They (verse 10) and them (twice in verse 11) refer back to “the ordinances” (Good News Translation “The judgments”) of verse 9b. In translation it is often necessary to reintroduce the subject of line a; for example, “The judgments of the LORD are worth more than gold.”
In verse 10 gold and fine gold refer to the same kind of substance, as do honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Good News Translation has combined the terms and used superlative forms: “finest gold … purest honey.” Fine gold in line b is a more specific instance of the general category of gold in line a. In the same way drippings of the honeycomb in line d is the more visual sense of honey in line c. In this verse Good News Translation makes no attempt to keep the double parallelism. The translator, however, should consider how the psalmist is creating a focusing movement between the lines through the use of increasingly picturable images. The translator’s task is to use the devices available in the receptor language to accomplish the same effect. The honeycomb is the structure built out of beeswax by bees, to hold their eggs and the honey. The same comparisons are used in 119.72, 103. Finest gold must often be expressed as “gold without any sand.” “The purest honey” must sometimes be said “honey without anything added.”
Moreover translates a Hebrew word often used to associate two items, or else to emphasize an additional item, as here. It appears also at the beginning of verse 13 (where Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation translate it “also”). Here something like “In addition” or “They also…” will express the idea.
In verse 11a the verb is usually translated is … warned or “… instructed.” Dahood and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, however, take the verb in another sense (as in Dan 12.3): “to be enlightened.” New Jerusalem Bible has “your servant pays them heed.” Verse 11a must sometimes be rendered “Your judgments instruct me.”
It is debated whether thy servant is generic, meaning anyone who obeys Yahweh, or specific, referring to the psalmist (so Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy), as it clearly does in verse 13. It seems better to understand it as specific. The expression thy servant should not refer to a domestic employee, or a slave, or one of the many kinds of workers who are bound to an owner through indebtedness. In this verse the psalmist calls himself a servant because of his obedience and faithful devotion to God. If the receptor-language term for servant has unwanted connotations, it will be best to recast this verse. The sense is made even more difficult for some languages by the psalmist referring to himself in the third person. For example, one may translate “I follow you faithfully, and your judgments teach me” or “Your way of judging people teaches me, and I obey what you say.”
The reward is primarily spiritual, but it includes the material. Verse 11b may often be expressed “I receive good things when I obey them.”
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 .