Discovery BoxPsalms 22:27-31 
Context22:27 Let all the people of the earth acknowledge the Lord and turn to him! 1
Let all the nations 2 worship you! 3
and rules over the nations.
22:29 All of the thriving people 5 of the earth will join the celebration and worship; 6
all those who are descending into the grave 7 will bow before him,
including those who cannot preserve their lives. 8
22:30 A whole generation 9 will serve him;
they will tell the next generation about the sovereign Lord. 10
22:31 They will come and tell about his saving deeds; 11
they will tell a future generation what he has accomplished. 12
1 tn Heb “may all the ends of the earth remember and turn to the
2 tn Heb “families of the nations.”
3 tn Heb “before you.”
4 tn Heb “for to the
5 tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the
6 tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the
7 tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.
8 tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”
9 tn Heb “offspring.”
10 tn Heb “it will be told concerning the Lord to the generation.” The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
11 tn Heb “his righteousness.” Here the noun צִדָקָה (tsidaqah) refers to the Lord’s saving deeds whereby he vindicates the oppressed.
12 tn Heb “to a people [to be] born that he has acted.” The words “they will tell” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
