66:5 Come and witness 1 God’s exploits! 2
His acts on behalf of people are awesome! 3
76:7 You are awesome! Yes, you!
Who can withstand your intense anger? 4
76:12 He humbles princes; 5
the kings of the earth regard him as awesome. 6
99:3 Let them praise your great and awesome name!
He 7 is holy!
139:14 I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. 8
You knew me thoroughly; 9
145:6 They will proclaim 10 the power of your awesome acts!
I will declare your great deeds!
147:5 Our Lord is great and has awesome power; 11
there is no limit to his wisdom. 12
1 tn Or “see.”
2 tn Or “acts” (see Ps 46:8).
3 tn Heb “awesome [is] an act toward the sons of man.” It is unclear how the prepositional phrase relates to what precedes. If collocated with “act,” it may mean “on behalf of” or “toward.” If taken with “awesome” (see 1 Chr 16:25; Pss 89:7; 96:4; Zeph 2:11), one might translate “his awesome acts are beyond human comprehension” or “his awesome acts are superior to anything men can do.”
4 tc Heb “and who can stand before you from the time of your anger?” The Hebrew expression מֵאָז (me’az, “from the time of”) is better emended to מֵאֹז (me’oz, “from [i.e., “because of”] the strength of your anger”; see Ps 90:11).
5 tn Heb “he reduces the spirit of princes.” According to HALOT 148 s.v. II בצר, the Hebrew verb בָּצַר (batsar) is here a hapax legomenon meaning “reduce, humble.” The statement is generalizing, with the imperfect tense highlighting God’s typical behavior.
6 tn Heb “[he is] awesome to the kings of the earth.”
7 tn The pronoun refers to the
8 tc Heb “because awesome things, I am distinct, amazing [are] your works.” The text as it stands is syntactically problematic and makes little, if any, sense. The Niphal of פָּלָה (pala’) occurs elsewhere only in Exod 33:16. Many take the form from פָלָא (pala’; see GKC 216 §75.qq), which in the Niphal perfect means “to be amazing” (see 2 Sam 1:26; Ps 118:23; Prov 30:18). Some, following the LXX and some other ancient witnesses, also prefer to emend the verb from first to second person, “you are amazing” (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 249, 251). The present translation assumes the text conflates two variants: נפלאים, the otherwise unattested masculine plural participle of פָלָא, and נִפְלָאוֹת (nifla’ot), the usual (feminine) plural form of the Niphal participle. The latter has been changed to a verb by later scribes in an attempt to accommodate it syntactically. The original text likely read, נוראות נפלאותים מעשׂיך (“your works [are] awesome [and] amazing”).
9 tc Heb “and my being knows very much.” Better parallelism is achieved (see v. 15a) if one emends יֹדַעַת (yoda’at), a Qal active participle, feminine singular form, to יָדַעְתָּ (yada’ta), a Qal perfect second masculine singular perfect. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252.
10 tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as an imperfect, indicating how the psalmist expects his audience to respond to his praise. Another option is to take the forms as a jussive, indicating the psalmist’s wish, “may they proclaim.”
11 tn Heb “and great of strength.”
12 tn Heb “to his wisdom there is no counting.”