119:15 I will meditate on 1 your precepts
and focus 2 on your behavior. 3
119:27 Help me to understand what your precepts mean! 4
Then I can meditate 5 on your marvelous teachings. 6
119:78 May the arrogant be humiliated, for they have slandered me! 7
But I meditate on your precepts.
מ (Mem)
119:97 O how I love your law!
All day long I meditate on it.
119:99 I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your rules.
119:148 My eyes anticipate the nighttime hours,
so that I can meditate on your word.
4:4 Tremble with fear and do not sin! 8
Meditate as you lie in bed, and repent of your ways! 9 (Selah)
119:48 I will lift my hands to 10 your commands,
which I love,
and I will meditate on your statutes.
143:5 I recall the old days; 11
I meditate on all you have done;
I reflect on your accomplishments. 12
1 tn The cohortative verbal forms in this verse express the psalmist’s resolve.
2 tn Heb “gaze [at].”
3 tn Heb “ways” (referring figuratively to God’s behavior here).
4 tn Heb “the way of your precepts make me understand.”
5 tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding imperative.
6 tn Heb “your amazing things,” which refers here to the teachings of the law (see v. 18).
7 tn Heb “for [with] falsehood they have denied me justice.”
8 sn The psalmist warns his enemies that they need to tremble with fear before God and repudiate their sinful ways.
9 tn Heb “say in your heart(s) on your bed(s) and wail/lament.” The verb דֹמּוּ (dommu) is understood as a form of דָמָם (“wail, lament”) in sorrow and repentance. Another option is to take the verb from II דָמָם (damam, “be quiet”); cf. NIV, NRSV “be silent.”
10 tn Lifting the hands is often associated with prayer (Pss 28:2; 63:4; Lam 2:19). (1) Because praying to God’s law borders on the extreme, some prefer to emend the text to “I lift up my hands to you,” eliminating “your commands, which I love” as dittographic. In this view these words were accidentally repeated from the previous verse. (2) However, it is possible that the psalmist closely associates the law with God himself because he views the law as the expression of the divine will. (3) Another option is that “lifting the hands” does not refer to prayer here, but to the psalmist’s desire to receive and appropriate the law. (4) Still others understand this to be an action praising God’s commands (so NCV; cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).
11 tn Or “ancient times”; Heb “days from before.”
12 tn Heb “the work of your hands.”