Discovery BoxPsalms 74:20 
Context74:20 Remember your covenant promises, 1
for the dark regions of the earth are full of places where violence rules. 2
Psalms 82:5
Context82:5 They 3 neither know nor understand.
They stumble 4 around in the dark,
while all the foundations of the earth crumble. 5
Psalms 88:6
Context88:6 You place me in the lowest regions of the pit, 6
in the dark places, in the watery depths.
Psalms 88:12
Context88:12 Are your amazing deeds experienced 7 in the dark region, 8
or your deliverance in the land of oblivion? 9
Psalms 104:20
Context104:20 You make it dark and night comes, 10
during which all the beasts of the forest prowl around.
1 tc Heb “look at the covenant.” The LXX reads “your covenant,” which seems to assume a second person pronominal suffix. The suffix may have been accidentally omitted by haplography. Note that the following word (כִּי) begins with kaf (כ).
2 tn Heb “for the dark places of the earth are full of dwelling places of violence.” The “dark regions” are probably the lands where the people have been exiled (see C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms [ICC], 2:157). In some contexts “dark regions” refers to Sheol (Ps 88:6) or to hiding places likened to Sheol (Ps 143:3; Lam 3:6).
3 sn Having addressed the defendants, God now speaks to those who are observing the trial, referring to the gods in the third person.
4 tn Heb “walk.” The Hitpael stem indicates iterative action, picturing these ignorant “judges” as stumbling around in the darkness.
5 sn These gods, though responsible for justice, neglect their duty. Their self-imposed ignorance (which the psalmist compares to stumbling around in the dark) results in widespread injustice, which threatens the social order of the world (the meaning of the phrase all the foundations of the earth crumble).
6 tn The noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit,” “cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. See v. 4.
7 tn Heb “known.”
8 tn Heb “darkness,” here a title for Sheol.
9 tn Heb “forgetfulness.” The noun, which occurs only here in the OT, is derived from a verbal root meaning “to forget.”
sn The rhetorical questions in vv. 10-12 expect the answer, “Of course not!”
10 tn Heb “you make darkness, so that it might be night.”
