This psalm has an envelope structure in the sense that it is enclosed between The LORD answer you in verse 1 and answer us when we call in the final verse. Verses 1 through 5 contain a series of requests addressed to God in the third person. In some languages these must be in the form of commands.

A literal translation of answer you in the day of trouble may mean that the LORD is merely being asked to reply to a question from the troubled king. In order to avoid such a misunderstanding, it will be necessary in some languages to say, for example, “May the LORD help you” or “May the LORD rescue you.”

The pronoun you in the singular form may be misleading and cause readers to imagine that it is the reader who is referred to. Since the reference is to the king (see verse 9), it will be necessary in some languages to substitute “king” for you, and if king must be possessed, then “our king” will be most appropriate. In some languages the appropriate honorific form of the pronoun you plus “our king” may be combined; for example, “May the LORD help you, our king, when you are in trouble.”

According to the usual interpretation, the day of trouble refers to battle (this can be “in time of danger”); Dahood takes the word here to have the specific meaning of “siege.” (But Weiser doubts that the psalm has to do with military conflict, and understands it to refer to the festival in which Yahweh was proclaimed King of Israel.)

For comments on name see 5.11. The title the God of Jacob occurs some 11 times in Psalms and recalls Yahweh as the God of the ancestor of the Israelites, the founder of the nation. The God of Jacob must sometimes be rendered “the God of our ancestor Jacob” or “the God whom our ancestor Jacob worshiped.” Care must be taken in translation not to imply that the God of Jacob in line b is another God, different from The LORD in line a. Following Good News Translation terminology, the translation can be “May he, who is the God of Jacob, protect you!”

Protect is a translation of the causative form of a verb meaning “to be high”; therefore “put you out of reach (of your enemies)” is the idea. Briggs, however, takes it to mean victory.

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 .