Ask of me means “Ask me to give you.” In some languages it may be better to translate “Ask me to give you all the lands of the earth and I will do so.” Or else, as a conditional, “If you ask me, I will give you….”

Here God promises the king universal dominion, authority over all the nations (same word as in verse 1). The phrase the ends of the earth means “all the earth,” “from one end of the earth to the other” (see 22.27; 48.10; 59.13). Line b, ends of the earth, represents the use of a metaphor following a nonmetaphor in line a. The meaning is essentially the same, but in the rhetorical use of parallelism, the more vivid expression is kept for the second line.

Heritage is a term often used in the Old Testament of what God gives his people; it involves the idea of permanent possession. Many times it refers to the land of Canaan as Israel’s gift from God (see Deut 4.21); the word possession is similarly used (see Gen 17.8; Deut 32.49). The noun “heritage” and the verb “to inherit” do not, in a context like this, carry the meaning ordinarily associated with these terms, that is, of a gift or a right that is given someone at the death of the one who previously owned the gift or held the right. So Good News Translation translates “I will give you.”

Because it is unnatural in many languages to “give” or “inherit” a social entity such as a tribe, it will often prove more satisfactory to say “to cause to rule the nations.” Likewise, asking for a favor often requires a response word. For example, “Ask me and I will say yes by making you rule over all tribes in the world. Indeed, you will own the whole world” or “… the whole world will be yours.”

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 .

The parallelism is that of a statement in the first clause, followed by overstatement in the two following clauses. In this way the psalmist calls attention to the seriousness of his pain, which grows from moaning to a flood of tears and weeping. Good News Translation has managed to reflect something of this intensification, with “damp” in line b followed by “soaked” in line c.

The psalmist describes his intense grief with an exaggerated description of the deep sorrow which makes him flood his bed with tears every night; Good News Translation (line b) has used more restrained language, “my bed is damp.” In line c my couch is synonymous with my bed in line b; Good News Translation (also New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible) uses “bed” and “pillow” as more natural contemporary equivalents.

I am weary with my moaning must often be recast so that “grief” or moaning is the cause of being tired; for instance, “my moaning has made me tired.” The Hebrew noun translated moaning carries the idea of actual groans, sighs, or moans that accompany suffering and pain, so that a more vivid word than Good News Translation‘s “grief” is required. In languages where one’s physical condition cannot be said to cause another such condition, this may be rendered as two coordinate statements, “I am very sad and so I am tired.” The literary exaggeration of I flood my bed … may sometimes require reduction as in Good News Translation or, for example, “every night I cry in my bed.” “Soaked” and drench are likewise strong hyperboles which in some languages are better rendered “and my tears cause my pillow to be wet.” The translator should recognize the nature of the movement of intensification within the successive parallel lines and seek to represent it in the translation. This may not always be done by translating Good News Translation or Revised Standard Version literally. In this verse the psalmist has used hyperbole to accomplish this goal, but other languages have available different means for reaching the same objective.

For similar descriptions of intense grief, see 31.9-10; 69.3.

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 .