Happy [ashrei] is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked, has not stood in the path of sinners. A person who shuns evil leads a fortunate, happy life. The phrase atzat resha’im, “counsel of the wicked,” refers to bad advice given by wicked people. The happy man described here has not accepted or followed that advice. Since in other places the word atzat can be defined as “company” as well as “counsel,” this verse can also be interpreted to mean that a good man does not associate with wicked people, refusing to be considered part of their society. And has not sat in the company of scoffers. In modern Hebrew, letzim, translated here as “scoffers,” are clowns or jokers. But in Psalms, as in Proverbs and other sources, the word has a darker, more pejorative meaning. Scoffers are characterized by their frivolity and their breezy attitude toward that which is good. Even if they have no evil intent and do not actually behave in an evil manner, their mode of thinking and speaking opens the door to all manner of forbidden actions. The phrase “has not sat in the company of scoffers” emphasizes that even if one is not an active participant in such a group, and merely sits among them, he is exposing himself to wrongdoing.

But whose desire is the Torah of the Lord. The good and happy person desires God’s Torah, which is a guidebook for a way of life. He meditates on His Torah day and night. The pronoun “His” can also be said to be referring to the person studying the Torah rather than to God. This phrase, then, emphasizes each specific individual’s understanding of Torah, what he knows of it in his mind and heart. The term yehgeh, translated here as “meditates,” can also mean “utters.” When one chooses to spend all his time thinking and speaking of God’s Torah, he distances himself from evil and clings to good, and for this he is rewarded as described in the following verse.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water. The tree described here lacks nothing, as even without rain it has sufficient water. It is a tree which brings forth its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Trees that lack water often bear their fruit late, and their leaves shrivel and fall, but this tree is eternally fresh and thriving. This image is not merely one of blessing but also a concrete promise of ongoing fruitfulness in all its manifestations. The fruit of the righteous person’s Torah, as well as that of his everyday labors, will ripen at the right time, bringing benefit both to himself and to others. He will not suffer from premature decline or withering, and whatever he does will prosper.

By contrast, not so the wicked, who are not at all like well-rooted trees but instead are like chaff that wind blows away. Chaff is incapable of growth, and lacking a secure place of its own, is scattered by the wind in all directions. The wicked have a similar fate. They have no real place and no plan, but simply conform to shifting influences.

Therefore the wicked will not stand up in judgment. When the time of judgment comes, the wicked will have no standing, nor evildoers among the righteous. Not only will evildoers not be acquitted, but they will not even be able to join the company of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Here, as elsewhere, yode’a, translated as “knows,” specifically implies connectedness and love. God loves the righteous, and He therefore guides and assists them on their journey through life. But by contrast, the way of the wicked will perish. The way of the wicked results not only in the loss of eternal existence but also in an inability to withstand the vicissitudes of this life. Their path inevitably ends in ruin.

Why do nations rage and stir up a great commotion, and peoples meditate in vain? Why do they deliberate and make declarations that ultimately are no more than empty threats?

The kings of the earth have assembled, and rulers are gathered together against the Lord and against His anointed one, the king. Those in power consult with one another, gathering together in order to plot against God and His anointed one, as described in the following verse.

Let us snap off their chains, a metaphor for the rule and control that Israel exerts over them, and throw off their bonds. The main objective of their rebellion against the king is to be free of God, as the king represents the nation’s connection to God.

He whose seat is in heaven will laugh; the Lord will ridicule them. All those rulers’ plans will come to naught, for they are void of any true substance. What actually will come to pass is punishment from on high.

Then He will talk to them in His anger; in His wrath He will frighten them and say:

Yet I have anointed My king on Zion, My holy mountain. The continuation of the psalm is spoken by the king himself:

I will tell of the decree. I will set forth the basic premise of all my actions. The Lord said to me: You are My son; today I begat you. The king, chosen by God, can be likened to a man’s beloved son. When he ascends to the throne, it is as if he is being reborn.

God has told me: Make your request of Me, and I will make nations your inheritance; the ends of earth will be your portion. You will reign over many nations; your sovereignty will extend to the ends of the earth.

You will smash them with an iron rod, shatter them like a potter’s vessel. You will destroy all your enemies as easily as one shatters a clay vessel.

So now, kings, be wise; accept admonishment, judges of the earth. Understand that God has placed the privilege of sovereignty in my hands, and consequently you are powerless against me. For this reason, one should follow the advice given in the next verse:

Serve the Lord with reverence, aware of the consequences that await you if you do not serve Him, and rejoice with trembling. Although you will be able to rejoice under the rule of the king, this joy must be tempered with a trembling awe, as a hidden threat will always be present: If you do not serve God, you will be punished in various ways.

Kiss the son. Most commentators define bar here as “son,” which is the meaning of this word in Aramaic, referring to the king, as God said: “You are My son” (verse 7). The kiss is an expression of homage and affection. Lest He be angry and you lose your way, even if His anger burns only slightly. You cannot withstand God’s fury; you cannot weather even His slightest anger. By contrast, happy are all who rely on Him. Those who put their faith in God will find the world beautiful and full of goodness.

A psalm by David when he fled from Avshalom his son. Although the heading makes reference to a specific episode, the psalm speaks generally of a situation of great distress. It is an entreaty to God, coupled with an expression of faith that He will rescue the psalmist from his dire straits.

Lord, how numerous are my tormentors; many rise up against me. Not only are they enemies, but they are rebels from within my own ranks.

In addition to these enemies and rebels, principally Avshalom’s army, there are many others who say of me: There is no salvation for him in God. Although they were not actively involved in the insurgency, they nonetheless believed that David’s reign had ended and that his predicament was hopeless. Selah.

But You, Lord, protect me. You are my glory, or alternatively, You are the source of my glory, and You lift my head. You keep me from being completely cast off and humiliated.

I cried aloud to the Lord and He answered me from His holy mount, Selah. It is as if I can hear the voice of God speaking to me from the holy mount in Jerusalem.

I lay down and slept, often dejected and with no expectation that I would live to see the following day. But I awoke and did not succumb to eternal sleep, because the Lord sustains me and gave me strength to carry on.

And because God sustains me, I shall have no fear of the myriads that surround me and oppose me. I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people, all of whom are poised to attack me.

Arise, Lord. This is a call for God to reveal Himself in a recognizable way. Save me, my God. For You have smitten my enemies on the cheek. You have slapped the faces of all the enemies who surround me. This notion of a painful blow to the enemy’s cheek resonates with the subsequent imagery: You have broken the teeth of the wicked.

In summation, David declares: Salvation belongs to the Lord. Even if salvation from God does not appear to be imminent, eventually it becomes apparent that Your blessing is on Your people, Selah.

For the chief musician, on stringed instruments, a psalm by David. Like the preceding psalm, this is essentially a prayer, though it does not speak of a specific struggle or imminent danger but rather conveys a more generalized state of distress. It also includes expressions of encouragement for others.

When I call, answer me, God of my righteousness. In my distress, I feel as though I am confined. The word batzar, translated here as “distress,” literally means “in a narrow place.” This implies a feeling of paralysis, as though to say: My very existence, whether physical or spiritual, is so pressured that I am unable even to move. You have relieved me. The word hirĥavta, “you have relieved,” or literally, “you have widened,” describes one’s feeling when redemption follows profound distress; it is as if all the sources of pressure have receded into the background and one can again breathe and move freely. Now, God, be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

Sons of man. The psalmist now turns to benei ish, “sons of man,” namely, the leaders among his adversaries. Throughout the Bible, the word ish usually indicates a person of seniority and status. How long will you put my honor to shame? To what extent will you continue to denigrate and embarrass me? How long will you love emptiness? David’s humiliation and his enemies’ fight against him are not a consequence of his own deficiencies or mistakes. They constitute an unfounded war brought about by people who are propagating empty distortions and disseminating lies. How long will you seek deception? They go out of their way to seek out lies and deceptions concerning me. Selah.

Rather than pursuing me for baseless, deceptive reasons, know, be aware, that the Lord has set apart the devoted for Himself; the Lord hears when I call to Him. God has a special relationship with those who are faithful to Him. David’s devotion to God and desire to be close to Him were acknowledged by all, even during his lifetime. He repeatedly refers to the special way in which God sets apart those who seek Him.

Tremble and do not sin. In this psalm, the word rigzu, defined here as “tremble,” connotes agitation, though elsewhere the word refers to anger. The psalmist bids his antagonists to shake off their evil ways. Say in your heart, upon your bed. He calls on people to bestir themselves, to change their mind-set, and to transform their outlook on life so that they will not be drawn toward habitual sin. It is as if the psalmist is saying: Consider these matters in private, at a time before bed, rather than in the company of other people. Whereas public discussion can lead to distorted thought and convoluted expression, private contemplation facilitates a clearer understanding of the truth. And be still, Selah. The psalmist further enjoins individuals to be still and remain silent. One should not offer opinions or be drawn into discussion about matters unrelated to himself or outside the realm of his understanding. In the specific case at hand, rather than focusing on David and his deficiencies, people would be better off examining their own behavior and turning toward God.

Offer sacrifices of righteousness, and trust in the Lord.

Many are saying in their prayers: Who will show us any good? They seek out a source of blessing and goodness. Bring forth the light of Your countenance upon us, Lord. They ask God to bring forth His light and shine His countenance upon them. Alternatively, the word nesa, can mean “reveal Yourself.” The psalmist goes on to say: I myself do not sit and contemplate the wrongs of others. I truly attempt to cleave to God.

You put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and new wine abounded. You, God, have brought joy to my heart, a joy greater than that felt by others in possession of abundant grain and wine. I am not jealous of them; my inner joy suffices, and even increases in the face of the great success of others.

I lie down and sleep, at peace together. Apparently this means that when everything all together is peaceful, I will be able to sleep undisturbed. For even if You are alone, Lord, in seeking peace for me while all others are against me, this is sufficient for me, for You will allow me to dwell in safety.

For the chief musician, for neĥilot accompaniment, a psalm by David. Although we do not know the exact meaning of neĥilot, it is reasonable to assume that it was a musical instrument used to accompany this psalm. Some commentators say that it made a buzzing sound like that of a swarm [neĥil] of bees. Others believe it refers to an ancient melody known as El HaNeĥilot to which the words of this psalm were sung. Like the preceding psalms, this takes the form of a prayer, though it does not specify the psalmist’s troubles. Instead, the psalmist presents the various ways in which people go astray, reiterating for himself and for others the importance of desiring closeness with God and choosing the right path.

Give ear to my words, Lord; consider my meditation. Please listen, God, to prayers of the heart as well as to those uttered by one’s lips.

Listen to the voice of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I pray. The emphasis is on “to You”; I pray only to You, not to others.

In the morning, each morning, day after day, Lord, You hear my voice. In the morning, each morning, I direct my prayer to You and await Your response. These are the words of someone who is wholeheartedly set on choosing the right path to follow, someone who knows that the choice of any other path would defy the will of God.

For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness. God’s will is opposed to evil. No evil dwells with You.

The foolish, those who act impulsively, lack direction, and go astray, will not stand before Your eyes. You do not want them near You, for You hate all evildoers.

You destroy those who speak falsehood; the Lord abhors a man of bloodshed and deceit.

But as for me, through Your abundant kindness, I will enter Your House. The psalmist knows fully that he is not perfect. What matters is that he is trying to choose the right path. The fact that he is allowed to enter God’s House is an expression of God’s kindness toward him. I will bow to Your Holy Temple in reverence to You.

Lead me, Lord, in Your righteousness. Place me on the right path, guide me in Your righteous ways, so that I will be able to choose the appropriate way to stand against my foes. When surrounded by enemies, a person does not always have the ability to know how to act. It is precisely then that he needs guidance in how to remain on the proper path. Straighten Your path before me so that I will be able to walk easily in the path of righteousness.

There is no truth in what they say. In contrast with the divine path mentioned in the previous verse, the path of the enemies is marked by deceit. Their inner being is misfortune. All that is found within them is the disaster and trouble that they plot for others. Their throat is an open grave. Their mouths are likened to open tombs: They exude an inner decay; moreover, they entice and seduce others to fall within. They deceive with their tongue, frequently making use of deceptive accusations rather than honest argumentation.

Condemn them, God. Judge them as they deserve to be judged, and find them guilty. Let them fall by their own devices. Alternatively, let them fall away from their schemes and conspiracies. Cast them out for their many transgressions, for they have rebelled against You and are consequently deserving of punishment. Pesha, translated here as “transgression,” indicates a sin committed deliberately.

The psalmist concludes on a more positive note: But let all who put their trust in You rejoice; let them sing for joy forever, and You will shelter them. Those who love Your name will exult in You.

For it is You who blesses the righteous man, Lord, surrounding him with favor, like a large shield [tzina] that covers the entire body like a suit of armor. This is how God loves and is close to the righteous.

For the chief musician on stringed instruments, on the eight-stringed harp, a psalm by David.

Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger nor chasten me in Your displeasure. The word tokhiĥeni refers to both rebuke and physical punishment. The psalmist entreats God: Do not rebuke me by means of physical punishment; pain can sometimes be unbearable.

Be gracious to me, Lord, for I am miserable; heal me, Lord, for my bones are frightened. The psalmist bases his request not on his own good deeds but rather on his inability to bear the intensity of the pain. The phrase “my bones are frightened” is almost certainly a poetic expression depicting fear and pain that have penetrated to the core.

For I am in great terror. More than just experiencing pain, the psalmist also fears that he will never recover from his illness, that he will die. He asks of God: And You, Lord, how long will You leave me in this dire and hopeless situation? When will I be healed?

Return, Lord. Pain and suffering can be understood as signs that one has been abandoned by God. This is the reason the psalmist beseeches God to return to him. Rescue my soul. Rescue me from this state of oppression. Save me for the sake of Your kindness. The rationale behind this request, “for the sake of Your kindness,” appears frequently in the book of Psalms.

For in death, there is no memory of You; in the grave, who can give You thanks? The psalmist argues that it is not in God’s interest to kill him, as he is capable of acknowledging and thanking God only while he is alive.

I am depleted by my groaning. Excessive groaning from pain can further sap the strength of a sick person. Alternatively, his pain is so great that it is difficult even to groan. Every night I cause my bed to swim. Because of all his weeping at night, his bed has practically become a pool of water. I melt my couch with my tears. I weep so profusely that my tears seem to dissolve my bed.

The psalmist’s illness is not just his own private matter; it also arouses and encourages his enemies. He suffers both from the pain of the illness and from the awareness that his enemies are rejoicing in his misery, hoping daily for his demise. My eye is weakened by anger, pulled out because of all my foes. When I think of my adversaries celebrating my misfortune, I feel as if my eyes are falling out of their sockets. My vision has been weakened and clouded by grief. The foes in this psalm are not necessarily mortal flesh and blood; such imagery is rather an expression of the emotional state of a person who is desperately ill. He may feel that many different forces of evil are gathering against him, rejoicing in his misfortune. But when he recovers, all these dark feelings disappear. The concluding verses indicate the psalmist’s abrupt shift in mood:

Leave me, all you evildoers, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping and has healed me.

The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will accept my prayer. Once He accepts my prayer, I am able to recover.

My enemies will be greatly ashamed and frightened; they will retreat, immediately be put to shame. And once I recover, my enemies will disappear; they will even feel ashamed that they had been lying in wait for me.

A meditation by David. A song that he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Kush the Benjamite. There is no definitive identification for Kush the Benjamite. Some of the Sages suggest that it was another name for King Saul, who was from the tribe of Benjamin. A simpler explanation is that Kush was an ordinary Benjamite who spoke ill of David, possibly accusing him of being responsible for a military setback or of not fighting valiantly enough as a soldier in Saul’s army.

Lord, I put my faith in You. Deliver me from all my pursuers and rescue me,

lest he, my enemy, tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces, while there is no one to be my savior. The psalmist now addresses the complaint that had been directed against him:

Lord, my God, if I have done this, if I have committed the misdeeds of which my enemies accuse me, if my hands have done any wrong,

if I have repaid my friend with evil, referring to someone who had once paid him a kind act, as sholmi, “my friend,” is linguistically similar to shalem, “to pay,” or despoiled my enemy without cause,

then let the enemy pursue me and overtake me; let my life be trampled on the ground and my soul to the dust, Selah. The word kavod, which usually means “honor,” can also connote “being” or “soul.” Hence the translation here and elsewhere of kevodi as “my life,” “my being,” or “my soul.” Nevertheless, despite the psalmist’s statement about being overtaken by the enemy and trampled to the ground, he continues:

Arise, Lord, in Your anger. It is fitting for You as well to be angered by the evil being done to me. Lift Yourself up and display Your power against the wrath of my enemies. Awaken for me the judgment You commanded concerning me.

A congregation of nations will surround You, and with it return on high. This is an image of God surrounded by an honor guard or entourage of the nations, all of whom have come to thank Him and escort Him to heaven, His holy abode on high.

The Lord will be the Judge of the peoples. When this time arrives, when God reveals Himself in judgment, I can request of Him as well to judge me, Lord, as befits my righteousness and as befits my innocence.

At that time let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but give strength to the righteous one. God has no need to examine external testimony in order to execute justice, for men’s hearts and minds are probed by the God of righteousness. Kelayot, translated here as “minds,” literally means “kidneys,” which are considered the seat of a person’s thoughts.

God, the Savior of the upright of heart, is my shield.

God is a righteous Judge. Because God is just, He exonerates the righteous. And at the same time, the Almighty also shows His wrath against the evildoers every day

if he, the evildoer, does not repent of his threats and evil plans against the righteous, if he persists and sharpens his sword and pulls back his bow in readiness.

But his plans will fail anyway, and the final result will be his own destruction; in the end, he prepares deadly weapons against himself. The very weapons the wicked aim at the righteous will instead target and destroy the wicked themselves. His arrows are used against those who pursue. The arrows directed against the righteous will instead be used against their pursuers.

Behold how he conceives evil, is pregnant with iniquity, and gives birth to deceit. Whatever the wicked person creates and produces, the plans are undertaken in aven, translated here as “evil” but also meaning “nothingness,” and in amal, translated as “iniquity” but also connoting toiling in vain. The final result is nothing but an empty lie.

He, the evildoer, has dug a hole deep in the earth and has fallen into the pit he made. Ultimately, the evil person falls into the hole that he dug for others.

His wrongdoing will return to punish him; his violent behavior will come down on his head. His own sins and evil deeds bring him trouble, suffering, and punitive consequences. He suffers even without the external infliction of punishment; he is essentially punished by his own wrongful deeds.

In conclusion: I praise the Lord for His righteousness; I sing to the name of the Lord Most High.

For the chief musician on the gittit, probably a musical instrument named after Gat, the city in which it may have been invented or where it was commonly played; a psalm by David. The psalm begins and ends with a proclamation of praise:

Lord, our Master, how mighty is Your name throughout the world! You set Your glory in the heavens. This verse can be understood to be an observation that God’s name is glorified in heaven. Others explain it to mean: It would be befitting for You to bestow Your glory exclusively on the heavens.

Out of the mouths of small children and suckling babes You founded strength.Their unique prayers are directed against Your foes, in order to stop the enemy and the avenger. Sung with childish sincerity, these songs are a positive force in the war against God’s enemies. They represent a fundamental, basic strength that cannot be extinguished by adversaries, and they are a buffer against the waves of hatred that recur in every generation.

When I see Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars You have made. I am thrilled by the enormity of Your all-encompassing greatness. But the sight of Your miraculous creations also raises doubts and uncertainty in my mind:

What is a mortal that You remember him, a man that You take him into account? After seeing the sun, moon, and stars, after contemplating enormous and distant worlds, one might conclude that man is an inconsequential and pitiful creation, fundamentally unworthy of attention from God above. Yet somehow, despite man’s insignificance, You, God, have chosen to bestow on him manifold gifts.

For You have made him a little less than divine. You have created him “in the image of God.” Consequently, God’s spirit resides within man. An alternative interpretation of “divine” in this verse is that it refers to God’s angels. You have bestowed upon man unique powers, making him only slightly inferior to the divine angels and crowning him with honor and glory.

In addition to creating man to be essentially superior to other beings, as is written in the book of Genesis, You have made him ruler over the works of Your hands, giving him permission and power to rule over Your handiwork. You placed all things at his feet. You charged him with reigning over all that exists,

all sheep and cattle. Domestic animals have been given over to man, and he also has dominion over all the wild animals of the field,

and over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, whatever crosses the sea’s deep waters. Man should thank God for giving him power over all the creatures of the land, sea, and sky. This vast power should be humbling. One might wonder: Is man truly worthy of it? This question can be instructive, helping one to realize that although man is in charge, his power stems from God, who, in His kindness, relegated it to him. When man considers his own insignificance vis-à-vis the immensity of the power placed in his hands, he should acknowledge that it is all a God-given gift. Therefore, he should say again, as in the opening verse of the psalm:

Lord, our Master, how mighty is Your name throughout the world!

For the chief musician, on the death of Laben, a psalm by David. Written mostly in first-person singular, this psalm is intended to be studied and taught. To facilitate memorization, this Hebrew text, like many others, is arranged in an alphabetical acrostic. The alphabet is not complete, however, and there are non-alphabetical verses inserted between consecutive letters.

I will thank You, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all Your wonders.

I will be glad and delight in You. I will sing for Your name, Most High.

When my enemies are turned back, they stumble and perish before You.

This will occur, for You have performed my judgment and my verdict. When the time came for me to be judged by You, I knew that You would find my enemies guilty. You sat on Your throne of justice, Judge of righteousness.

You rebuked the nations, and since God’s rebuke manifests itself in the physical world of man, the outcome is that these evil nations are struck down. You obliterated the wicked to such an extent that You blotted out their name forever and ever.

The enemy is no more, and all that is left of their territory lies in eternal ruin. You have destroyed their cities. The word natashta is translated here as “You have destroyed,” similar to the word natatzta, “You have shattered.” The memory of them is lost. Not only have the cities fallen in conquest, but their memory has been obliterated as well.

But in contrast to the aforementioned enemies whose end is described here, the Lord will endure forever. He has prepared His throne for judgment,

and He will judge the world in righteousness. He will administer fair judgment to the nations.

The Lord is a fortress for the oppressed, a fortress in times of trouble.

And those who know Your name, who believe in You and recognize You, and are thus close to You, place their trust in You, for You, Lord, do not forsake those who seek You.

Sing to the Lord a song of thanksgiving, dweller in Zion; make His deeds known among the peoples. Tell all the nations how He saved you from danger and from the attacks of your enemies.

For He avenges blood. The word doresh, translated here as “avenges,” literally means “searches.” God investigates, as it were, incidents of bloodshed, and He remembers them, the righteous who have been unjustly slain. He does not forget the cries of the humble, those who have conducted themselves with righteousness and humility.

Be gracious to me, Lord; see my deprivation, inflicted by my enemies. You lift me up from the gates of death,

so I might speak Your praise when I experience Your salvation, at the gates of the daughter of Zion. The gates of a city were the public spaces, akin to a central plaza. I rejoice in Your salvation and tell others about it.

In contrast to my joy, the nations have sunk into the pit they made, their feet trapped in the nets they hid. The evil nations will fall into the very pits they dug; their feet will be caught in the traps they set for others.

The Lord is known through the judgments He executes throughout the world. The evildoer is snared in the work of his own hands. Reflect upon this, Selah. The word higgayon, translated here as “reflect upon this,” can mean: This topic deserves consideration; think about it and discuss it with others.

The wicked will return to, or go in the direction of, the netherworld. Alternatively, one might say that in a certain sense, evildoers are creatures emanating from the netherworld who are forced to return to their origin. The same may be said of all nations who have no memory of God.

For the needy will not always be forgotten and the hopes of the poor forever lost. Even if the needy appear to be abandoned, hope is not lost; God ultimately turns toward them.

Arise, Lord. Stir Yourself to action and reveal Yourself through justice. Let man not be arrogant. The wicked will not prevail once God’s presence is revealed in the world; no one then will dare to be insolent. Let the nations be judged in Your sight.

Place fear in them, Lord. While this spelling of mora, with a heh, means “edict,” some interpret the word in the sense of mora with an alef, meaning “fear.” Thus, the verse can either mean issue an edict against them or instill fear in them. Either way, this is so that nations know they are but mortal men, Selah. The nations must acknowledge that they are far from invincible; being human, they are enosh, “mortal,” and both their power and their very lives will inevitably come to an end. The use of the word is significant in this context, as it evokes the similarly spelled word anush, someone who is critically ill.

Why do You stand far off, Lord, as if You were not here among us? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?

The wicked in their pride fervently pursue the afflicted, who are caught in the schemes they plot.

For the wicked one sings praises about his heart’s desire. If an evil person decides for some reason to praise God, it is only about the attainment of his own desires. And the evil man [botze’a] blesses and reviles the Lord. When that evil person blesses God, his blessing is so insincere that it is actually an affront to Him. An alternative translation of botze’a is “one who breaks bread.” The meaning of this phrase, then, would be that an immoral person who steals bread from another and now sits down to eat it is committing a sacrilege by uttering a blessing over the bread.

The wicked one, with his proud countenance, or, alternatively, in his great wrath, does not seek God. The greater his pride or wrath, the less likely he is to seek and find God. God is not in his thoughts. A wicked person does not take God into consideration when he plots to do evil.

His ways always prosper; Your judgments are on high, out of his sight. It seems, especially to the evil people themselves, that Your judgments “on high” cannot affect them, for they seem to remain successful no matter what they do. As for his foes, he blows at them. With great ease, as if with a puff of air, the evil people blow away their rivals.

He said in his heart: I will not stumble. In his heart, the evil person believes himself to be secure, noting: I persist, I am stable; nothing can topple me. Throughout generations I will never be in adversity. He believes he can continue to live and do as he pleases, without anything untoward ever happening to him.

His mouth is full of curses and deceit and intrigue; beneath his tongue are mischief and wickedness.

The following is the wicked person’s mode of action: He lies in wait in courtyards; in hidden places he kills the innocent. He fixes his eyes on the downtrodden. He lies in ambush in unguarded places, on the prowl for his victims.

He lurks in a hiding place like a lion in its lair. He lies in wait like a lion in the brambles, stalking its prey. He lurks to catch the poor man; he catches the poor man and draws him into his net. He is deceptive, entrapping the vulnerable person and setting obstacles in his path.

He crushes him, forces him to a crouch, and the downtrodden are toppled by his might. He uses his might to crush and oppress the unfortunate, bringing them down.

He says to himself: The Almighty has forgotten about our existence. He has hidden His face; He will never see. Since God remains mostly unrevealed in His world, the wicked think they can do as they please. They are convinced that God does not see them.

Here begins the psalmist’s prayer: Arise, Lord God, raise Your hand, reveal Your strength. Do not forget the humble.

Why has the wicked man mocked God, saying to himself of God: You will not seek? The wicked man believes that God is oblivious, that He has no interest in mankind.

But the truth is that You have seen it; You have beheld mischief and anger. You do look and You do see all the sins and the fury of the world, and You gave it the power to be. You Yourself are the one who makes it possible for evil to flourish in the world. The poor rely on You; You have always helped the orphan. Yet now the world appears to be completely abandoned by You. Because of this, the psalmist beseeches God:

Break the arm of the wicked one and evildoer; purge his wickedness until You can find none. Eradicate evil to such an extent that if You look for it, You will not find it.

The Lord is King forever and ever; nations have perished from His land. God has banished the wicked and immoral nations from His land.

Lord, You hear the desire of the humble, which they express in their prayers. You will strengthen their heart; You will incline Your ear to their prayers,

to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that it, evil, will no longer destroy mortals, particularly those who are weak and vulnerable, from the earth.

A psalm of thanksgiving. Cry out joyously to the Lord, all the earth.

Serve the Lord with joy; come before Him, to His Temple, with song.

Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we belong to Him; we are His people and the sheep of His flock.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving; bring thanksgiving offerings and, more generally, express gratitude to God. Enter His courtyards with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name.

For the Lord is good, His kindness eternal. His faithfulness toward those who are dedicated to His service is for all generations.

A psalm of David. I sing kindness and justice; to You, Lord, I sing praises.

I ponder the path of integrity. As I attempt to understand, to seek the right path and act with integrity, I ask of God: When will You come and reveal Yourself to me? David begins to describe his virtuous personal life: I walk in the innocence of my heart in my house.

I set nothing contemptible before my eyes, attempting to avoid even witnessing anything sinful. I hate perversity; it does not cling to me. I have nothing to do with it.

A crooked heart stays far away from me. I attempt to know no evil.

One who secretly slanders his neighbor, I will cut him down. Not only will I keep such a person out of favor, I will seek to destroy him. I will not tolerate anyone with a proud demeanor or a lustful heart.

My eyes are instead on the faithful and upright people of the land, insisting that only they will dwell with me. He who walks in the path of integrity, it is only he who will serve me.

No deceiver or liar will dwell in my house; he will not stand firm before me.

Every morning I cut down all the wicked of the land, ridding the city of the Lord, Jerusalem, of all evildoers.

The prayer of a poor man, a weak and powerless man, when he feels overwhelmed, enveloped by distress and the sense of the world closing in on him. And he pours out his woes before the Lord in prayer to Him.

Lord, hear my prayer; let my cry for help reach You.

Do not hide Your face from me at the time of my distress. Incline Your ear to hear me on the day that I call; answer me quickly. My anguish and feeling of imminent destruction are so profound that I beg God for His immediate assistance.

For my days are consumed as if they are going up in smoke, destroyed without purpose; and my bones, as in a pyre, are burnt hollow.

My heart is beaten down like trampled grass, and it withers, for I am so overcome with pain and sorrow that I neglect to fulfill even my most basic needs; I even forget to eat my bread.

From my groaning, in my agony, I feel as though I am shriveling up, that my bones cling to my flesh.

I am like a desert owl; I have become like an owl of the ruins. Both of these nocturnal birds make sounds similar to crying or wailing.

I am fixed in place, unable to move from where I am, and I am like a lonely bird on a rooftop, with no one coming to my aid.

My enemies taunt me all day long; my pursuers swear oaths by me, using my name as a paradigm of wretchedness.

I eat ashes as if bread. Placing ashes on the head or dipping one’s food in ashes is a sign of mourning. In my current state, the psalmist says, instead of just dipping my bread in ashes, the ashes have become my food, in place of bread, and all of my drink is mixed with tears

because of Your wrath and Your fury, which are the ultimate source of my suffering. Indeed, You lifted me up and flung me away. You lifted me up just as one picks up an object in order to cast it away.

My days are like a cast shadow, which has no tangible substance and constantly shifts in accordance with the moving of the sun. And I wither away like grass that is not watered.

Up to this point, the psalmist has described the pain and affliction of the poor man who is overwhelmed by hardship. Despite his suffering, he has faith and trust in God: But You, Lord, abide forever, without interruption or diminishment; Your remembrance is recalled throughout the generations.

And when it is Your will to show us grace, You will arise from Your place, as it were, and have compassion for Zion, for it is time to be gracious to her, for the appointed time has come.

Because we are devoted to You, we are determined to remain in Jerusalem, near Your Temple. For Your servants desire her very stones and cherish her very dust, loving even the inanimate and barren stones and dirt.

Therefore we pray: May nations also come to fear the name of the Lord, and may all kings of the earth learn to revere Your glory,

when the Lord rebuilds Zion and is seen in His glory.

He has heeded the prayer of the juniper. The psalmist depicts one who is alone and without support as an ar’ar, a juniper, which is a desert shrub that can survive on very little water, but does not bear fruit. The word is related to ariri, meaning childless. He did not despise their prayer.

Let this divine salvation be recorded for the generation to come, so that those yet to be born may praise the Lord.

For He gazed down from His holy height to take note and to intervene in the events of this world; from heaven the Lord looked upon the earth,

to hear the groaning of the captive, to unshackle those doomed to death,

so that the name of the Lord in Zion may be told, and His praise in Jerusalem,

when the peoples are gathered together there in Jerusalem, and kingdoms come there to serve the Lord.

The psalmist believes that this redemption will come, and he prays that he may live to witness it. But in the meantime, his current state remains precarious: Along the way, along life’s path as we await the future redemption, He has weakened my strength, and I feel as if He has shortened my days.

Therefore I said in prayer to Him: My God, do not take me up in the midst of my days, that is, do not bring an end to my life; Your years last for all generations, and You can grant me a long life.

You laid the foundations of earth in times past, at Creation; the heavens are the work of Your hands.

Even they, the works of Your hands, will perish, but You will endure forever. All of them will wear out like a garment; You will change them like clothing, and they will be gone. All the creations of the world will eventually wear out and be replaced.

But You are He who exists forever, Your years never ending.

Since You are eternal and omnipotent, You have the power to ensure that the children of Your servants will dwell safely and not be driven from their homes, their descendants standing firmly before You for all time.

By David. Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.

Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all His acts of kindness. In times of peace and abundance, people often forget God’s past acts of beneficence; the psalmist warns against this.

It is He who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, referring to both physical and spiritual ailments;

who redeems your life from the pit of the grave, from death; who crowns you, surrounds you, with kindness and mercy;

who sates your spirit with good. Edyekh, translated here as “your spirit,” literally means an ornament, an item of beautification. Here it refers to the “beauty” of one’s life, the spirit. Another interpretation of the word is “your body.” Your youth renewed like an eagle.Eagles live longer than other birds, and also retain their power and strength.

The psalmist turns to another aspect of God’s praises: The Lord performs righteous deeds and metes out justice to all the oppressed. Although people often undergo suffering, God ultimately delivers justice and rescues them from their enemies.

Proof for this can be brought not only from the experience of individuals, but also from history: He made His ways known to Moses, showing him repeatedly how He saved Israel from all the perils facing them, and proved His deeds to the children of Israel. The entire nation witnessed firsthand His miraculous deeds, from the exodus from Egypt onward.

Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. This is an allusion to God’s revelation to Moses by the cleft in the rock, where He revealed His attributes of mercy, which include the words of this verse.

Even in times of trouble, we can take comfort in the fact that He will not contend with us to eternity or forever keep His anger; eventually He will forgive us and once again be our Protector.

He has not dealt with us as harshly as truly befits our sins; He has not requited our iniquities in kind.

Rather, as high as the heavens above the earth, so is His kindness great for those who fear Him.

As far as east is from west, so has He distanced our transgressions from us, in that He no longer remembers them or associates us with them.

Just as a father has mercy on his children, so the Lord has mercy on those who fear Him. God is merciful toward us, not necessarily because we are righteous, but because we are weak and are dependent on Him.

God is aware of how powerless we are and how much we need His kindness and mercy, for He knows how intense our evil impulses are, so likely to cause us to veer from the proper path. He is mindful that we are but dust, physical beings, children of the earth, and that because of this, He cannot expect perfection from us.

As for man, his days are like grass, which dries up and withers. He springs up fleetingly like a bud of a wildflower in the field, which wilts shortly after it appears,

and which, when a hot east wind passes over it, it dries out and ceases to be; its own place knows it no more, as no trace of it remains.

But in contrast to man’s fleeting, ephemeral existence, the kindness of the Lord is forever to those who fear Him; His righteousness extends even for the children’s progeny,

for those who keep His covenant and remember His precepts to observe them.

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens; His kingship rules over all facets of creation.

The psalmist suggests words of praise that we humans, despite our limited power and brief life spans, can offer to God, by calling out to the angels: Bless the Lord, His angels, who are truly capable of praising Him properly, for they are mighty in strength, beings who do His bidding and whose entire reason for existence is the heeding of His word.

Bless the Lord, all His hosts, His servants who do His will, namely, all the creatures of the world, from the most exalted to the lowest.

Bless the Lord, all of His works, all of His creations, in all places of His dominion, throughout the entire universe. Bless the Lord, my soul. In reiterating the opening words of the psalm, “Bless the Lord, my soul,” the psalmist emphasizes that this personal prayer is part of a universal chorus of praise.

Bless the Lord, my soul. This is more than an introductory phrase; it also evokes the spirit of this psalm, which is an outpouring of praise from an individual’s point of view rather than a more dispassionate or seemingly objective outline of God’s creation. The person praising God is central to this hymn of praise. Lord my God, You are greatly exalted; You are clothed in splendor and glory. The psalm begins with praise of God Himself before shifting to a broader, more detailed description of the world, depicted here as a kind of ornament or apparel for God.

Enveloping the world with light as if with a cloak. The expression oteh or kasalma is interpreted in other contexts as referring to God wrapping Himself, as it were, in a garment of light. Here, however, the explanation is that He envelops the world with light. He spreads out the heavens like a tent cloth.

He covers His upper chambers with water. As related in Genesis, the heavens, called here the “upper chambers,” are described as covered over with water. He makes clouds His chariot; He moves on wings of wind. God rides, as it were, upon the clouds and through the wind.

He makes the winds His messengers as they do His bidding, the flaming fires His servants.

He established the earth on its foundations, never to be shaken.

He covered the depths, the great subterranean stores of water, as one covers himself with a garment; He covered the depths with land. But at first, in the early stages of creation, waters stood above the entire earth, including the mountains.

The waters covered the earth until God issued the command: “Let the water beneath the heavens be gathered to one place, and let the dry land appear.” Thereupon, at Your rebuke they fled; at the sound of Your thunder they hastened away. The next two verses provide further detail of this phenomenon.

They rose to the mountains and descended in the valleys, until they arrived at the sea, to the place You established for them.

After the waters converged into the seas, You set a boundary, the seashore, which they could not cross, so they would not come back to cover the earth.

Besides what is found in subterranean stores and in the sea, there is yet another source of water in the world: He sends forth springs, feeding streams that course through the ravines; between the mountains they flow.

Water is ubiquitous in nature, present in desolate as well as settled areas. But though it is an inanimate part of nature, it is closely linked to living creatures, for these waters sustain life: They give drink to all beasts of the field; wild asses quench their thirst with them.

Birds of the sky dwell alongside them, as well as among the vegetation that grows near the streams, giving voice among the branches.

He waters the mountains, too high to obtain water from the springs, with rain that falls from His upper chambers, the heavens; the earth is sated with the product of Your works, the rain.

And through that rainfall, He makes grass grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the labor of man, for the beasts of burden with which he does his work, as well as ears of grain for bringing forth bread from the earth for man to eat.

And in addition to these, He brings forth from the ground grapes for wine, which gladdens man’s heart, as well as olives, making the face glisten from their oil, by applying it to the skin as a moisturizer. And bread, to sustain man’s heart. The three basic staples of life: bread, wine, and oil, all sprout from the earth, with the help of the rains.

The trees of the Lord, that is, trees of vast proportion, sate themselves from the rainwater and from the ground’s nutrients; the cedars of Lebanon are a specific example of a very large tree that He planted.

In those trees is where birds make their nests; the stork has its home in the junipers.

The high mountains are habitats for the ibex, the rocks a shelter for the hyrax. Like the ibex, the rock hyrax, also known as the rock badger, lives in the mountains, and hide among the crags of the mountains for better protection from eagles.

Having provided a geographical description of the world and all that grows in it, the psalmist shifts his attention to another aspect of the world, time: He made the moon for appointed times, by which dates of the month are established; the sun knows its setting. Whereas the movements of the moon are not completely regular, and its times of rising and setting change over the course of the month, the sun “knows” when to set, following a predictable pattern.

Shifts in time also affect the daily cycle of life: You bring darkness and it becomes night, when all the beasts of the forest are astir, as the animals of the forest, especially the predators, are active mostly at night.

The young lions roar for prey, asking the Almighty for their food. The roar of a lion sets its prey running in the direction that is most desirable for the lion; moreover, the prey is easier to spot and pursue when it runs. The psalmist poetically sees in the lion’s roar not only a means to catch its prey, but also a kind of plea to God for food.

When the sun rises they withdraw and return to their lairs, and crouch in their dens.

At that point, when daylight arrives, man goes out to his work and to his labor until evening.

The psalmist exclaims his awe and wonder at God’s works: Lord, how manifold are Your deeds, in wisdom have You made them all. Everything You created has its own unique niche and set of interactions with other creatures and with the environment as a whole. The earth is full of Your possessions.

Until this point, the psalmist has described the wonders of life on earth; here he proceeds to describe an area less visible to the human eye: There is the sea, vast and broad; an innumerable swarm of organisms is in it, creatures both great and small.

The sea is so vast that there ships go, traveling great distances; and it can house the leviathan, a giant sea creature, which You created to frolic with, as it were. Although it is massive beyond the dimensions of any other creature, even the leviathan is like a plaything in God’s hands.

They all, all the creatures of the sea, land, and air mentioned earlier, fix their hopes on You, their true source of sustenance, to give them their food at the proper time.

When You give it to them, they gather it. At times, the food is available, but the creatures must search for it and gather what they can; at other times, when You open Your hand and release all Your bounty, they are sated amply with good.

On the other hand, there are also times when You hide Your face, withholding Your goodness from them. Since they are completely dependent on Your kindness, they take fright, distraught from the lack of sustenance. Moreover, eventually all life comes to an end; when You take away their spirit, they die and return to their dust.

Yet when You send forth Your spirit, they are created. Your creative spirit can also renew life, and You renew the face of the land.

Having completed his description of all the various creatures and their circumstances, the psalmist concludes: May the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in His works.

While God’s glory is evident in the everyday functioning of the world, there are also occasions when God reveals His power in a more dramatic fashion: He who looks at the earth, and it trembles just from His stern gaze, like a servant who quakes at his master’s scowl. Who touches the mountains, and they smoke. At a touch from God, as it were, volcanos spew fire and smoke.

The psalmist now adds his personal note of praise: I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God as long as I am able.

May my utterance please Him, may He accept it favorably. But in any event, I rejoice in the Lord.

After completing this description of the universe as a single, interconnected, harmonious entity comprised of countless varied parts and life forms, all of which are the work of God’s hands, the psalmist cannot refrain from noting that there are those who spoil its beauty and perfection. It is for them that he prays at the end of this hymn: May sinners be removed from the earth, and may the wicked be no more. The psalmist concludes with the same words with which he opened the psalm: Bless the Lord, my soul. Halleluya. This word can be interpreted in two ways. It may be a composite of the two words hallelu Ya, meaning “praise the Lord.” Alternatively, it may be understood as a single word, an expansion of the word hallel, in which case it means “a great praise.”

The psalm begins with a celebratory declaration: Give thanks to the Lord; proclaim His name. This statement makes it clear from the outset that what follows is a song of thanksgiving to God for all He has done on our behalf. Make His deeds known among the peoples.

Sing to Him, sing praises to Him. Speak of all His wonders, referring not only to specific miraculous events, but to God’s continual watching over us.

Glory in His holy name, and, through recalling the miracles He performed for us, let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

Search out the Lord and His strength; seek His presence always.

Remember the wonders He has done, His marvels, and the judgments of His mouth. Remember not only God’s miraculous deeds, but also His commandments.

Seed of Abraham, His servant; children of Jacob, His chosen ones,

He is the Lord our God; His judgments are throughout the land. His words fill the world, which acts in accordance with His commands.

He remembers His covenant with the patriarchs forever, the word that He ordained for a thousand generations.

This is the covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. In this verse Isaac’s Hebrew name is spelled Yisĥak, a variant of the usual spelling Yitzĥak; both words connote laughter, the basis for Isaac’s name.

He set it, this covenant, for Isaac’s son Jacob as a statute, for Israel as an everlasting covenant. The name “Israel” here is synonymous with Jacob, but it also alludes more broadly to the nation of Israel, which descended from him.

Saying: To you I will give the land of Canaan as your allotted portion. In the covenant, God promised Abraham and, by extension, the nation of Israel, that the people would inherit the land of Canaan. The covenant addresses other issues as well, but since the purpose of this psalm is to express thanks to God for gifts bestowed upon Israel, only the promise of the land is mentioned here.

It, that covenant, was made when they, the nascent nation of Israel, were a small number of people, just a few, and, moreover, merely sojourning within it, not yet permanently settled in the land.

They wandered from nation to nation. All the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were forced to wander away from the Land of Israel at one time or another, from one kingdom to another people. At times, their travels involved interaction with kings of other nations; in other instances, as when Jacob fled to Haran, they merely took up residence among “another people,” the commoners.

Because of God’s covenant with them, however, He let no man oppress them during all their travels, and He even reproved kings on their account, as it is related in the Torah regarding Abraham and Isaac that God intervened to protect them.

God told those kings: Do not touch my anointed ones, as the patriarchs, like anointed kings, merited special protection on God’s part. Do not harm My prophets.

Later, when Jacob was old, He proclaimed a famine on the land; He broke every staff of bread, every source of sustenance. The famine was so severe it affected even Egypt.

But to offset the devastating effects of that famine, He had sent a man to Egypt before them, namely, Joseph, to provide them with relief. Only in retrospect did it become evident that God had arranged for Joseph, who had been sold as a slave, to rise to power in Egypt to prepare for the arrival of the children of Israel.

When Joseph was enslaved, they tortured his legs with chains and his body was placed in iron,

and he remained in this situation until the time for his freedom, as predetermined by His word, came to pass. The Lord’s utterance purged him. Joseph’s suffering as a prisoner served to atone for his previous unworthy deeds.

And when that time ordained by God arrived, He sent a king, Pharaoh, to release him from his incarceration, a ruler of a people who set him free.

He then promoted Joseph and made him master of his, Pharaoh’s, house and ruler of all his possessions.

Joseph was granted so much power that he was able to imprison even high-ranking ministers at his will. He, Joseph, taught wisdom to his, Pharaoh’s, elders. Joseph advised Pharaoh how to avoid the ravages of the impending famine, and this wise counsel was given in the presence of all the elders and royal advisors of Egypt.

Then Israel, referring to Jacob, but also alluding to the nascent nation of Israel, came to Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

He, God, made His people Israel exceedingly fruitful, making them greater than their Egyptian foes.

Their hearts, the hearts of the Egyptians, changed from their previous sympathy and respect for Israel. They began to hate His people, due to jealousy and suspicion, and to harass His servants with all the oppressive decrees described in the book of Exodus.

He then sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen first as a prophet and subsequently to be the High Priest.

They, Moses and Aaron, set before them, before the Egyptians, His signs, marvels in the land of Ham.

Next comes a short description of the ten plagues, recounted here in a different order from that found in the book of Exodus: He sent darkness and made it dark in Egypt; they, Moses and Aaron, faithfully executed God’s commands and did not defy His word, even though Moses initially voiced his misgivings about God’s mode of action.

He turned their waters into blood and killed their fish.

Their land swarmed with frogs, which found their way to every place in Egypt, even in the chambers of their kings.

He spoke, and wild beasts came; there were lice within all their borders.

He gave them hail for rain, which was mixed with flames of fire in their land.

It, the destructive hail, struck their vines and their fig trees, and it broke the trees that grew within all of their borders. This was the most significant damage caused by the hail.

He spoke, and locusts came, grasshoppers without number.

They ate all the vegetation in their land, and they ate the fruits of their soil.

Then came the final plague: He struck down every firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their vigor, a biblical expression synonymous with one’s firstborn son.

And following that final plague, He brought them, the Israelites, out of Egypt with the Egyptians’ silver and gold taken as spoils; none among His tribes faltered, and no one was left behind.

As related in the Torah, Egypt rejoiced in their departure, eager to be relieved of all the misfortunes that had befallen them, for their dread, dread of the Israelites, had fallen upon them.

The psalmist describes the people’s wanderings in the desert after the exodus: He spread out a cloud like a curtain by day, with which to protect the people, and fire to light up the night.

He, Moses, requested meat from God on behalf of the people, and He brought quail. He sated them with manna, the bread of heaven.

He opened a rock and water gushed forth from it. They traveled through parched lands with a river of fresh water alongside them.

God did all this for the Israelites, for He remembered His holy word, the covenant and oath he had made to Abraham His servant.

And He brought out His people with joy, His chosen ones with joyous song, and He led them through the wilderness until they arrived at the Land of Israel.

And there He gave them the lands of nations, the Canaanites and the surrounding peoples; they inherited the fruit of the peoples’ labor during their conquest of the Land of Israel.

The gift of the land and all the bounty within it was given to Israel by God so that they would keep His statutes and observe His teachings. Halleluya.

The psalm begins on a positive note with an expression of gratitude to God: Halleluya. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His kindness is everlasting. This verse is repeated several times throughout the book of Psalms and was apparently a set formulation of praise to God.

Who can recount the mighty deeds of the Lord? Who can tell all His praises?

Happy are those who heed the law, who act with righteousness at all times. In a sense, this is a reply to the question posed in the preceding verse. The person who constantly strives to act righteously is the one who deserves to “recount the mighty deeds” and tell all God’s praises.

The next two verses constitute the only personal note in this psalm: Remember me, Lord, when You favor Your people. When the time comes for You to forgive and look favorably upon Your people, remember to count me among them. Be mindful of me in Your salvation,

so I might see the prosperity of Your chosen ones, rejoice in the joy of Your nation Israel, and glory with Your portion, referring both to the people and to the Land of Israel.

The confessional portion of the psalm begins here. It opens with a succinct acknowledgement of guilt before moving to a broader historical perspective: We have sinned like our fathers; we have committed iniquity; we have behaved wickedly.

Our fathers in Egypt did not contemplate Your wonders even as they occurred before their eyes; they did not recall Your abundant acts of kindness. They rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea, complaining when Pharaoh pursued them to its shores.

Nevertheless, He rescued them despite their rebelliousness, for the sake of His name. He saved them not for their own sake, as they were undeserving, but to proclaim His might.

He rebuked the Red Sea and it dried up. The water of the Red Sea withdrew as if shamed by God’s rebuke, leaving dry land in its wake. And He led them through the depths on dry land, as if they were walking through a desert.

He saved them from those who hated them, referring to the pursuing Egyptians, and He redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

Water covered their foes. Beyond preventing the Egyptians from pursuing the Israelites across the sea, the water of the Red Sea drowned them all, so that not even one of them remained.

Then, after the Israelites crossed the sea, they believed in His words; they sang His praise, referring to the Song at the Sea.

But this reconciliation did not last long: They quickly forgot His deeds; they did not await His counsel. Whenever the children of Israel encountered any difficulty, they complained immediately, rather than trusting that God, who was leading them through the desert in a miraculous manner, would provide for their needs in due time.

Rather, they craved with desire in the desert, yearning for items that they lacked. Worse, they tested the Almighty in the wilderness. On some occasions, even when they lacked nothing they complained, solely to see if God could perform a certain deed, testing His omnipotence. This, too, was considered sinful on their part.

He ultimately gave them their request, sending them quail to eat, but sent leanness into their souls, for this quail led to the deaths of many people.

In addition to testing God, they became envious of Moses in the camp, speaking ill of him, particularly during the uprising of Korah and his followers, and also speaking ill of Aaron, the Lord’s holy one, questioning his right to the priesthood.

The earth opened and swallowed Datan, covering over the assembly of Aviram. These two men were among the main instigators in Korah’s rebellion.

A fire blazed in their assembly, among those pretenders to the priesthood who had offered incense before the Tabernacle; flames consumed the wicked, referring to the participants in this sin.

The psalmist now describes an even more grievous sin committed in the wilderness: They made a calf in Horev, another name for Mount Sinai, bowing down to a molten image,

and they exchanged their Glory, the Almighty, for the molded image of a grass-eating bull, the Golden Calf.

They forgot the Almighty, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt,

wonders in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

In the wake of the sin of the Golden Calf, He said He would destroy them, and would have done so were it not for Moses, His chosen one, who stood before Him in the breach and prayed to turn back His wrath from destruction.

The next grievous sin recounted here is that of the spies who were sent by Moses to scout the Land of Israel prior to the arrival of the children of Israel: Because of the frightening report brought back by the spies, they despised the desirable Land of Israel, and did not want to proceed to conquer it. They did not have faith in His word, His promise that they would be able to wage a successful conquest.

They grumbled in their tents; they did not heed the voice of the Lord.

And He raised His hand in a gesture of oath concerning them, to cast them down, to cause them to perish in the desert,

to cast their seed among the nations and to scatter them among the lands.

The last of the grievous sins committed by the Israelites in the wilderness was the worship of the idols of the Moavites: They clung to Baal Peor and ate sacrifices offered to the dead, a disparaging term for idolatrous offerings.

They provoked anger with their other deeds that they committed on that occasion, and a plague broke out among them.

Pinhas stood up to carry out judgment by killing Zimri, one of the main perpetrators of sin in that incident, and thereupon the plague was stopped.

He was accorded merit for all generations to come, for eternity. As a reward for his brave actions, Pinhas became the progenitor of a dynasty of priests who, aside from some brief interruptions, served as High Priests throughout the days of the Temple.

The psalmist mentions more sins committed by the Israelites. They provoked God at the waters of Meriva, and Moses suffered on their account, as it was he who was punished by being denied entry into the Promised Land.

For they, the Israelites, rebelled against him, against Moses, accusing him of intentionally seeking to kill them, and because of their accusations, he made an unseemly utterance with his lips. This verse seems to imply that Moses was punished not for his actions at Meriva but for what he said.

Later, after entering and possessing the Land of Israel, they did not destroy the Canaanite peoples as the Lord told them to do, to kill or expel all of them.

As a result of allowing the Canaanites to live among them, they mingled with the nations, and they learned their practices

and served their idols, which became a snare for them.

They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. While this practice is not mentioned in other sources, an implicit reference is found in Leviticus 17:7.

And they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, as part of the sacrificial rites to Molekh and other idols. And the land became polluted with that spilled blood.

They were defiled by their practices; they went astray from the service of God with their deeds. The description of these sins sums up the era of the judges.

Such abominations did not go unpunished: The Lord’s fury blazed against His people. He abhorred His portion,

and He delivered them into the hands of the nations, who invaded the Land of Israel periodically. Those who hated them ruled over them.

Their enemies oppressed them; they were subdued under their power, as described in detail in the book of Judges.

Many times did He rescue them by the hand of the various judges and leaders who led them to victory. But they were defiant in their counsel; they took counsel among themselves and rebelled against God, sinking low in their iniquity.

Yet He saw their distress when time after time they cried out in prayer, and He heard their cry.

He remembered His covenant for them and relented from His intention to punish them severely, because of His great kindness,

and He caused them to be pitied by all their captors.

The psalm closes with words of prayer: Save us, Lord our God, and gather us in from among the nations, where some of our nation are in exile, so we might give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise.

The final verse of the psalm marks the conclusion of the fourth book of Psalms: Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, forever and ever. Let the entire nation say: Amen. Halleluya.

The psalm opens with a verse of praise that appears in several other psalms as well: Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His kindness is forever.

Those who have been redeemed from perilous situations should be especially grateful: Let those the Lord redeemed say it, those He redeemed from the hand of the foe

and whom He gathered in from lands of the east, of the west, of the north, and from the sea. The word yam often refers to the west, but because that direction has already been mentioned in this verse, it is translated here by its literal meaning of “sea.”

The psalmist now begins to describe the four groups of people who give thanks to God. The first: They lost their way on a desolate path in the wilderness, not finding an inhabited place.

Hungry and thirsty, being lost in the wilderness, their souls fainting within them,

they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, while lost in the wilderness; He rescued them from their distress,

and led them on a straight path toward an inhabited place, from where they were able to find their way out of the wilderness.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His kindness and His wonders on behalf of man.

For He satisfied the thirsty soul and filled the hungry soul with goodness.

The psalmist now refers to the second group of people: Prisoners, dwellers in darkness and the shadow of death. Jails were often dark, underground dungeons where prisoners were fettered with affliction and iron, both figuratively fettered by various forms of affliction and actually fettered with iron chains.

The prisoners described here are not necessarily people who were incarcerated unjustly: For they had rebelled against the word of the Almighty, execrating the counsel of the Most High.

He subdued their hearts with toil, with forced labor while in captivity; they stumbled, and there was no one to help.

They cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He redeemed them from their distress.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and He severed their chains.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His kindness and His wonders on behalf of man.

As in the first example, the psalmist concludes this second section with the exact reason why these people should express their gratitude: For He shattered doors of bronze, the mighty doors that sealed the prison, and sundered iron bolts.

The psalmist goes on to describe the third group of people who should give thanks: Those who have recovered from a serious illness. Here too their illness was often punishment for sins they committed: Fools because of their path of sin were afflicted, and because of their transgressions.

Abhorring all food, lacking an appetite because of their illness, they were in danger of dying; they were at death’s door.

They cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He delivered them from their distress.

He sent His word and healed them, and rescued them from the pit. Sheĥitotam, translated here as “the pit,” literally, “their pit,” can also mean “their perversions.” The term therefore refers both to the pit into which they figuratively fell, meaning their illness, as well as the sinful behavior that brought about their punishment.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His kindness and His wonders on behalf of man.

Let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices after their recovery, and tell of His deeds with joyful singing.

The psalmist turns to the final group of people who should express their gratitude to God: Those going to sea on ships, who do their work in the mighty waters, such as sailors.

They saw the deeds of the Lord and His wonders in the deep,

how He spoke and produced a gale of wind, lifting its waves high.

They rose to the heavens and went down to the depths as their ships were tossed by the waves. Their souls dissolved in misery, both from the discomfort of the rocking ship and from the terror of possibly sinking.

They reeled and staggered back and forth like drunken men, all their skill come to naught. When faced with the overwhelming power of a mighty storm at sea, the sailors’ expertise is of no avail.

They cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brought them out of their distress.

He turned the storm into silence, hushing its waves.

They, the sea travelers, rejoiced because they, the storm’s waves, were quieted. Now they would be able to resume their journey, and He led them to their destination.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His kindness and His wonders on behalf of man.

Let them exalt Him in the congregation of people, and praise Him in the company of the elders of the community.

The psalmist now turns his attention from specific instances of peril and deliverance to the more general vicissitudes of life and God’s mastery over nature. There are times when He turns rivers into desert, turning springs of water into parched land,

a fruitful land into a salty wasteland. As the underground water supply dries up, the remaining water becomes saline and unfit for drinking and irrigation. God does this as a punishment for the land, because of the evil of those dwelling in it.

However, droughts do not last forever, and opposite phenomena also occur: He turns a desert into a lake of water and dry land into springs.

There, in this newly fertile land, He brings hungry people to dwell; they establish an inhabited city.

There they sow fields and plant vineyards, which bring forth fruits of produce.

He blesses them and they multiply greatly; He does not let their cattle dwindle.

But things can also change for the worse: Then their numbers are diminished and they are brought down with distress, sorrow, and anguish. Bad times cause loss and death, along with misery and sorrow for those who remain.

In another example of reversal of good fortune, He pours contempt upon the wealthy, taking away their wealth and impoverishing them, and has them lose their way in a pathless wasteland, a metaphor for their inability to extricate themselves from their difficult situation.

At the same time, He gives shelter to the needy from affliction. He turns families that had been weak and few in number into clans as numerous as flocks of sheep.

The upright see this and are glad over God’s beneficence and mercy; the mouth of iniquity, of those who ordinarily speak only base and sinful words, is stopped and rendered inactive, as they too join in praising God.

In conclusion: He who is wise will heed and give heart to these matters, all these reversals of fortune in life, and ponder the kindness of the Lord, realizing that man’s destiny is completely in God’s hands.

A song, a psalm by David.

My heart is ready to begin this song, God; I will sing and give praise, and my soul as well. Not only will I sing to You and praise You with my mouth, but my whole soul and being will join in.

The psalmist addresses his musical instruments: Awaken, harp and lyre; I will wake the dawn. Let us begin to play at the first glimmering of light.

I will give thanks to You, Lord, among the peoples; I will sing Your praise among the nations.

For Your kindness is greater than the heavens; Your truth in fulfilling Your covenant with us reaches the skies.

Rise above the heavens, God, revealing Your presence in the world; let Your glory extend throughout the earth,

that Your beloved ones may be saved; deliver me with Your right hand and answer me.

After an introductory section of supplication, the psalmist begins his song of praise: God spoke in His holiness to assure me of victory; I exulted. I divided Shekhem and measured out the valley of Sukot. Upon David’s victories over the nations living in these regions, these places fell under Israelite control, and he was now able to divide them among the people (see commentary on 60:8).

The psalmist acknowledges those tribes of Israel who came to his aid: Gilad, a branch of Manasseh, is mine, the rest of Manasseh is mine, and Ephraim is my stronghold, Judah my lawgiver.

Now he mentions the enemies against whom he has fought: Moav, whom I have vanquished, I regard with contempt as if it is nothing more than my washbasin; I will throw my shoe in scorn at Edom; against Philistia I will deliver a crushing defeat.

Who leads me to a fortified city? Who guides me to Edom to conquer it?

Is it not You, God, who had abandoned us in the past, You, God, who would not go forth with our armies, and that is why we were not victorious in the past? Now that You have come to our aid, however, we are triumphant.

Give us aid against the foe, for deliverance by man is in vain. Only God’s assistance is of any avail.

The point is reiterated in the conclusion: With God we will triumph, and He will rout our foes.

To the chief musician, a psalm by David. God of my praise, do not keep silent. Although I am presently unable to respond to my enemies’ taunts, may You not remain silent but punish them as they deserve.

For the mouths of the wicked and the mouths of the deceitful have opened against me. Some of the accusations against me are founded on deceit; others are simply malicious. They speak of me with a lying tongue.

Hateful words surround me. In the past, my enemies kept silent; it is only now, when I have fallen from power, that they are able to condemn me and fight against me. They fought against me without cause.

In return for my love toward them, they accuse me; I am all prayer. With this unusual expression, David defines himself not merely as someone who prays but as someone whose whole essence is prayer.

They requited my good with evil, hatred in place of my love. Assuming that the context of this psalm is Avshalom’s rebellion, this verse refers both to a once-beloved son, who had been treated with great compassion by David, and to the king’s former friends and deputies who joined the insurrection.

David now enumerates the curses cast upon him by his enemies. Addressing God, they said: Appoint a wicked one, that is, the forces of evil, administered by an avenging angel, over him; have an adversary stand at his right.

When he is judged before You, may he be found guilty; may his prayer be regarded as sin, unaccepted and dismissed with contempt.

May his days be few, may he die soon, and may another take his position.

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

May his orphaned children have to wander from place to place and beg for their sustenance, scrounging because of their ruin, because nothing will be left of what their father had accrued.

May creditors seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.

May there be no one to offer him kindness during his lifetime, no one to pity his orphans after his death.

May his legacy be cut off; may their names, the names of David and his offspring, be blotted out from the coming generations.

With their names blotted out, the only preserved memories of them would be those of sin and iniquity: May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by the Lord; may his mother’s sin not be erased. This is not an allusion to any specific sins of David’s parents, but to the many misdeeds that all human beings commit throughout their lifetimes.

May these sins be before the Lord continually; may He cut off their memory from the earth.

David’s accusers now explain why they believe he deserves to be cursed in this manner: For he did not remember to practice kindness. He drove to death the poor, the needy, and the brokenhearted.

He loved curses. During his reign he disregarded the curses that his detractors might level at him, and they will now come upon him. He laughed off their curses, but now they would affect him. He had no desire for blessings, and they will now be far from him.

May he be clothed in curses, as with a garment; may they enter his body like water that is imbibed, like oil rubbed into the skin, seeping into his bones.

May he wrap them as a garment around him, like a belt he constantly fastens.

Following this recitation of the curses hurled at him when he was downtrodden, pursued, and in a seemingly hopeless situation, curses that express pent-up hostility and possibly longstanding hatred, David goes on to say: This is what those who hate me do, they who speak against me; it is from the Lord.

Having cited his enemies’ deep hatred for him, David turns to God in prayer: You, Lord my God, do to me for the sake of Your name; rescue me, for Your mercy is good.

For I am poor and needy, my heart hollow within me, devoid of feeling, confidence, and strength.

I walk along, fading like a lengthening shadow as the sun is about to set, tossed about like a locust driven from place to place by the wind.

My knees are weak from fasting, my flesh grown gaunt.

I have become a disgrace to them in my weakness and desperation; they see me and shake their heads in disparagement and contempt.

David turns to God with a direct plea for assistance: Help me, Lord my God; deliver me, as befits Your kindness.

They will know that it is not my sins or lack of power that have brought about my vulnerable situation, but it is Your hand, that You, Lord, have done it, and consequently You can reverse the situation and restore me to my previously exalted position.

They may curse, but You will bless. They rose against me, but they will be shamed, while Your servant will rejoice.

Those who hate me will be clothed in dishonor, wrapped in their shame like a cloak. Once I return to power, my enemies will be left with nothing but shame for having conspired against me.

When that time comes, with my mouth, I will give abundant thanks to the Lord; in the midst of multitudes I will glorify Him.

For He stands at the right hand of the needy, to deliver him from those who judge him. Although attempts have been made to falsely charge him with all manner of evil, God will save him.

For the chief musician, by David. In the Lord I take refuge. How can you say to me: Wander away, bird, to your mountain? How can you speak to me so harshly, with words that seem to say: Take off, bird, fly to the hills, get away from here?

The world is full of menace: For behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fixed their arrow on the string to shoot, in darkness, when they cannot be detected, at the upright of heart, whom they intend to kill.

If the moral and societal foundations of the world are destroyed, what can the righteous man do? When the moral foundations of society are in ruins, what good can possibly come of the individual deeds of a righteous person?

And yet, there are grounds for a different kind of contemplation, one imbued with faith and hope: The Lord is in His Holy Temple. He has not abandoned His earthly abode. The Lord’s throne is in heaven, and He rules over the world. His eyes behold all that occurs on earth; He puts His gaze on the sons of man.

The Lord attends to the righteous, but He hates the wicked and the lover of violence.

He will rain burning coal upon the wicked; fire and brimstone and windstorm will be their lot.

For the Lord is righteous and He therefore loves righteousness. Their faces, the faces of the virtuous, will behold the Upright One.

A psalm for David. The utterance of the Lord to my master, the king: Sit on My right until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet. God tells the king to sit, as it were, and wait while He fights his wars for him.

The Lord will send your rod of strength from Zion; with that rod, or royal scepter, you shall rule among your enemies.

Your people will volunteer to fight for you on your day of battle in sacred glory, with great reverence. From the womb of the dawn, since the day of your birth, you were destined for this glory; yours is and will remain the dew, the freshness and vigor, of youth.

In honor of the coronation, the psalmist declares: The Lord has sworn, and He will not renounce it; you are chief forever by My decree. The word kohen usually means priest, but the term can also refer to any leader or holder of a senior position of authority, like Malkitzedek.

The Lord is at your right hand to assist you; He will crush kings who fight against you on the day of His wrath.

He will judge among the nations, smiting all their warriors, and make it full of corpses. God will destroy your enemies in war, to the extent that the enemy camp will be full of corpses, crushing the heads of the enemies over a broad land. The imagery is of maimed warriors strewn across the battlefield.

As for the warrior in your camp, he will drink peacefully, with no opposition, from the stream on the way. Thus will his head be raised confidently when he moves on to the battlefield.

Halleluya. I will thank the Lord with all my heart in the assembly and council of the upright.

Great are the works of the Lord, ready for all that is desired. God’s works are finely wrought and perfectly ready to be put into operation.

Splendid and glorious is His work; His righteousness stands forever.

He has made His wonders a lasting memory. God’s wonders are not temporary phenomena but rather endure and leave a lasting memory. The Lord is gracious and merciful.

He gives food to those who fear Him; He remembers forever His covenant with those who cling to Him.

He tells the power of His deeds to His people. God informs His people what will transpire in the future, as all events that occur are ordained from above. But God does not merely tell them of promises; He also fulfills them, giving them the portion of nations, as He promised to the patriarchs.

The works of His hands are truth and justice; steadfast are all His edicts.

They are set firmly for all eternity, fashioned in truth and uprightness.

He has sent redemption to His people, ordaining His covenant with them for all time. Holy and awesome is His name.

In light of all that has been said, the psalmist summarizes: Wisdom begins with fear of the Lord. Fear of God should be the underlying principle of a person’s conception of the world, the foundation upon which he constructs his worldview, for all those who practice it will come to good sense. His praise stands forever.

Halleluya. Happy is the man who fears the Lord and who greatly delights in His commandments.

Such a person merits everything good this world has to offer: His descendants will be mighty on earth. Not only will he be successful himself, but he will also reap the blessing of having heroic and successful descendants. He will be blessed with a generation of the upright, with upright descendants.

Wealth and riches are in his house. But he does not hold on to his wealth for himself; he shares it with others, and his righteousness, his benevolence, stands forever.

Light dawns in darkness for the upright, for he is gracious and compassionate and righteous.

It is good for a man to be gracious and to lend to others without interest, conducting his affairs with justice, judiciously: When appropriate, the money is given as charity, as in verse 3, and when the situation warrants it, he lends it.

For He will never stumble in his lifetime, and even after his death the righteous man is remembered favorably forever.

He fears no evil tidings because his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.

His heart is reliant on God. He will not fear in the face of threats or adversity until ultimately he beholds the fall of his foes.

He gives freely to the needy; his righteousness stands forever. His horn, his good name or stature, is raised high in honor.

In contrast to the righteous person, who prospers in all his endeavors, the wicked one sees and is angered. The mere existence of the righteous individual is vexing to the wicked person. He gnashes his teeth in anger and dissolves, as it were, in the realization that he has no recourse to harm the righteous. The desire of the wicked, whether to cause harm to the righteous or to attain any material success, will come to naught.

Halleluya. Praise, you servants of the Lord. These are not necessarily people of any particular status or position but simply those who regard themselves as serving God. Praise the name of the Lord.

This is what you, the servants of God, should say: Blessed be the name of the Lord from now until eternity. This is a general statement of praise for God. This praise consists of two distinct facets, as the psalmist goes on to elaborate.

The first facet is God’s awesome greatness: From the sun’s rising place in the east to the place where it sets in the west, the name of the Lord is praised.

Exalted above all nations is the Lord; above the heavens is His glory. God rules over the heavens, is above worldly existence, and is beyond the powers and forces of the world.

Who is like the Lord our God, who sits on high,

who looks down to see what is in heaven and earth? Here we come to the second facet of God’s praise: His awareness of all His creations on earth and His care for them. Because God is “above the heavens” (verse 4) and “sits on high” (verse 5), even when He observes what is in heaven He is looking down, as it were. From His perspective, the heavens and everything within them are no more exalted than the creatures of the earth; He cares about everyone and everything to the same degree.

As a result of God’s concern for all His creations, He raises the poor from the dust, lifts the needy from the refuse heap,

to set them among the rich and noble of His people. The poor receive divine care and are raised to a higher level, even in this world.

He sets the barren woman at home as a joyful mother of children. Halleluya.

When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a foreign-speaking people, “foreign,” as the Egyptian language was very different from Hebrew,

the tribe of Judah became His holy one. They became the locus of the manifestation of God’s holiness. And Israel became His dominion. They were the ones who accepted upon themselves God’s sovereignty.

After that, the Almighty revealed Himself further to them: The Red Sea saw and fled. The verse describes the splitting of the Red Sea from the perspective of the water itself rather than the perspective of Israel’s salvation. After witnessing the revelation of God’s glory, the sea retreated in awe. And later, as the Israelites came to the Land of Israel, the Jordan River similarly turned back from its course to allow them to cross into the land.

The mountains danced like rams, the hills like lambs. The earth quaked, which made it appear as though the mountains and hills were dancing.

The psalmist poetically turns to the inanimate objects involved and asks: What is it, sea, that makes you flee? The Jordan, that you turn back?

The mountains, that you dance like rams? The hills, like lambs?

They respond: We quake and flee from before the Master, Creator of the earth, from before the God of Jacob, who created everything and has the power to change the world as He desires.

Just as He can cause the sea to split and the mountains to quake, it is He who turns the rock into a pool of water, flint into a fountain of water, an allusion to the events described in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20.

Not for us, Lord, not for us do we request salvation, but for Your name give glory. Here, and in a number of other places in Psalms, the psalmist expresses the idea that because we are so intimately connected and identified with God, His honor is diminished, as it were, whenever we are humiliated. Conversely, when we are rescued from trouble, this redounds to His honor. We ask of God: Give us honor not for our sake but for the sake of Your name, for the sake of Your kindness that you promised to show us, and for the sake of Your truth, Your faithfulness in upholding those promises.

The psalmist expands on this theme: Why should the nations, who can actually point to their gods, say: Where now is their God, who cannot be seen?

But our God is in the heavens; whatever He desires, He does, for all power is in His hands.

Their idols, by contrast, are silver and gold, man’s handiwork, like inanimate, powerless manikins, as detailed in the following verses.

Mouths they have, but cannot speak. Eyes they have, but cannot see.

Ears they have, but cannot hear. Noses they have, but cannot smell.

Their hands do not feel. Yemishun can mean both “move” and “feel.” These idols can neither move their hands nor feel anything with them. Their feet do not walk. No utterance comes from their throat, for they are incapable of speech.

The psalmist beseeches God: May their makers, those who crafted these idols, become silent and lifeless like them; so too all who put their faith in them.

The psalmist now addresses the nation in accordance with its different factions: Israel, trust in the Lord and do not put your faith in such worthless images; He is their help and their shield. The abrupt change from direct address to third person, in this verse and the succeeding ones, probably indicates that this ending was meant to be recited by a chorus as a kind of refrain.

House of Aaron, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield.

You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield.

May the Lord who remembers us for good give His blessing to those who are deserving of it: May He bless the house of Israel; may He bless the house of Aaron.

May He bless those who fear the Lord, the young with the old.

May the Lord increase your numbers, yours and your children’s.

You are blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

The psalmist offers an explanation as to why he requests God’s blessing: The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, and that is where He dwells, as it were, while the earth He has given to the sons of man. Our place is here on earth, not in the heavens, and we pray for the strength and ability to carry out our earthly, mundane tasks.

The dead cannot praise the Lord. Though they are also of the earth, they are no longer able to fulfill any kind of role or task, nor can any who go down into silence in the grave,

but we will bless the Lord from now until eternity. Halleluya.

I am happy, for the Lord heard my voice, my pleas. This opening verse summarizes the main theme of the psalm. The psalmist is joyful not only because he was rescued but also because God listened to his prayer.

For He inclined His ear to me, and in all my days of hardship and adversity I call out to Him.

Cords of death were wrapped around me; agonies of the grave assailed me when I encountered distress and sorrow.

In those situations, I called in the name of the Lord: Please, Lord, save my life.

The Lord is gracious and righteous, and our God is merciful.

The Lord protects the simple. The word petayim, translated here as “the simple,” refers to people who are naïve and therefore likely to be enticed [mitpateh] into troublesome situations. Since they do not know how to protect themselves, God protects them so they do not come to too much harm. I was brought low, and He saved me.

Return, my soul, to restfulness, for the Lord has helped you.

For You rescued me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from obstruction.

Now that I have been saved from peril, I walk before the Lord in the land of the living, without concern for my survival.

I believed in You as I spoke my words of prayer before You, when I was suffering greatly.

In my haste, I said: All men are false. Suffering is a subjective experience that is often exacerbated by the sense of being alone and abandoned, and many people in distress jump to the mistaken conclusion that no one around them cares. In truth, even in the darkest hours, people have at least a few loyal friends who will not abandon them. But this may not be immediately apparent, and the seeming lack of support can lead to despondency.

The psalmist now turns to words of praise: What shall I give to the Lord in return for all the good He rendered me?

I will lift a cup of salvation, referring to a cup of wine that is raised in a public toast of thanksgiving, and I will call in the name of the Lord with words of thanks for Him.

Now that I have been delivered from danger, I will fulfill my vows to the Lord, which I undertook in my times of distress. When possible, I will fulfill them in the presence of all His people, in order to publicize God’s kindness to me and to inspire others.

Weighty in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His devoted ones. God does not want to bring death to those who love Him.

With this in mind, the psalmist issues his plea: I beseech You, Lord, to come to my aid, for I am Your servant, your servant the son of Your handmaid. The phrase “I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid” describes an individual born into a family of slaves who has never known any personal independence. But in contrast to the demeaning human institution of slavery, servitude to God is uplifting and liberating. In fact, the result has been that You have loosened my bonds. You have freed me from all my suffering and pain.

I will offer a thanksgiving offering to You for saving me from peril, and I will call in the name of the Lord with cries of thanksgiving.

I will fulfill my sacrificial vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.

These vows, which include thanksgiving sacrifices, will be fulfilled in the main place of public gathering for the people of Israel, in the courtyards of the House of the Lord, in your midst, Jerusalem. Halleluya.

Praise the Lord, all nations; extol Him, all peoples. All nations can see and extol the greatness of God, even when His miracles occur in other places or to other peoples.

For His kindness toward us is overwhelming. You, the nations of the world, can see the revelation of God’s overwhelming kindness toward His people, His servants. And the truth of the Lord is forever. Halleluya.

The psalm begins on a festive note, with a verse of thanksgiving for God’s benevolence, which is found in a number of other chapters of Psalms as well: Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; He has shown kindness toward us, for His kindness is forever.

Let Israel now say: His kindness is forever.

Let the house of Aaron, the priests who serve in the Temple, now say: His kindness is forever.

Let those who fear the Lord now say: His kindness is forever.

After the introductory declarations of praise, the main theme of the psalm, namely, thanksgiving to God for the deliverance He wrought, begins here. From the context (verse 10), it appears that the psalmist is referring to a rescue from a difficult military or political situation. From the straits I called to the Lord. When I began my prayer, I felt as though I were in a narrow, constricted space, as if the boundaries of my life were closing in on me. But then the Lord answered me with a wide expanse. He answered my prayers not with words but with action, placing me in a situation that alleviated my sense of distress and confinement.

The Lord is with me; I shall not fear. What can man do to me if God is with me?

The Lord is with me, with those who help me; I will gaze upon the downfall of my enemies.

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man, both because of His superior power and, as is pointed out so frequently in Psalms, His unsurpassed trustworthiness.

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in nobles.

All the nations surrounded me. The psalmist depicts his desperation in the face of a military attack by his enemies, who were closing in from all sides. But, he declares: It is in the name of the Lord that I put my trust, and it is because of this that I am able to cut them down.

They, those enemies, swarmed around me, indeed they surrounded me; it is in the name of the Lord that I cut them down.

They swarmed around me like bees that attack one who approaches their hive, swarming around him, seeking to sting him and drive him away. They flickered and faded like fire amid thorns. The psalmist now depicts his enemies as a raging fire; but their conflagration is in fact nothing but a fire among thorns, which begins with a huge flame but very quickly dissipates. It is in the name of the Lord that I cut them down.

The psalmist now addresses his enemies: You pushed me hard to make me fall, but the Lord helped me to prevent this from happening.

The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. All my strength is derived from God, and therefore God is the object of all my songs of praise.

After God delivers me from my enemies, a voice of song and deliverance is heard among the tents of the righteous, who praise Him for His salvation, saying: The right hand of the Lord brings success. The “right hand” of God is a poetic symbol of power, as the right hand is generally the stronger one.

The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord brings success.

The psalmist now offers words of prayer: May I not die but live, so I may tell the deeds of the Lord. This is one of many verses in the Bible that reflect the idea that if a person survives mortal danger, it is incumbent on him to make his story known to others and acknowledge God’s hand in his survival, thanking God publicly.

The Lord chastised me severely during those periods of peril and distress, but He did not deliver me to death.

Because of God’s salvation in protecting me from death, I must recount His deeds and thank Him, and so I declare: Open for me the gates of righteousness, apparently a reference to the gates of the Temple, where the psalmist goes to offer his thanks in public. I will enter through them; I will give thanks to the Lord.

This is the gate to the Lord; the vindicated, those who were found by God to be deserving, and were granted victory by Him, will enter through it to praise God.

I will give thanks to You, for You answered me and my prayers; You have been my salvation.

The stone that the builders rejected, considering it of inferior quality or appearance, subsequently became the cornerstone, the most structurally essential and most visible part of the building. This metaphor is intended to express the idea that sometimes a person’s perspective can change upon pondering past events. Things or people that may have at first seemed insignificant may turn out to be the key to one’s deliverance.

Concerning such reversals of import and significance, it may be said: This was from the Lord. When seemingly decisive or critical events turn out to be inconsequential, or vice versa, it is God’s doing. It is wondrous, remarkable and surprising, in our eyes.

This day of deliverance is the day of the Lord’s doing; we rejoice and exult in Him.

The first part of this verse is a prayer offered during a time of distress: Lord, save us, we beseech You! It is followed by words that are said after the danger has passed: Lord, grant us success, we beseech You!

The preceding verse marks the end of the prayer of the person who, having been saved from peril, comes to the Temple to offer his thanks. At this point, the priests or others within the Temple offer their response: Blessed be the one who comes in the name of the Lord; we bless you from the House of the Lord.

Both parties continue: The Lord is God; He has given us light by delivering us from distress and darkness into bright salvation. Bind the festival offering with cords, in order to prevent it from running free and creating havoc, and from there to the horns of the altar.

The psalmist restates his gratitude to God: You are my Almighty, and I will give thanks to You. My God, I will exalt You.

The psalm ends with a repetition of the praise of the first verse: Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His kindness is forever.

Happy are those whose path is blameless, those who follow the proper path, who follow the teaching of the Lord. Note that here and elsewhere in this psalm the word Torah is translated as “teaching.”

Happy are those who uphold His precepts and seek Him wholeheartedly through observance of those commandments.

They do not engage in wrongdoing, but rather walk in His ways that He has set forth in His Torah.

The psalmist now speaks to God: You commanded Your edicts to be diligently observed.

It is my wish that my ways be firmly set to observe Your statutes,

for then I would not be ashamed when looking upon all Your commandments, for I will be able to honestly say that I have done my best to observe them.

I give thanks to You with a sincere heart as I study Your righteous laws. This verse can be understood in two ways: The very act of studying God’s laws is a form of giving thanks. Alternatively, after having studied the laws, I give thanks to God for showing me, through the Torah, the true and proper path.

I follow Your statutes. I strive to observe Your commandments, and therefore I pray: Do not utterly forsake me, so that I can continue following this path.

How can a young man bring merit to his path? How can a young person choose the right path? By observing what befits Your word, by following everything You have commanded.

I seek You with all my heart. I desire to become close to You, and I pray to you: Let me not stray from Your commandments. Grant me the strength to continue observing Your commandments.

I store Your saying in my heart, so as not to sin against You. I keep Your teachings in my heart; this helps me to avoid sinning, or at least guards me from sinning out of ignorance.

A short prayer: Blessed are You, Lord; teach me Your statutes.

With my lips I recount all the laws of Your mouth. I speak words of Torah aloud and impart them to others as well.

I rejoice in following the path of Your precepts as a person would rejoice over all riches, over suddenly receiving a great fortune.

I speak about Your edicts and I also look upon Your ways, pondering their meaning.

I delight in Your statutes. Your commandments and Your Torah are not a burden for me. In fact, I actually delight in them, as I find them engaging and interesting. As a result, I do not forget Your word or your teachings.

Grant kindness to me, Your servant, that I might live and keep Your word.

Uncover my eyes, grant me understanding and insight, so I might perceive the wonders of Your teaching. To fully appreciate the greatness of the Torah, it is not sufficient merely to speak about it or to observe its commandments; therefore, the psalmist implores God for enlightenment.

I am but a sojourner on earth. I am here on earth for a limited time, like a traveler on the road, so do not hide Your commandments from me. Allow me to use the limited time that I have to learn Your commandments. This can be seen as a continuation of the previous verses, in which the psalmist prayed for life and enlightenment. Alternatively, the verse can be read as a plea for guidance: During my days on earth, I am like a stranger in a foreign land, requiring instruction in the laws and customs of the land, that is, the laws of Your Torah.

My soul longingly partakes of Your laws at all times. The word garsa, translated as “partakes,” conjures up the image of someone eating a delicacy with great enthusiasm.

You rebuke the accursed, insolent ones who stray from Your commandments.

Remove disgrace and abuse from me, for I have upheld Your precepts and can therefore ask You to protect me from the shame and humiliation that is heaped upon me.

Even when princes sit and talk about me, engaging in a discussion that should interest me, Your servant, and elicit my participation, Your servant instead reflects on Your statutes and avoids joining the conversation.

Also Your precepts are my delight. Even my entertainment consists of studying Your Torah. Moreover, those precepts function as my counselors, in the sense that they provide me with guidance as to how to best conduct my life.

My soul cleaves to the dust. I am completely depressed and disheartened. In this difficult situation, all I can do is pray: Revive me as Your word. Grant me life just as there is life in the words of Your Torah.

I told of my ways, I recounted to You the various matters and troubles in my life, and You answered me. You responded to my prayers. Now that You have granted me relief, I have one primary request: Teach me Your statutes.

Make me understand the way of Your edicts, and then I will be able to speak about Your wonders.

My soul is dripping with anguish. The image here is of a soul crying incessantly, to the extent that it becomes wrung out and desiccated. Therefore, the psalmist pleads: Sustain me, as befits Your word.

Remove the path of falsehood from me. Allow me to learn only about the true path. This may also be seen as a request that God grant the wisdom to avoid living one’s life in accordance with false beliefs. Grant me knowledge of Your teaching.

I have chosen the path of faith; I have placed Your laws before me.

Moreover, I cleave to Your precepts; Lord, do not shame me. Keep me from experiencing shame, since I am doing my utmost to follow Your laws.

I run in the path of Your commandments, for You widen my heart. If You grant me breadth of heart, that is, a good temperament and adequate ability, I will fulfill Your commandments with alacrity, as one might run down a path.

Teach me, Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I will then be able to uphold it to the end.

Give me understanding, so I might then uphold Your teaching and follow it wholeheartedly.

Guide me in the path of Your commandments, for in it is my desire. Although I freely desire and choose this path, I need guidance in following it.

Incline my heart toward Your precepts, so that they become my chief interest and delight, and do not direct it toward seeking material gain.

Similarly, avert my eyes from seeing falsehood; through Your ways, rather than through false ideas and visions, give me life.

Fulfill the promise You made to Your servant, which is for those who fear You. You have given Your word that those who serve and fear You are worthy of Your protection.

Remove my disgrace that others have heaped upon me, which I dread, for Your laws, which I follow faithfully, are good, and it would be inappropriate to allow me to suffer such disgrace.

How I long for Your edicts! And for this reason, I pray to You: In Your righteousness give me life.

Let Your kindness reach me, Lord, as well as Your deliverance, as befits Your promise.

And I will have the strength and confidence to answer and stand firm against those who revile me, for I trust in Your word, which gives me the courage of conviction.

Do not withhold the word of truth altogether from my mouth. Do not hold back my ability to speak truth and avoid falsehood, for I trust in Your laws and therefore hope that You will help me in this matter. The word yiĥalti, translated here as “I trust,” can be understood as both anticipation and hope.

May I follow Your teaching always and forever.

Let me walk in a wide, expansive place, free from the confinement of distress, for I have sought Your edicts and am therefore deserving of Your aid.

I will recount Your precepts, discussing the Torah and its commandments, before kings, perhaps referring even to foreign kings who have never heard of the Torah or its laws, and not be ashamed to do so, because I take such pride in Your Torah.

I will delight in Your commandments, which I love. Because I love the commandments, I enjoy occupying myself with them.

I will lift my hands in prayer to be able to delve more and more into Your commandments, which I love, and I will reflect on Your statutes.