Psalms 37:28

37:28 For the Lord promotes ¹  justice,

and never abandons ²  his faithful followers.

They are permanently secure, ³ 

but the children ⁴  of evil men are wiped out. ⁵ 

Psalms 42:8

42:8 By day the Lord decrees his loyal love, ⁶ 

and by night he gives me a song, ⁷ 

a prayer ⁸  to the living God.

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¹ tn Heb “loves.” The verb “loves” is here metonymic; the Lord’s commitment to principles of justice causes him to actively promote these principles as he governs the world. The active participle describes characteristic behavior.

² tn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to this generalizing statement.

³ tn Or “protected forever.”

⁴ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

⁵ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 28b state general truths.

⁶ sn The psalmist believes that the Lord has not abandoned him, but continues to extend his loyal love. To this point in the psalm, the author has used the name “God,” but now, as he mentions the divine characteristic of loyal love, he switches to the more personal divine name Yahweh (rendered in the translation as “the Lord”).

⁷ tn Heb “his song [is] with me.”

⁸ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss read תְּהִלָּה (tÿhillah, “praise”) instead of תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”).