Psalms 66:17
988
I will declare what he has done for me.
66:17 I cried out to him for help
and praised him with my tongue.
66:18 If I had harbored sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
66:19 However, God heard;
he listened to my prayer.
66:20 God deserves praise,
for he did not reject my prayer
or abandon his love for me!
Psalm 67
For the music director; to be accompanied by
stringed instruments; a psalm, a song.
67:1 May God show us his favor and
bless us!
May he smile on us!10 (Selah)
67:2 Then those living on earth will know
what you are like;
all nations will know how you deliver
your people.11
67:3 Let the nations thank you, O God!
Let all the nations thank you!12
67:4 Let foreigners13 rejoice and celebrate!
For you execute justice among the nations,
and govern the people living on earth.14
(Selah)
67:5 Let the nations thank you, O God!
Let all the nations thank you!15
tn Heb to him [with] my mouth I called.
tn Heb and he was extolled under my tongue. The form
( romam) appears to be a polal (passive) participle from
( rum, be exalted), but many prefer to read , high half of his people.
praise [was under my tongue] (cf. NEB). See BDB 928 s.v.
. sive. The psalmist is describing Gods appearance in battle in
tn Heb sin if I had seen in my heart.
tn Heb blessed [be] God.
tn Or who. In a blessing formula after ( barukh,
blessed be) the form ( asher), whether taken as a rela- Spring into action, Lord! Then your enemies will be scattered
tive pronoun or causal particle, introduces the basis for the
blessing/praise.
tn Heb did not turn aside my prayer and his loyal love
with me.
sn Psalm 67. The psalmist prays for Gods blessing upon
his people and urges the nations to praise him for he is the
just ruler of the world.
tn Or have mercy on us.
tn The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives
expressing the psalmists prayer. Note the jussive form
(yaer) in the next line.
10tn Heb may he cause his face to shine with us.
11tn Heb to know in the earth your way, among all nations
your deliverance. The infinitive with -( lamed) expresses pur-
pose/result. When God demonstrates his favor to his people,
all nations will recognize his character as a God who deliv-
ers. The Hebrew term ( derekh, way) refers here to Gods cloud) is cognate with Akkadian urpatu/erpetu and with
characteristic behavior, more specifically, to the way he typi-
cally saves his people.
12tn Heb let the nations, all of them, thank you. The pre-
fixed verbal forms in vv. 3-4a are understood as jussives in
this call to praise.
13tn Or peoples.
14tn Heb for you judge nations fairly, and [as for the] peo-
ples in the earth, you lead them. The imperfects are trans-
lated with the present tense because the statement is under-
stood as a generalization about Gods providential control of
the world. Another option is to understand the statement as
anticipating Gods future rule (for you will ruleand govern).
15tn Heb let the nations, all of them, thank you. The pre-
67:6 The earth yields its crops.
May God, our God, bless us!
67:7 May God bless us!16
Then all the ends of the earth will give
him the honor he deserves.17
Psalm 6818
For the music director; by David, a psalm, a song.
68:1 God springs into action!19
His enemies scatter;
his adversaries20 run from him.21
68:2 As smoke is driven away by the
wind, so you drive them away.22
As wax melts before fire,
so the wicked are destroyed before God.
68:3 But the godly23 are happy;
they rejoice before God
and are overcome with joy.24
68:4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his
name!
Exalt the one who rides on the clouds!25
For the Lord is his name!26
fixed verbal forms in v. 5 are understood as jussives in this
call to praise.
16tn The prefixed verb forms in vv. 6b-7a are understood as
jussives.
17tn Heb will fear him. After the jussive of the preceding
line, the prefixed verbal form with prefixed vav ( )conjunctive
is understood as indicating purpose/result. (Note how v. 3
anticipates the universal impact of God showing his people
blessing.) Another option is to take the verb as a jussive and
translate, Let all the ends of the earth fear him.
18sn Psalm 68. The psalmist depicts God as a mighty war-
rior and celebrates the fact that God exerts his power on be-
19tn Or rises up. The verb form is an imperfect, not a jus-
a dramatic fashion.
20tn Heb those who hate him.
21sn The wording of v. 1 echoes the prayer in Num 10:35:
and your adversaries will run from you.
22tn Heb as smoke is scattered, you scatter [them].
23tn By placing the subject first the psalmist highlights the
contrast between Gods ecstatic people and his defeated en-
emies (vv. 1-2).
24tn Heb and they are happy with joy (cf. NEB). Some
translate the prefixed verbal forms of v. 3 as jussives, Let the
godly be happy, let them rejoice before God, and let them be
happy with joy! (Cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV; note the call to praise
in v. 4.)
25tn Traditionally the Hebrew term ( aravot) is taken
as steppe-lands (often rendered deserts), but here the
form is probably a homonym meaning clouds. Verse 33,
which depicts God as the one who rides on the sky strongly
favors this (see as well Deut 33:26), as does the reference
in v. 9 to God as the source of rain. The term ( aravah,
Ugaritic rpt. The phrase rkb rpt (one who rides on the
clouds) appears in Ugaritic mythological texts as an epithet
of the storm god Baal. The nonphonemic interchange of the
bilabial consonants b and p is attested elsewhere in roots
common to Hebrew and Ugaritic, though the phenomenon is
relatively rare.
26tc Heb in the Lord his name. If the MT is retained, the
preposition -( bet) is introducing the predicate (the so-called
bet of identity), the Lord is his name. However, some prefer
to emend the text to ( ki yah shmo, for Yah is his
name). This emendation, reflected in the present transla-
tion, assumes a confusion of bet ( )and kaf ( )and haplog-
raphy of yod ().