37:26 All day long he shows compassion and lends to others, 1
and his children 2 are blessed.
84:4 How blessed 3 are those who live in your temple
and praise you continually! (Selah)
84:12 O Lord who rules over all, 4
how blessed are those who trust in you! 5
89:15 How blessed are the people who worship you! 6
O Lord, they experience your favor. 7
106:3 How blessed are those who promote justice,
and do what is right all the time!
112:2 His descendants 8 will be powerful on the earth;
the godly 9 will be blessed.
115:15 May you be blessed by the Lord,
the creator 10 of heaven and earth!
119:2 How blessed are those who observe his rules,
and seek him with all their heart,
128:2 You 11 will eat what you worked so hard to grow. 12
You will be blessed and secure. 13
128:4 Yes indeed, the man who fears the Lord
will be blessed in this way. 14
137:9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies
and smashes them on a rock! 15
1 tn The active participles describe characteristic behavior.
2 tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”
3 tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see v. 12 and Pss 1:1; 2:12; 34:9; 41:1; 65:4; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).
4 tn Traditionally “
5 tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man [who] trusts in you.” Hebrew literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle stated here is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender and age specific “man” with the plural “those.” The individual referred to here is representative of all followers of God, as the use of the plural form in v. 12b indicates.
6 tn Heb “who know the shout.” “Shout” here refers to the shouts of the
7 tn Heb “in the light of your face they walk.” 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; 44:3; 67:1; 80:3, 7, 19; Dan 9:17).
8 tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”
9 tn Heb “His seed will be mighty on the earth, the generation of the godly.” The Hebrew term דוֹר (dor, “generation”) could be taken as parallel to “offspring” and translated “posterity,” but the singular more likely refers to the godly as a class. See BDB 189-90 s.v. for other examples where “generation” refers to a class of people.
10 tn Or “maker.”
11 tn The psalmist addresses the representative God-fearing man, as indicated by the references to “your wife” (v. 3) and “the man” (v. 4), as well as the second masculine singular pronominal and verbal forms in vv. 2-6.
12 tn Heb “the work of your hands, indeed you will eat.”
13 tn Heb “how blessed you [will be] and it will be good for you.”
14 tn Heb “look, indeed thus will the man, the fearer of the
15 sn For other references to the wholesale slaughter of babies in the context of ancient Near Eastern warfare, see 2 Kgs 8:12; Isa 13:16; Hos 13:16; Nah 3:10.