The first word in the Masoretic text of verse 13 usually means “unless.” That it was difficult to understand is shown by the dots which mark it in the Masoretic text, indicating doubts as to its genuineness; it is omitted by five Hebrew manuscripts and by the Septuagint. It is probably best understood as a way of saying “I would give up hope unless (I believed)”; so Bible en français courant; and New Jerusalem Bible similarly, “Had I not had the assurance that I would enjoy the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living….” Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, and New English Bible omit the word.
The expression see the goodness of the LORD requires some adjustment in many languages, since it is often not possible to speak of seeing abstract qualities such as goodness. One may say, for example, “I will know how very good the LORD is” or “I will understand that the LORD does good things.”
The statement I shall see … in the land of the living is taken by the majority of commentators to mean “I will live to see the LORD’s goodness”; if the word for land is taken to mean the land of Israel, then “to his people” (or, “in Israel”) may be implied. Bible en français courant translates “to see the goodness of the Lord in this land where we live.” But, as Good News Translation indicates, the phrase is a way of talking about the present life in contrast with the existence after death. Dahood translates “in the land of life eternal,” that is, heaven; while modern Christians may wish to use the psalm in that sense in worship, this was quite likely not the intended meaning of the psalmist.
The words of verse 14 are addressed either by the psalmist to himself or to the congregation, or by the priest (or prophet) in the Temple to the psalmist, in response to the psalmist’s statement.
For Wait meaning “trust” see comments on 25.3. The command be strong means to be courageous, confident.
Let your heart take courage: see comments on heart in 4.7. A natural equivalent in English of this command may be “be courageous” or, in a negative form, “don’t lose hope.”
Just as the final letter of the alphabet can mark the end of a poem, so sometimes does a three-line parallelism or tricolon. The form of the closure in verse 14 is A-B-A, in which be strong, and let your heart take courage is framed between the two occurrences of Wait for the LORD. If this particular order creates difficulties in a language, it should be adjusted to one of the natural orders for closure of poems in the receptor language.
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 .