Mouth and tongue: see similar expressions in 34.13.

In this strophe the speech of the righteous is characterized by wisdom and justice. Wisdom here is the kind that is defined in Wisdom literature as being a religious attitude, “the fear of the LORD” (see 34.11 and comments; 111.10). Utters translates the same verb which in 1.2 is translated “meditates.” If the translator follows Good News Translation, some further adjustments will have to be made in many languages, since words are not always referred to as “wise.” Therefore one may have to say “What a good man says is wise,” or “A good man speaks wisely,” or “The words a good man speaks show that he is wise.”

Justice here, as in most passages, is what characterizes Yahweh’s laws and commandments; in a very real sense it means “what Yahweh demands.” In verse 30b Good News Translation should read “and they are always fair,” referring to the “words” of line a, instead of “and he is always fair.”

By selective ordering the psalmist has created a special chiastic effect in this verse, based upon the gender pattern.

The law of his God (see 1.2) keeps him from sinning, because it is in his heart, which means that he is always aware of it and may imply that he has memorized much of it (see 119:11). The law of his God is in his heart must be recast in some languages because of the construction his God. For example, “He has in his heart the Law from the God he worships” or “He knows in his innermost the words of the Law which the God he obeys gave to him.”

His steps do not slip, that is, he stays on the right path and does not stray from it, he does not follow sinful ways. This clause may be rendered nonfiguratively, “and he obeys God’s Law,” or figuratively, “and his feet walk safely” or “and he is secure where his steps take him.”

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 .