86:17 Show me evidence of your favor! 1
Then those who hate me will see it and be ashamed, 2
for you, O Lord, will help me and comfort me. 3
143:8 May I hear about your loyal love in the morning, 4
for I trust in you.
Show me the way I should go, 5
because I long for you. 6
1 tn Heb “Work with me a sign for good.” The expression “work a sign” also occurs in Judg 6:17.
2 tn After the imperative in the preceding line (“work”), the prefixed verb forms with prefixed vav (ו) conjunctive indicate purpose or result.
3 tn The perfect verbal forms are understood here as dramatic/rhetorical, expressing the psalmist’s certitude that such a sign from the
4 tn Heb “cause me to hear in the morning your loyal love.” Here “loyal love” probably stands metonymically for an oracle of assurance promising God’s intervention as an expression of his loyal love.
sn The morning is sometimes viewed as the time of divine intervention (see Pss 30:5; 59:16; 90:14).
5 sn The way probably refers here to God’s moral and ethical standards and requirements (see v. 10).
6 tn Heb “for to you I lift up my life.” The Hebrew expression נָאָשׂ נֶפֶשׁ (na’as nefesh, “to lift up [one’s] life”) means “to desire; to long for” (see Deut 24:15; Prov 19:18; Jer 22:27; 44:14; Hos 4:8, as well as H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 16).