“Acknowledge” (Good News Translation) translates the imperative of the verb “to know” (Revised Standard Version); the verb here means to “recognize” (Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible) or “confess” (see 91.14 “knows my name”). The term “recognize” is translated through figurative expressions in some languages; for example, “Say ‘Yes’ in your heart” or “Put this word in your mouth.” “Yahweh is God” is the fundamental creed of the Hebrew faith, confessed by his people, who proclaim It is he that made us. This does not mean creation, in terms of God creating humankind; it means that Yahweh had created a nation out of the slaves in Egypt, choosing them as his own people, a people who belonged to him alone. We are his translates one form of the Masoretic text (which is represented in the Targum and the Vulgate, and is followed by nearly all translations, and by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project as well); another form has “and not ourselves” (represented in the Septuagint and the Syriac, and followed by King James Version). Dahood, as often, goes his own way; he prefers the reading “not” and translates “He himself made us when we … were nothing.”

The phrase the LORD is God makes little sense in many languages without making explicit the specific-to-generic relation of the two terms; Yahweh is the specific and God the generic. Accordingly it is possible to say, for example, “the God we worship is called Yahweh” or “Israel’s God (that is, Yahweh) is the one true God.”

For “his flock” (literally the sheep of his pasture) see 74.1; 95.7. In some languages it may be necessary to recast and the sheep of his pasture to say, for example, “and the people whom he cares for.”

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 .