30:5 For his anger lasts only a brief moment,
and his good favor restores one’s life. 1
One may experience sorrow during the night,
but joy arrives in the morning. 2
44:3 For they did not conquer 3 the land by their swords,
and they did not prevail by their strength, 4
but rather by your power, 5 strength 6 and good favor, 7
for you were partial to 8 them.
For the music director; to be accompanied by stringed instruments; a psalm, a song.
67:1 May God show us his favor 10 and bless us! 11
May he smile on us! 12 (Selah)
1 tn Heb “for [there is] a moment in his anger, [but] life in his favor.” Because of the parallelism with “moment,” some understand חַיִּים (khayyim) in a quantitative sense: “lifetime” (cf. NIV, NRSV). However, the immediate context, which emphasizes deliverance from death (see v. 3), suggests that חַיִּים has a qualitative sense: “physical life” or even “prosperous life” (cf. NEB “in his favour there is life”).
2 tn Heb “in the evening weeping comes to lodge, but at morning a shout of joy.” “Weeping” is personified here as a traveler who lodges with one temporarily.
3 tn Or “take possession of.”
4 tn Heb “and their arm did not save them.” The “arm” here symbolizes military strength.
5 tn Heb “your right hand.” The
6 tn Heb “your arm.”
7 tn Heb “light of your face.” The idiom “light of your face” probably refers to a smile (see Eccl 8:1), which in turn suggests favor and blessing (see Num 6:25; Pss 4:6; 31:16; 67:1; 80:3, 7, 19; 89:15; Dan 9:17).
8 tn Or “favorable toward.”
9 sn Psalm 67. The psalmist prays for God’s blessing upon his people and urges the nations to praise him for he is the just ruler of the world.
10 tn Or “have mercy on us.”
11 tn The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives expressing the psalmist’s prayer. Note the jussive form יָאֵר (ya’er) in the next line.
12 tn Heb “may he cause his face to shine with us.”