If integrated into the book of Daniel: 3.74

Let the earth bless the Lord; let it sing …: This verse represents a slight shift in the constant refrain throughout the psalm. Revised Standard Version gives a literal rendering. Good News Translation (also New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible) keeps the same form for the second line of the verse here as for all the other verses of the psalm. There is some textual justification for this. Good News Translation is identical with Revised Standard Version in the first line by reflecting the Greek third person imperative for the verb bless. However, New English Bible translates this verb as a second person imperative addressed to the earth, saying “O earth, bless the Lord.” This amounts to the same form as every other verse in the psalm, but New English Bible has a neat twist. It reverses the usual order between “earth” and “bless the Lord.” In the Greek there is no change in word order here, but New English Bible‘s reversal signals that this verse is slightly different, and it gives notice, at least to an attentive reader, that the subject matter has now shifted from aspects of the weather to life on earth. The movement has been from heaven, to things that fall from heaven to earth, to earth.

Let in the first line may also be rendered “should”; for example, “The earth should [or, must] praise the Lord.” Contemporary English Version renders the two lines of this verse as follows:

• Everything on this earth
should sing praises
to the Lord forever.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.