The translator should note that there is a shift in pronominal use starting with verse 25. Until this point all references to God have been in the third person; now, however, the second person will be used in the following five verses (25-29), except in the second line of verses 28-29. Furthermore, there is at the same time a clear shift in the type of parallelism starting with verse 25, a discourse marker made of static parallelism. That is, the two lines of verses 25-26 say very much the same thing, with no “going beyond” in the second line. The poet will again revert to third-person reference to God in another five verses (30-34).
In verses 25-27 the psalmist no longer speaks in personal terms, as in verses 20-24, but speaks in general terms of the LORD’s attitude toward the good and the wicked.
In verses 25-26 the psalmist attributes the same qualities to God as are found in people. The thought is that God matches the good qualities (verses 25a, 25b, 26a) and the bad quality (verse 26b) he finds in people.
The first quality (verse 25a) is loyalty, faithfulness (see 5.7). On the part of God it means that he keeps his promises; on the part of human beings it means they faithfully obey God. Loyal and “faithful,” being terms which contain a reciprocal relationship, must often be recast to make explicit the relationship involved; for example, “With people who trust in you, you are a one-heart LORD,” “With people who follow you, you are a LORD of one way,” “You can be counted on to help those who always obey you,” or “You sustain people who rest on you.” In many languages the same word cannot be used naturally of God and of human beings, so the translation must carefully distinguish between God’s “faithfulness,” that is, his constant love, and a person’s “faithfulness,” that is, obedience to God.
The second quality (verse 25b) is perfection, lack of fault, or blameless (see also verse 23). It is difficult to find one word which can be used in the same sense of God and of a person; that is why Good News Translation has “completely good … perfect.”
The third quality (verse 26a) is purity, which is practically synonymous with blameless in the preceding line (New English Bible, however, takes the Hebrew verb here to means “be savage,” and not “be pure”). Thou dost show thyself pure in reference to God and people is often difficult to express by the same term. In reference to people the focus is upon their blameless condition, but when speaking of God the meaning is more related to the goodness, that is, the kindness, of God. This may sometimes be rendered, for example, “you are good to those whose hearts are white” or “you are kind in regard to those who have shining hearts.”
The last quality (verse 26b) is expressed in two different words: for people it is the word crooked; for God it is a verb meaning “to be wise, astute, cunning” (see Job 5.13b “cunning men”). This half-verse is translated in different ways: one possibility is “you outwit the cheat”; New Jerusalem Bible “with the perverse, you are wily”; New American Bible “toward the crooked you are astute”; New Jerusalem Bible “cunning to the crafty.” Perhaps “you are cunning (or, shrewd) with those who are crooked” is the best way to represent the meaning.
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 .