5:7 But as for me, 1 because of your great faithfulness I will enter your house; 2
I will bow down toward your holy temple as I worship you. 3
28:2 Hear my plea for mercy when I cry out to you for help,
when I lift my hands 4 toward your holy temple! 5
For the music director; By David, a psalm.
40:1 I relied completely 7 on the Lord,
and he turned toward me
and heard my cry for help.
1 sn But as for me. By placing the first person pronoun at the beginning of the verse, the psalmist highlights the contrast between the evildoers’ actions and destiny, outlined in the preceding verses, with his own.
2 sn I will enter your house. The psalmist is confident that God will accept him into his presence, in contrast to the evildoers (see v. 5).
3 tn Heb “in fear [of] you.” The Hebrew noun יִרְאָה (yir’ah, “fear”), when used of fearing God, is sometimes used metonymically for what it ideally produces: “worship, reverence, piety.”
4 sn I lift my hands. Lifting one’s hands toward God was a gesture of prayer.
5 tn The Hebrew term דְּבִיר (dÿvir, “temple”) actually refers to the most holy place within the sanctuary.
6 sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).
7 tn Heb “relying, I relied.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form to emphasize the verbal idea. The emphasis is reflected in the translation through the adverb “completely.” Another option is to translate, “I waited patiently” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).