96:9 Worship the Lord in holy attire! 1
Tremble before him, all the earth!
99:1 The Lord reigns!
The nations tremble. 3
He sits enthroned above the winged angels; 4
the earth shakes. 5
114:7 Tremble, O earth, before the Lord –
before the God of Jacob,
4:4 Tremble with fear and do not sin! 6
Meditate as you lie in bed, and repent of your ways! 7 (Selah)
1 tn Or “in holy splendor.”
2 sn Psalm 99. The psalmist celebrates the Lord’s just rule and recalls how he revealed himself to Israel’s leaders.
3 tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 1 are understood here as indicating the nations’ characteristic response to the reality of the
4 sn Winged angels (Heb “cherubs”). Cherubs, as depicted in the OT, possess both human and animal (lion, ox, and eagle) characteristics (see Ezek 1:10; 10:14, 21; 41:18). They are pictured as winged creatures (Exod 25:20; 37:9; 1 Kgs 6:24-27; Ezek 10:8, 19) and serve as the very throne of God when the ark of the covenant is in view (Ps 99:1; see Num 7:89; 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15). The picture of the Lord seated on the cherubs suggests they might be used by him as a vehicle, a function they carry out in Ezek 1:22-28 (the “living creatures” mentioned here are identified as cherubs in Ezek 10:20). In Ps 18:10 the image of a cherub serves to personify the wind.
5 tn The Hebrew verb נוּט (nut) occurs only here in the OT, but the meaning can be determined on the basis of the parallelism with רָגַז (ragaz, “tremble”) and evidence from the cognate languages (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 121).
6 sn The psalmist warns his enemies that they need to tremble with fear before God and repudiate their sinful ways.
7 tn Heb “say in your heart(s) on your bed(s) and wail/lament.” The verb דֹמּוּ (dommu) is understood as a form of דָמָם (“wail, lament”) in sorrow and repentance. Another option is to take the verb from II דָמָם (damam, “be quiet”); cf. NIV, NRSV “be silent.”