The psalmist praises God for his having saved Israel, his people, from slavery in Egypt. To declare that everything that God does (literally his way) is holy is to affirm that in all that he does God is true to his nature as a holy God, who is separate from humankind, who maintains the right, who is to be served and worshiped as the only God. He is greater than the gods the other nations claim as their own, the gods other people worship. Good News Translation in verse 13b fails to represent our God; the full meaning can be expressed by translating the verse “O God, you are our God, and everything you do is holy; no other god is as great as you are.”

The text of verse 13a may mean “your way is in the sanctuary” (King James Version, Weiser), which would mean that in the Temple God’s will is made known to Israel. This, however, is not very likely. The expression Thy way … is holy is particularly difficult in many languages. In the Bible it is quite common for objects to be called holy, but much less common for an event to be so labeled. Terms commonly used to designate holy, such as “dedicated to God,” are obviously unsatisfactory when speaking of the holiness of an event. Also unsatisfactory is “what God does is dedicated to God.” It is therefore often necessary to shift to a quality such as “good” or “true.” In some languages it will be necessary to make explicit the goal of the action of God; for example, “the way you treat your people” or “everything you do to your people.” The entire expression may sometimes be rendered then as “the way you treat your people is good.”

Languages which must express our God as including or excluding the persons addressed should use the exclusive pronoun here when addressing God, but inclusive if addressing each other.

English and other languages distinguish between false gods and God by the use of lower case and capital letters. However, in languages where this is not possible, it may be necessary to say, for example, “no false god is great like our God” or, in some languages, “little god some people worship is not great like the God we worship.”

Wonders in verse 14a translates the same word used in verse 11b. God’s great deeds in saving his people were known by other peoples, the Egyptians, and the various peoples of Canaan. In verse 14b the idea is not only that God caused the miracles to be seen or heard by pagan nations, but that he caused them to know and admit God’s power; so New Jerusalem Bible “You … brought the nations to acknowledge your power.” In some languages it will be necessary to make explicit in verse 14a that God does miracles which people see. In such cases this makes lines a and b very closely parallel, and in some cases it may be best to reduce the parallelism to one line, saying, for example, “You are the God who shows powerful miracles to the other tribes” or “… to the peoples who do not worship you.”

For the verb redeem in verse 15, see “redeemer” in 19.14. Good News Translation “By your power” translates with your arm, which is a common figure in the psalms. Good News Translation‘s “By your power” expresses the means of God’s action. In some languages it will be more natural to shift to a clause and say, for example, “because you are powerful….”

Only here in the Old Testament are the people of Israel called the sons of Jacob and Joseph. It is possible that the specific mention of Joseph is intended to emphasize the (northern) kingdom of Israel; the two tribes Manasseh and Ephraim, which were descended from the sons of Joseph, were in the north. In both Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version sons of Jacob and Joseph stand in apposition to thy people. However, in many languages it will be necessary to make clear their relationship by saying, for example, “who are the descendants of Jacob and Joseph” or “… saved the descendants of Jacob and Joseph, all of whom are your people.”

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 .