translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: PSA

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “one who lays the beams on water [in] his upper rooms.” The “water” mentioned here corresponds to the “waters above” mentioned in Gen 1:7 . For a discussion of the picture envisioned by the psalmist, see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World , 44-45.


label: NET textual note

text: Heb “and his attendants a flaming fire.” The lack of agreement between the singular “fire” and plural “attendants” has prompted various emendations. Some read “fire and flame.” The present translation assumes an emendation to “his attendant” ( יו in the Hebrew text being virtually dittographic). sn In Ugaritic mythology Yam’s messengers appear as flaming fire before the assembly of the gods. See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends , 42.


text: Heb “you covered it.” The masculine suffix is problematic if the grammatically feminine noun “earth” is the antecedent. For this reason some emend the form to a feminine verb with feminine suffix, כִּסַּתָּה ( kisattah , “[the watery deep] covered it [i.e., the earth]”), a reading assumed by the present translation.


text: Heb “stood.”


text: Heb “from your shout they fled, from the sound of your thunder they hurried off.” sn Verses 7-8 poetically depict Gen 1:9-10 .


text: Heb “a boundary you set up, they will not cross, they will not return to cover the earth.”


text: Heb “[the] one who sends springs into streams.” Another option is to translate, “he sends streams [i.e., streams that originate from springs] into the valleys” (cf. NIV).


text: Heb “among the thick foliage they give a sound.”


text: Heb “from his upper rooms.”


text: Heb “from the fruit of your works the earth is full.” The translation assumes that “fruit” is literal here. If “fruit” is understood more abstractly as “product; result,” then one could translate, “the earth flourishes as a result of your deeds” (cf. NIV, NRSV, REB).


text: Heb “causes the grass to sprout up.”


text: Heb “for the service of man” (see Gen 2:5 ).


text: Heb “to cause food to come out from the earth.”


text: Heb “and wine [that] makes the heart of man happy.”


text: Heb “to make [the] face shine from oil.” The Hebrew verb צָהַל ( tsahal , “to shine”) occurs only here in the OT. It appears to be an alternate form of צָהַר ( tsahar ), a derivative from צָהָרִים ( tsaharim , “noon”).


text: Heb “and food [that] sustains the heart of man.”


text: Heb “are satisfied,” which means here that they receive abundant rain (see v. 13 ).


text: Heb “[the] heron [in the] evergreens [is] its home.” sn The cedars and evergreens of the Lebanon forest are frequently associated (see, for example, 2 Chr 2:8 ; Isa 14:8; 37:24 ; Ezek 31:8 ).


text: Heb “the high mountains [are] for the goats.”


text: Heb “he made [the] moon for appointed times.” The phrase “appointed times” probably refers to the months of the Hebrew lunar calendar.


text: Heb more metaphorically, “knows its setting.”


text: Heb “you make darkness, so that it might be night.”


text: Heb “lie down.”


text: Heb “man goes out to his work, and to his labor until evening.”


text: Heb “How many [are] your works, O Lord .” In this case the Lord ’s “works” are the creatures he has made, as the preceding and following contexts make clear.


text: Heb “all of them with wisdom you have made.”


text: Heb “this [is] the sea, great and broad of hands [i.e., “sides” or “shores”].”


text: Heb “where [there are] swimming things, and without number.”


text: Heb “[and] this Leviathan, [which] you formed to play in it.” Elsewhere Leviathan is a multiheaded sea monster that symbolizes forces hostile to God (see Ps 74:14 ; Isa 27:1 ), but here it appears to be an actual marine creature created by God, probably some type of whale.


text: Heb “All of them.” The pronoun “them” refers not just to the sea creatures mentioned in vv. 25-26 , but to all living things (see v. 24 ). This has been specified in the translation as “all of your creatures” for clarity.


text: Heb “to give their food in its time.”


text: Heb “they are satisfied [with] good.”


text: Heb “you hide your face, they are terrified.”


text: Heb “be forever.”


text: Or “rejoice in his works.”


text: Heb “in my duration.”


text: That is, the psalmist’s thoughts as expressed in his songs of praise.


text: Or “be destroyed.”