¹ tn 2 Sam 22:38 reads “destroy.”

² tn Heb “I am numb and crushed to excess.”

³ tn Heb “I roar because of the moaning of my heart.”

⁴ sn I am like a deaf man…like a mute. The psalmist is like a deaf mute; he is incapable of defending himself and is vulnerable to his enemies’ deception (see v. 14).

⁵ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. God’s charges against his people follow.

⁶ tn Heb “Israel, and I will testify against you.” The imperative “listen” is understood in the second line by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

⁷ tn Or perhaps “then.”

⁸ sn I will lift up my hands. Lifting up one’s hands toward God was a gesture of prayer (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19) or respect (Ps 119:48).

⁹ tn Heb “I will praise the name of God with a song.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “I will magnify him with thanks.”

¹¹ tn Heb “I will not set before my eyes a thing of worthlessness.”

¹² tn Heb “the doing of swerving [deeds] I hate.” The Hebrew term סֵטִים (setim) is probably an alternate spelling of שֵׂטִים (setim), which appears in many medieval Hebrew mss. The form appears to be derived from a verbal root שׂוּט (sut, “to fall away; to swerve”; see Ps 40:4).

¹³ tn Heb “it [i.e., the doing of evil deeds] does not cling to me.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “because he turned his ear to me.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “and in my days I will cry out.”

¹⁶ tn Lifting the hands is often associated with prayer (Pss 28:2; 63:4; Lam 2:19). (1) Because praying to God’s law borders on the extreme, some prefer to emend the text to “I lift up my hands to you,” eliminating “your commands, which I love” as dittographic. In this view these words were accidentally repeated from the previous verse. (2) However, it is possible that the psalmist closely associates the law with God himself because he views the law as the expression of the divine will. (3) Another option is that “lifting the hands” does not refer to prayer here, but to the psalmist’s desire to receive and appropriate the law. (4) Still others understand this to be an action praising God’s commands (so NCV; cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

¹⁷ tn Or “woe to me.” The Hebrew term אוֹיָה (’oyah, “woe”) which occurs only here, is an alternate form of אוֹי (’oy).

¹⁸ tn Heb “I live as a resident alien.”

¹⁹ sn Meshech was located in central Anatolia (modern Turkey). Kedar was located in the desert to east-southeast of Israel. Because of the reference to Kedar, it is possible that Ps 120:5 refers to a different Meshech, perhaps one associated with the individual mentioned as a descendant of Aram in 1 Chr 1:17. (However, the LXX in 1 Chr 1:17 follows the parallel text in Gen 10:23, which reads “Mash,” not Meshech.) It is, of course, impossible that the psalmist could have been living in both the far north and the east at the same time. For this reason one must assume that he is recalling his experience as a wanderer among the nations or that he is using the geographical terms metaphorically and sarcastically to suggest that the enemies who surround him are like the barbarians who live in these distant regions. For a discussion of the problem, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 146.

²⁰ tn Or “wait for.”

²¹ tn Heb “my soul waits.”

²² tn Heb “his word.”

²³ tn Or “ancient times”; Heb “days from before.”

²⁴ tn Heb “the work of your hands.”