Therefore: the psalmist’s happiness and sense of security is a result of Yahweh’s nearness to him (verse 8b).

The psalmist praises Yahweh for saving him from death. The three words heart, soul (literally “glory”; see comments on 7.5), and body (or, “flesh”) are not meant as different parts of the psalmist’s being, nor do they distinguish between his physical nature and the emotional or spiritual aspects of his being, but are ways of speaking about himself as a whole. It should be noticed that a number of scholars, including Dahood, instead of kavod “glory” of the Masoretic text, use the vowels for kaved “liver” as the seat of inner life, like “heart” and “kidneys”; the Septuagint has “my tongue.”

The emotions expressed in heart is glad and soul rejoices must often be recast in translation to speak of other body organs (stomach, liver, kidneys, throat). Accordingly one may sometimes say, for example, “my stomach is warm and my kidneys happy” or “my liver is bright and my innermost sings.” If body parts are not used in this way, it is always possible, with a certain poetic loss, to say, for example, “I am glad, very glad.”

Dwells, with my body as the subject, describes the condition or state of the psalmist; he “is” or “remains” secure (see comments on “in safety” in 4.8).

My body also dwells secure is again a part representing the whole, and in many languages it will be more natural to replace body with the pronoun “I”; for example, “I live in safety” or “I am safe.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .