Still affirming his people’s innocence, the psalmist says that they have not forgotten the name of our God, that is, have not stopped worshiping him. For name see 5.11. The literal translation of line a will in most languages mean only that the people are not intelligent enough to remember God’s name. Therefore the sense of worship should be translated. The expression our God must be translated in some languages as “the God whom we worship,” since God sometimes cannot be spoken of as being possessed. In this verse it may be appropriate to say, for example, “if we had stopped worshiping you, God.”

The gesture of “spreading out the hands” (verse 20b) is that of prayer. In languages where a gesture representing prayer can be expressed, it will be advisable to do so. However, if such gestures, such as “bow the face before,” “kneel before” are too limited in their usage, it is better to use the term for prayer. In some languages it is possible to maintain the gesture and to add the word prayer; for example, “we bowed our heads in prayer.”

The Israelites had not prayed to false gods (strange here means “foreign, of another people”). The expression a strange god must often be translated as “gods whom foreign tribes worship.”

The rhetorical question (verses 20-21a) is a way of making a strong affirmation: If we had forgotten … would not God discover this? is a way of saying “If we had quit worshiping God … he would certainly have known it.” God would have known of his people’s idolatry, if they had been guilty of it, because he knows all the secrets of the heart. This expression must in some languages be rendered by other idiomatic forms; for example, “white words kept in the stomach” or by nonidiomatic expressions such as in Good News Translation.

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 .