]  ² tn Or “prevail.”

[20:4]  ³ tn Heb “may he give to you according to your heart.” This probably refers to the king’s prayer for protection and victory in battle. See vv. 5-6.

[20:4]  ⁴ sn May he bring all your plans to pass. This probably refers to the king’s strategy for battle.

[20:9]  ⁵ tc This translation assumes an emendation of the verbal form הוֹשִׁיעָה (hoshi’ah). As it stands, the form is an imperative. In this case the people return to the petitionary mood with which the psalm begins (“O Lord, deliver”). But the immediate context is one of confidence (vv. 6-8), not petition (vv. 1-5). If one takes the final he on the verb “deliver” as dittographic (note the initial he (ה) on the following phrase, “the king”), one can repoint the verbal form as a perfect and understand it as expressing the people’s confidence, “the Lord will deliver the king” (see v. 6). The Hebrew scribal tradition takes “the king” with the following line, in which case it would be best interpreted as a divine title, “may the King answer us” or “the king will answer us” (see Pss 98:6; 145:1). However, the poetic parallelism is better balanced if “the king” is taken with the first line. In this case the referent is the Davidic king, who is earlier called the Lord’s “anointed one” (cf. note on “chosen king” in v. 6; see Pss 21:7; 45:5, 11; 63:11).

[20:9]  ⁶ tn If the imperative is retained in the preceding line, then the prefixed verbal form is best taken as a jussive of prayer, “may he answer us.” However, if the imperative in the previous line is emended to a perfect, the prefixed form is best taken as imperfect, “he will answer us” (see the note on the word “king” at the end of the previous line).

[20:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the day we call.”

[44:23]  ⁸ sn Wake up! See Ps 35:23.

[90:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “Return, O Lord! How long?”

[90:13]  ¹⁰ tn Elsewhere the Niphal of נָחַם (nakham) + the preposition עַל (’al) + a personal object has the nuance “be comforted concerning [the personal object’s death]” (see 2 Sam 13:39; Jer 31:15). However, here the context seems to demand “feel sorrow for,” “have pity on.” In Deut 32:36 and Ps 135:14, where “servants” is also the object of the preposition, this idea is expressed with the Hitpael form of the verb.