A blessing said over someone about to go into danger, and then the answer coming back. Verses 2 to 6 are a congregation speaking to one man, and eleven of their words end in the second person singular suffix -kha: your help, your offerings, your heart, your plan, your victory, your requests. Verse 7 changes everything with two words, now I know, and from there the psalm speaks about him rather than to him. It is said on weekday mornings in the standard order of prayer and left out on days of joy when Tachanun is not said, which is the practical clue to what it is for.
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1
לַמְנַצֵּחַ מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד
לַמְנַצֵּחַ
lam-na-TZE-ach
for the leader
מִזְמוֹר
miz-MOR
a psalm
לְדָוִד
le-da-VID
of David
For the leader. A psalm of David.
The heading. Three words, and the only line in the psalm that is not addressed to anyone.
may the name of the God of Jacob put you beyond reach.
The psalm opens with the verb it will end on, answering. The second verb is spatial: not rescue from the trouble but elevation above where it can reach.
The one verse that looks backward. What was given in peacetime is entered on the account now, which is the psalm's argument for why the request should be granted.
5
יִתֶּן לְךָ כִלְבָבֶךָ
וְכׇל עֲצָתְךָ יְמַלֵּא
יִתֶּן
YI-ten
may He give
לְךָ
le-CHA
to you
כִלְבָבֶךָ
chil-va-ve-CHA
according to your heart
May He give you what your heart holds,
וְכׇל
ve-CHOL
and all
עֲצָתְךָ
a-tzat-CHA
your plan
יְמַלֵּא
ye-ma-LE
may He fulfil
and bring your every plan to completion.
The blessing widens from rescue to intent. Not only survive the day, but have the thing you set out to do actually come off.
Let us shout at your victory, and raise our banners in the name of our God.
יְמַלֵּא
ye-ma-LE
may He fulfil
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
כׇּל
kol
all
מִשְׁאֲלוֹתֶיךָ
mish-a-lo-tei-CHA
your requests
May the LORD fulfil all your requests.
The first person plural appears: the speakers are a crowd, and they have already placed themselves in the celebration. The verb of verse 5 repeats here, which closes the block of blessings.
The pivot. Plural becomes singular, wish becomes statement, and the man addressed as you for five verses becomes him. Whatever happened between verse 6 and verse 7 is not described.
The best known line, and note that it has no verb in the first half. Hebrew simply puts the two parties next to their equipment, and the verb arrives only with we.
The outcome of verse 8, in four verbs and no explanation. The contrast is carried entirely by the two pronouns, which Hebrew does not need and uses anyway.
The psalm ends where it began, on the verb answer, but the suffix has moved from you to us. The blessing spoken over one man is claimed by everyone who said it.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
A liturgy in two parts around a silence. Verses 2 to 6 are a crowd blessing one man before he goes out, all jussive verbs and all addressed to you; verse 7 answers with a perfect verb, עַתָּה (a-ta, v.7) now, I know. Nothing tells us what happened in between, and the gap is the form: the psalm is built to be said before and after, with the event itself outside the text. Verse 10 closes the circle by repeating the opening verb with a different suffix, so the prayer for the one becomes a prayer for the many.
רמז · Remez: allusion
The last verse is a real crux of division. The Masoretic accents join the words as LORD, save, and then may the King answer us, which makes the King a title for God; the Greek and Latin versions read the King as the object of save, giving LORD, save the king, and answer us. Both readings are current and the choice changes who is being asked for what at הַמֶּלֶךְ (ha-me-lech, v.10). In verse 8 there is no verb at all in the first half, only these with chariots and these with horses, and the single verb belongs to וַאֲנַחְנוּ (va-a-nach-nu, v.8), but we. The verb at יְדַשְּׁנֶה (ye-dash-ne, v.4) is from the root for fat: an offering accepted is one found rich.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
The God invoked in verse 2 is not named as the God of Abraham but as the God of Jacob, and readers have long connected that to Jacob as the one who prayed in a day of distress on the night before meeting Esau, so the blessing cites a precedent rather than a general attribute. Verse 4 has been read as the reason the request can be made at all: the offerings brought when nothing was wrong are what stand up now, which turns routine worship into a deposit. Where the psalm is said daily in the morning service, the anointed of verse 7 is understood as any Israel that finds itself in the position the psalm describes.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
Verse 8 is read as a statement about where a person locates power. Chariots and horses are the visible instruments, and the mystical reading takes the missing verb in that half line as deliberate: those who trust the instruments have nothing to do but stand next to them. Against that stands the name, which is not a thing but a channel, and the verb attached to it means to bring to mind, that is, to make present by remembering. On this reading verse 9 is not a report of a battle but a description of two structures under pressure, one that is only its own weight and one that is held from elsewhere.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).