For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments; a psalm of David.
4:1 When I call out, answer me,
O God who vindicates me! 2
Though I am hemmed in, you will lead me into a wide, open place. 3
Have mercy on me 4 and respond to 5 my prayer!
For the music director; by the Lord’s servant David, who sang 7 to the Lord the words of this song when 8 the Lord rescued him from the power 9 of all his enemies, including Saul. 10
18:1 He said: 11
“I love 12 you, Lord, my source of strength! 13
27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing –
this is what I desire!
I want to live 14 in the Lord’s house 15 all the days of my life,
so I can gaze at the splendor 16 of the Lord
and contemplate in his temple.
40:5 O Lord, my God, you have accomplished many things;
you have done amazing things and carried out your purposes for us. 17
No one can thwart you! 18
I want to declare them and talk about them,
but they are too numerous to recount! 19
For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. 21
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of 22 your loyal love!
Because of 23 your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! 24
123:2 Look, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a female servant look to the hand of her mistress, 25
so my eyes will look to the Lord, our God, until he shows us favor.
1 sn Psalm 4. The psalmist asks God to hear his prayer, expresses his confidence that the Lord will intervene, and urges his enemies to change their ways and place their trust in God. He concludes with another prayer for divine intervention and again affirms his absolute confidence in God’s protection.
2 tn Heb “God of my righteousness.”
3 tn Heb “in distress (or “a narrow place”) you make (a place) large for me.” The function of the Hebrew perfect verbal form here is uncertain. The translation above assumes that the psalmist is expressing his certitude and confidence that God will intervene. The psalmist is so confident of God’s positive response to his prayer, he can describe God’s deliverance as if it had already happened. Such confidence is consistent with the mood of the psalm (vv. 3, 8). Another option is to take the perfects as precative, expressing a wish or request (“lead me”). See IBHS 494-95 §30.5.4c, d. However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.
4 tn Or “show me favor.”
5 tn Heb “hear.”
6 sn Psalm 18. In this long song of thanks, the psalmist (a Davidic king, traditionally understood as David himself) affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. The psalmist’s experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the psalm appears in 2 Sam 22:1-51.
7 tn Heb “spoke.”
8 tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”
9 tn Heb “hand.”
10 tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”
11 tn A number of translations (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV) assign the words “he said” to the superscription, in which case the entire psalm is in first person. Other translations (e.g., NAB) include the introductory “he said” at the beginning of v. 1.
12 tn The verb רָחַם (rakham) elsewhere appears in the Piel (or Pual) verbal stem with the basic meaning, “have compassion.” The verb occurs only here in the basic (Qal) stem. The basic stem of the verbal root also occurs in Aramaic with the meaning “love” (see DNWSI 2:1068-69; Jastrow 1467 s.v. רָחַם; G. Schmuttermayr, “rhm: eine lexikalische Studie,” Bib 51 [1970]: 515-21). Since this introductory statement does not appear in the parallel version in 2 Sam 22:1-51, it is possible that it is a later addition to the psalm, made when the poem was revised for use in worship.
13 tn Heb “my strength.” “Strength” is metonymic here, referring to the Lord as the one who bestows strength to the psalmist; thus the translation “my source of strength.”
14 tn Heb “my living.”
15 sn The
16 tn Or “beauty.”
17 tn Heb “many things you have done, you, O
18 tn Heb “there is none arrayed against you.” The precise meaning of the text is unclear, but the collocation עָרַךְ אֶל (’arakh ’el, “array against”) is used elsewhere of military (Judg 20:30; 1 Chr 19:17) or verbal opposition (Job 32:14).
19 tn Heb “I will declare and I will speak, they are too numerous to recount.” The present translation assumes that the cohortatives are used in a hypothetical manner in a formally unmarked conditional sentence, “Should I try to declare [them] and speak [of them]…” (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV). For other examples of cohortatives in the protasis (“if” clause) of a conditional sentence, see GKC 320 §108.e. (It should be noted, however, that GKC understands this particular verse in a different manner. See GKC 320 §108.f, where it is suggested that the cohortatives are part of an apodosis with the protasis being suppressed.) Another option is to take the cohortatives as a declaration of the psalmist’s resolve to announce the truth expressed in the next line. In this case one might translate: “I will declare and speak [the truth]: They are too numerous to recount.”
20 sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586
21 tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”
22 tn Or “according to.”
23 tn Or “according to.”
24 tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”
25 sn Servants look to their master for food, shelter, and other basic needs.