Discovery Box| (0.11) | (Psa 37:1) | 1 sn Psalm 37. The psalmist urges his audience not to envy the wicked, but to trust in and obey the Lord, for he will destroy sinners and preserve the godly. When the smoke of judgment clears, the wicked will be gone, but the godly will remain and inherit God’s promised blessings. The psalm is an acrostic; every other verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 34:15) | 1 tn Heb “the eyes of the Lord [are] toward the godly, and his ears [are] toward their cry for help.” |
| (0.11) | (Psa 30:9) | 5 sn According to the OT, those who descend into the realm of death/Sheol are cut off from God’s mighty deeds and from the worshiping covenant community that experiences divine intervention (Pss 6:5; 88:10-12; Isa 38:18). In his effort to elicit a positive divine response, the psalmist reminds God that he will receive no praise or glory if he allows the psalmist to die. Dead men do not praise God! |
| (0.11) | (Psa 29:1) | 2 tc Heb “sons of gods,” or “sons of God.” Though אֵלִים (ʾelim) is vocalized as a plural form (“gods”) in the MT, it is likely that the final mem is actually enclitic, rather than a plural marker. In this case one may read “God.” Some, following a Qumran text and the LXX, also propose the phrase occurred in the original text of Deut 32:8. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 26:1) | 1 sn Psalm 26. The author invites the Lord to test his integrity, asserts his innocence and declares his loyalty to God. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 25:11) | 1 tn Heb “name.” By forgiving the sinful psalmist, the Lord’s reputation as a merciful God will be enhanced. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 18:29) | 6 sn I can jump over a wall. The psalmist uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 18:26) | 3 sn Verses 25-26 affirm God’s justice. He responds to people in accordance with their moral character. His response mirrors their actions. The faithful and blameless find God to be loyal and reliable in his dealings with them. But deceivers discover he is able and willing to use deceit to destroy them. For a more extensive discussion of the theme of divine deception in the OT, see R. B. Chisholm, “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 11-28. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 14:7) | 1 sn The deliverance of Israel. This refers metonymically to God, the one who lives in Zion and provides deliverance for Israel. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 11:6) | 1 tn The verb form is a jussive, indicating that the statement is imprecatory (“May the Lord rain down”), not indicative (“The Lord rains down”; see also Job 20:23). The psalmist appeals to God to destroy the wicked, rather than simply stating his confidence that God will do so. In this way the psalmist seeks to activate divine judgment by appealing to God’s just character. For an example of the power of such a curse, see Judg 9:7-57. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 10:13) | 1 tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 9:20) | 2 tn Heb “let the nations know they [are] man[kind]”; i.e., mere human beings (as opposed to God). |
| (0.11) | (Psa 9:1) | 3 tn The cohortative forms in vv. 1-2 express the psalmist’s resolve to praise God publicly. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 5:4) | 4 sn Only the godly are allowed to dwell with the Lord. Evil people are excluded. See Ps 15. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 4:5) | 2 sn Trust in the Lord. The psalmist urges his enemies to make peace with God and become his followers. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 4:4) | 1 sn The psalmist warns his enemies that they need to tremble with fear before God and repudiate their sinful ways. |
| (0.11) | (Psa 1:5) | 4 sn The assembly of the godly is insulated from divine judgment (Ps 37:12-17, 28-29). |
| (0.11) | (Job 35:6) | 1 tn Heb “him” (also in v. 7); the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity. |
| (0.11) | (Job 30:22) | 1 sn Here Job changes the metaphor again, to the driving storm. God has sent his storms, and Job is blown away. |
| (0.11) | (Job 26:13) | 2 sn Here too is a reference to pagan views indirectly. The fleeing serpent was a designation for Leviathan, whom the book will simply describe as an animal, but the pagans thought to be a monster of the deep. See the same Hebrew phrase in Isaiah 27:1. God’s power over nature is associated with defeat of pagan gods (see further W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan). |
