18:22 For I am aware of all his regulations, 1
and I do not reject his rules. 2
44:23 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Wake up! 3 Do not reject us forever!
51:11 Do not reject me! 4
Do not take your Holy Spirit 5 away from me! 6
66:20 God deserves praise, 7
for 8 he did not reject my prayer
or abandon his love for me! 9
71:9 Do not reject me in my old age! 10
When my strength fails, do not abandon me!
77:7 I asked, 11 “Will the Lord reject me forever?
Will he never again show me his favor?
88:14 O Lord, why do you reject me,
and pay no attention to me? 12
102:17 when he responds to the prayer of the destitute, 13
and does not reject 14 their request. 15
119:53 Rage takes hold of me because of the wicked,
those who reject your law.
119:87 They have almost destroyed me here on the earth,
but I do not reject your precepts.
132:10 For the sake of David, your servant,
do not reject your chosen king! 16
1 tn Heb “for all his regulations [are] before me.” The Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim, “regulations”) refers to God’s covenantal requirements, especially those which the king is responsible to follow (cf. Deut 17:18-20). See also Pss 19:9 (cf. vv. 7-8); 89:30; 147:20 (cf. v. 19), as well as the numerous uses of the term in Ps 119.
2 tn Heb “and his rules I do not turn aside from me.” 2 Sam 22:23 reads, “and his rules, I do not turn aside from it.” The prefixed verbal form is probably an imperfect; the psalmist here generalizes about his loyalty to God’s commands. The Lord’s “rules” are the stipulations of the covenant which the king was responsible to obey (see Ps 89:31; cf. v. 30 and Deut 17:18-20).
3 sn Wake up! See Ps 35:23.
4 tn Heb “do not cast me away from before you.”
5 sn Your Holy Spirit. The personal Spirit of God is mentioned frequently in the OT, but only here and in Isa 63:10-11 is he called “your/his Holy Spirit.”
6 sn Do not take…away. The psalmist expresses his fear that, due to his sin, God will take away the Holy Spirit from him. NT believers enjoy the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit and need not make such a request nor fear such a consequence. However, in the OT God’s Spirit empowered certain individuals for special tasks and only temporarily resided in them. For example, when God rejected Saul as king and chose David to replace him, the divine Spirit left Saul and came upon David (1 Sam 16:13-14).
7 tn Heb “blessed [be] God.”
8 tn Or “who.” In a blessing formula after בָּרוּךְ (barukh, “blessed be”) the form אֲשֶׁר (’asher), whether taken as a relative pronoun or causal particle, introduces the basis for the blessing/praise.
9 tn Heb “did not turn aside my prayer and his loyal love with me.”
10 tn Heb “do not cast me away at the time of old age.”
11 tn As in vv. 4 and 6a, the words of vv. 7-9 are understood as a quotation of what the psalmist said earlier. Therefore the words “I asked” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
12 tn Heb “[why] do you hide your face from me?”
13 tn The Hebrew adjective עַרְעָר (’arar, “destitute”) occurs only here in the OT. It is derived from the verbal root ערר (“to strip oneself”).
14 tn Heb “despise.”
15 tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 16-17 are functioning as future perfects, indicating future actions that will precede the future developments described in v. 15.
16 tn Heb “do not turn away the face of your anointed one.”