translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: PSA

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4 ; Isa 49:6; 51:4 ; Mic 7:8 . Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3 ).


text: Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”


text: Heb “draw near to me.”


text: Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.


text: The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”


text: Heb “my heart does not fear.”


text: Heb “if war rises up against me.”


text: Heb “in this [i.e., “during this situation”] I am trusting.”


text: Heb “my living.”


text: Or “beauty.”


text: Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי ( ki ) is asseverative here, rather than causal.


text: Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”


text: Or “trouble.”


text: Heb “tent.”


text: The three imperfect verb forms in v. 5 anticipate a positive response to the prayer offered in vv. 7-12 .


text: Heb “on a rocky summit he lifts me up.” The Lord places the psalmist in an inaccessible place where his enemies cannot reach him. See Ps 18:2 .


text: Heb “and now my head will be lifted up over my enemies all around me.” sn In vv. 1-3 the psalmist generalizes, but here we discover that he is facing a crisis and is under attack from enemies (see vv. 11-12 ).


text: Heb “I will sacrifice in his tent sacrifices of a shout for joy” (that is, “sacrifices accompanied by a joyful shout”).


text: Heb “my voice.”


label: NET textual note

text: Heb “concerning you my heart says, ‘Seek my face.’” The verb form “seek” is plural, but this makes no sense here, for the psalmist is addressed. The verb should be emended to a singular form. The first person pronominal suffix on “face” also makes little sense, unless it is the voice of the Lord he hears. His “heart” is viewed as speaking, however, so it is better to emend the form to פָּנָיו ( panayv , “his face”).


text: Heb “your face, O Lord , I seek.” To “seek the Lord ’s face” means to seek his favor through prayer (see 2 Sam 21:1 ; Pss 24:6; 105:4 ).


text: Heb “do not hide your face from me.” The idiom “hide the face” can mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9 ) or carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 30:7; 88:14 ).


text: Or “[source of] help.”


text: Or “though my father and mother have abandoned me.”


text: Heb “gather me in”; or “receive me.”


text: Heb “teach me your way.” The Lord ’s “way” refers here to the moral principles which he expects the psalmist to follow. See Ps 25:4 .


text: Heb “because of those who watch me [with evil intent].” See also Pss 5:8; 54:5; 56:2 .


text: Heb “do not give me over to the desire of my enemies.”


text: Heb “for they have risen up against me, lying witnesses and a testifier of violence.” The form יָפֵחַ ( yafeakh ) is traditionally understood as a verb meaning “snort, breathe out”: “for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty” (KJV; cf. BDB 422 s.v.). A better option is to take the form as a noun meaning “a witness” (or “testifier”). See Prov 6:19; 12:17; 14:5, 25; 19:5, 9 , and Hab 2:3 .


text: In the Hebrew text the sentence is incomplete: “If I had not believed [I would] see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” The words “Where would I be” are supplied in the translation to clarify the intent of the statement.


text: Or “wait.”


text: Heb “be strong and let your heart be confident.”