16:7 I will praise 1 the Lord who 2 guides 3 me;
yes, during the night I reflect and learn. 4
48:14 For God, our God, is our defender forever! 5
He guides 6 us! 7
1 tn Heb “bless,” that is, “proclaim as worthy of praise.”
2 tn Or “because.”
3 tn Or “counsels, advises.”
4 tn Heb “yes, [during] nights my kidneys instruct [or “correct”] me.” The “kidneys” are viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s moral character (see Ps 26:2). In the quiet darkness the
5 tn Heb “for this is God, our God, forever and ever.” “This” might be paraphrased, “this protector described and praised in the preceding verses.”
6 tn The imperfect highlights the characteristic nature of the generalizing statement.
7 tn In the Hebrew text the psalm ends with the words עַל־מוּת (’al-mut, “upon [unto?] dying”), which make little, if any, sense. M. Dahood (Psalms [AB], 1:293) proposes an otherwise unattested plural form עֹלָמוֹת (’olamot; from עוֹלָם, ’olam, “eternity”). This would provide a nice parallel to עוֹלָם וָעֶד (’olam va’ed, “forever”) in the preceding line, but elsewhere the plural of עוֹלָם appears as עֹלָמִים (’olamim). It is preferable to understand the phrase as a musical direction of some sort (see עַל־מוּת [’al-mut] in the superscription of Ps 9) or to emend the text to עַל־עֲלָמוֹת (’al-’alamot, “according to the alamoth style”; see the heading of Ps 46). In either case it should be understood as belonging with the superscription of the following psalm.