¹ sn Psalm 96. The psalmist summons everyone to praise the Lord, the sovereign creator of the world who preserves and promotes justice in the earth.

² tn Heb “his eyes watch.” “Eyes” are an anthropomorphism, attributed to God here to emphasize his awareness of all that happens on earth.

¹ tn Heb “and the inhabitants of the ends fear because of your signs.” God’s “signs” are the “awesome acts” (see v. 5) he performs in the earth.

² sn All the ends of the earth trust in you. This idealistic portrayal of universal worship is typical hymnic hyperbole, though it does anticipate eschatological reality.

¹ sn You made the earth quake; you split it open. The psalmist uses the imagery of an earthquake to describe the nation’s defeat.

¹ tn Heb “like your name, O God, so [is] your praise to the ends of the earth.” Here “name” refers to God’s reputation and revealed character.

² tn Heb “who sets desolations in the earth” (see Isa 13:9). The active participle describes God’s characteristic activity as a warrior.

² sn The nations will praise you. As God’s vice-regent on earth, the king is deserving of such honor and praise.

¹ tn Heb “the face of the Lord [is] against the doers of evil to cut off from the earth memory of them.”

² tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly temple is in view, not the earthly one.

¹ sn The expression kings of the earth refers somewhat hyperbolically to the kings who had been conquered by and were subject to the Davidic king.

¹ sn The verse has been properly understood, on the whole, as comparing the earth above and all its produce with the upheaval down below.

² sn The idea here is that when the earth quakes, or when there is thunder in the heavens, these all represent God’s rebuke, for they create terror.

² tn In both halves of the verse the literal rendering would be “upon the face of the earth” and “upon the face of the fields.”

¹ tn Heb “and all the kings of the earth were seeking the face of Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had placed in his heart.”

² tn Heb “and I will make for you a name like the name of the great men who are in the earth.”

¹ tn Heb “King Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth with respect to wealth and with respect to wisdom.”

² tn Heb “and all the earth was seeking the face of Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had placed in his heart.”

¹ tn Heb “Indeed, can God really live on the earth?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not,” the force of which the translation above seeks to reflect.

² tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly, not earthly, temple is in view.