In verse 15 the people ask God to be fair and give them as much time of happiness as the time of troubles he had brought on them. The language suggests that the time of troubles was quite long (as many days … as many years), which seems best understood as a reference to foreign oppression. As usual, such suffering is God’s doing: thou hast afflicted us.
In verse 15b Revised Standard Version we have seen evil is quite literal; the meaning is “we have experienced troubles,” “we have suffered.”
Days and years are parallel and express poetically how the evil has lasted from days on into years; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy shortens and combines the terms as follows: “Give us as many years of happiness as the years of suffering that we have had.” Bible en français courant has a more logical order: “For a long time you have humbled us. Give us now as many years of joy as those we have had of trouble.”
In verse 16 Yahweh’s work and his glorious power are probably to be understood as acts of salvation; the people ask the Lord once more to save them and give them and their descendants freedom and prosperity. In line a the Masoretic text is singular, “your deed” (so Revised Standard Version thy work); some Hebrew manuscripts, the Septuagint, and the Syriac have the plural (Good News Translation “mighty deeds”). Thy servants and their children are not parallel in the sense of being the same people. Here the community that had no future because of the limitations imposed upon its existence, takes on new hope in prayer and goes ahead confidently into the future. If it is necessary to reduce the two lines to one, the two may be rendered, for example, “Let us who are your servants and our children also see the great things which you do.”
In verse 17a favor translates the word which in 27.4 Revised Standard Version translates “beauty.” The word means pleasure, good will; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “kindness” is good. Lord is the title, not the name Yahweh. In some languages verse 17a may be rendered “may the goodness of the Lord, who is the God we worship, be with us,” or in languages in which an abstract such as “goodness” cannot be said to be with someone, “Lord, you who are the God we worship, be kind to us.”
The last line of the psalm is repeated in the Masoretic text (so Revised Standard Version and others); some Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint omit the repetition (so Good News Translation and New English Bible; see New American Bible). Most translations follow the Masoretic text. The request is “make all our endeavors last for us”; Revised Standard Version upon us is hardly appropriate. It is a prayer for continued success and prosperity in the national life.
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 .