God’s role as Creator receives more praise. To him belong The heavens and the earth, because he created them; he created the world and all that is in it. The verb translated founded in verse 11b is used in similar contexts in 24.2a; 78.69b; 102.25a (“lay the foundation”). The sense is to build firmly, securely, parallel with the verb created in verse 12a.

It is not certain how The north and the south in verse 12 are to be understood; perhaps the phrase indicates the whole world, from one end to the other (so Anderson). Others (Dahood) see north (tsafon) as a reference to Mount Zaphon (see comments on 48.2), the sacred mountain of Baal, and the word translated south as the name of Mount Amanus (in southern Turkey); so New English Bible “Thou didst create Zaphon and Amanus.” But this explanation has found little acceptance; Hebrew Old Testament Text Project says it is possible. In some languages it is unnatural to speak of creating The north and the south. One must recast this expression to say sometimes “You created all that is in the north and all that is in the south” or “You created the land to the north and the land to the south.”

Tabor was a mountain west of the south end of Lake Galilee, rising to a height of some 555 meters; for Hermon see 42.6 and comments. Both of them were considered sacred by the Canaanites. In verse 12b “sing to you for joy” may be taken to mean “praise you” (Hebrew “your name”; see Revised Standard Version). In some languages it will be necessary to add a simile in order to translate verse 12b; for example, “like people singing, Mount Tabor and Mount Hermon sing joyfully to you.”

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 .