Psalm 73:17-28

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Psalm 73:17 tn The plural of the term מִקְדָּשׁ (miqdash) probably refers to the temple precincts (see Ps 68:35; Jer 51:51).
2. Psalm 73:17 tn Heb “I discerned their end.” At the temple the psalmist perhaps received an oracle of deliverance announcing his vindication and the demise of the wicked (see Ps 12) or heard songs of confidence (for example, Ps 11), wisdom psalms (for example, Pss 1, 37), and hymns (for example, Ps 112) that describe the eventual downfall of the proud and wealthy.
3. Psalm 73:18 tn The use of the Hebrew term אַךְ (ʾakh, “surely”) here literarily counteracts its use in v. 13. The repetition draws attention to the contrast between the two statements, the first of which expresses the psalmist’s earlier despair and the second his newly discovered confidence.
4. Psalm 73:18 tn Heb “cause them to fall.”
5. Psalm 73:19 tn Heb “they come to an end, they are finished, from terrors.”
6. Psalm 73:20 tn Heb “like a dream from awakening.” They lack any real substance; their prosperity will last for only a brief time.
7. Psalm 73:20 sn When you awake. The psalmist compares God’s inactivity to sleep and the time of God’s judgment to his awakening from sleep.
8. Psalm 73:20 tn Heb “you will despise their form.” The Hebrew term צֶלֶם (tselem, “form; image”) also suggests their short-lived nature. Rather than having real substance, they are like the mere images that populate one’s dreams. Note the similar use of the term in Ps 39:6.
9. Psalm 73:21 tn Or perhaps “when.”
10. Psalm 73:21 tn The imperfect verbal form here describes a continuing attitude in a past time frame.
11. Psalm 73:21 tn Heb “and [in] my kidneys I was pierced.” The imperfect verbal form here describes a continuing condition in a past time frame.
12. Psalm 73:22 tn Or “brutish, stupid.”
13. Psalm 73:22 tn Heb “and I was not knowing.”
14. Psalm 73:22 tn Heb “an animal I was with you.”
15. Psalm 73:24 tn The imperfect verbal form here suggests this is the psalmist’s ongoing experience.
16. Psalm 73:24 tn Heb “and afterward [to] glory you will take me.” Some interpreters view this as the psalmist’s confidence in an afterlife in God’s presence and understand כָּבוֹד (kavod) as a metonymic reference to God’s presence in heaven. But this seems unlikely in the present context. The psalmist anticipates a time of vindication, when the wicked are destroyed and he is honored by God for his godly life style. The verb לָקַח (laqakh, “take”) here carries the nuance “lead, guide, conduct,” as in Num 23:14, 27-28; Josh 24:3 and Prov 24:11.
17. Psalm 73:25 tn Heb “Who [is there] for me in heaven? And besides you I do not desire [anyone] in the earth.” The psalmist uses a merism (heaven/earth) to emphasize that God is the sole object of his desire and worship in the entire universe.
18. Psalm 73:26 tn The Hebrew verb כָלָה (khalah, “to fail; to grow weak”) does not refer here to physical death per se, but to the physical weakness that sometimes precedes death (see Job 33:21; Pss 71:9; 143:7; Prov 5:11).
19. Psalm 73:26 tn Or “forever.”
20. Psalm 73:26 tn Heb “is the rocky summit of my heart and my portion.” The psalmist compares the Lord to a rocky summit where one could go for protection and to landed property, which was foundational to economic stability in ancient Israel.
21. Psalm 73:27 tn Or “for.”
22. Psalm 73:27 sn The following line defines the phrase far from you in a spiritual sense. Those “far” from God are those who are unfaithful and disloyal to him.
23. Psalm 73:27 tn Heb “everyone who commits adultery from you.”
24. Psalm 73:28 tn Heb “but as for me, the nearness of God for me [is] good.”
25. Psalm 73:28 tn The infinitive construct with ל (lamed) is understood here as indicating an attendant circumstance. Another option is to take it as indicating purpose (“so that I might declare”) or result (“with the result that I declare”).