Discovery BoxPsalms 27:5 
Context27:5 He will surely 1 give me shelter 2 in the day of danger; 3
he will hide me in his home; 4
he will place me 5 on an inaccessible rocky summit. 6
Psalms 46:9
Context46:9 He brings an end to wars throughout the earth; 7
he shatters 8 the bow and breaks 9 the spear;
he burns 10 the shields with fire. 11
Psalms 78:5
Context78:5 He established a rule 12 in Jacob;
he set up a law in Israel.
He commanded our ancestors
to make his deeds known to their descendants, 13
Psalms 78:20
Context78:20 Yes, 14 he struck a rock and water flowed out,
streams gushed forth.
But can he also give us food?
Will he provide meat for his people?”
Psalms 78:38
Context78:38 Yet he is compassionate.
He forgives sin and does not destroy.
He often holds back his anger,
and does not stir up his fury. 15
Psalms 78:50
Context78:50 He sent his anger in full force; 16
he did not spare them from death;
he handed their lives over to destruction. 17
Psalms 96:13
Context96:13 before the Lord, for he comes!
For he comes to judge the earth!
He judges the world fairly, 18
and the nations in accordance with his justice. 19
Psalms 109:17
Context109:17 He loved to curse 20 others, so those curses have come upon him. 21
He had no desire to bless anyone, so he has experienced no blessings. 22
Psalms 115:12
Context115:12 The Lord takes notice of us, 23 he will bless 24 –
he will bless the family 25 of Israel,
he will bless the family of Aaron.
1 tn Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי (ki) is asseverative here, rather than causal.
2 tn Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”
3 tn Or “trouble.”
4 tn Heb “tent.”
5 tn The three imperfect verb forms in v. 5 anticipate a positive response to the prayer offered in vv. 7-12.
6 tn Heb “on a rocky summit he lifts me up.” The
7 tn Heb “[the] one who causes wars to cease unto the end of the earth.” The participle continues the description begun in v. 8b and indicates that this is the
8 tn The verb שָׁבַר (shavar, “break”) appears in the Piel here (see Ps 29:5). In the OT it occurs thirty-six times in the Piel, always with multiple objects (the object is either a collective singular or grammatically plural or dual form). The Piel may highlight the repetition of the pluralative action, or it may suggest an intensification of action, indicating repeated action comprising a whole, perhaps with the nuance “break again and again, break in pieces.” Another option is to understand the form as resultative: “make broken” (see IBHS 404-7 §24.3). The imperfect verbal form carries on and emphasizes the generalizing nature of the description.
9 tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive carries along the generalizing emphasis of the preceding imperfect.
10 tn The imperfect verbal form carries on and emphasizes the generalizing nature of the description.
11 tn Heb “wagons he burns with fire.” Some read “chariots” here (cf. NASB), but the Hebrew word refers to wagons or carts, not chariots, elsewhere in the OT. In this context, where military weapons are mentioned, it is better to revocalize the form as עֲגִלוֹת (’agilot, “round shields”), a word which occurs only here in the OT, but is attested in later Hebrew and Aramaic.
12 tn The Hebrew noun עֵדוּת (’edut) refers here to God’s command that the older generation teach their children about God’s mighty deeds in the nation’s history (see Exod 10:2; Deut 4:9; 6:20-25).
13 tn Heb “which he commanded our fathers to make them known to their sons.” The plural suffix “them” probably refers back to the
14 tn Heb “look.”
15 tn One could translate v. 38 in the past tense (“he was compassionate…forgave sin and did not destroy…held back his anger, and did not stir up his fury”), but the imperfect verbal forms are probably best understood as generalizing. Verse 38 steps back briefly from the narrational summary of Israel’s history and lays the theological basis for v. 39, which focuses on God’s mercy toward sinful Israel.
16 tn Heb “he leveled a path for his anger.” There were no obstacles to impede its progress; it moved swiftly and destructively.
17 tn Or perhaps “[the] plague.”
18 tn The verbal forms in v. 13 probably describe God’s typical, characteristic behavior, though they may depict in dramatic fashion the outworking of divine judgment or anticipate a future judgment of worldwide proportions, in which case they could be translated “will judge the world.”
19 tn Heb “and the nations with his integrity.”
20 sn A curse in OT times consists of a formal appeal to God to bring judgment down upon another. Curses were sometimes justified (such as the one spoken by the psalmist here in vv. 6-19), but when they were not, the one pronouncing the curse was in danger of bringing the anticipated judgment down upon himself.
21 tn Heb “and he loved a curse and it came [upon] him.” A reference to the evil man experiencing a curse seems premature here, for the psalmist is asking God to bring judgment on his enemies. For this reason some (cf. NIV, NRSV) prefer to repoint the vav (ו) on “it came” as conjunctive and translate the verb as a jussive of prayer (“may it come upon him!”). The prefixed form with vav consecutive in the next line is emended in the same way and translated, “may it be far from him.” However, the psalmist may be indicating that the evil man’s lifestyle has already begun to yield its destructive fruit.
22 tn Heb “and he did not delight in a blessing and it is far from him.”
23 tn Or “remembers us.”
24 tn Another option is to translate the prefixed form of the verb “bless” in vv. 12-13 as a jussive, “may he bless” (see v. 14).
25 tn Heb “house.”
