From the general truth of God’s sovereignty in history, the psalmist passes to the special place occupied by Israel, the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he had chosen as his heritage. The emphasis is on Yahweh’s choice of Israel to be his people; it was not they who elected him to be their God, but he chose them by his own sovereign will. In the last line the word heritage stresses this idea; Israel is Yahweh’s own particular possession, as no other people are. For a discussion of the word, see 16.6 and 28.9.

Whose God is the LORD requires some recasting in numerous languages; for example, “the God they worship is the LORD,” “the God they serve is called the LORD,” “who have the LORD as their God” or “who have the LORD as the God whom they worship.”

The expression chosen as his heritage raises the problem of the metaphor, which, if applied too literally, requires that God die in order that his heirs may receive the inheritance. Good News Translation has solved this problem by avoiding the idea of inheritance. It is possible to retain something of the idea of heir by using such expressions as “the people he has chosen to receive his blessings” or “the people he has chosen to receive the things he has promised to give.”

There is no dynamic movement in the parallelism of verse 12. The word pair nation–people provides the basis for two statements in parallel and may or may not be joined by a connector such as “and.”

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 .