The psalmist’s grief is especially sharp as he recalls how in the past he used to go with the crowds to the Temple during the festivals. “My heart breaks” translates the Hebrew “I pour out upon me my nefesh” (see comments at 3.2); one way of saying it is “I am heartbroken”; New English Bible has “As I pour out my soul in distress”; the Hebrew can mean “as I give expression to my pent-up feelings” (so Anderson; see Biblia Dios Habla Hoy).

I went: in Hebrew this means repeated action: “I used to go.”

With the throng translates a word found nowhere else in the Old Testament, and its meaning is uncertain; and led also translates a Hebrew form of dubious meaning; the two together are translated by the Septuagint “in the place of the magnificent tabernacle.” New English Bible and Weiser follow a wording found in some Hebrew manuscripts, “in the ranks of the great”; New Jerusalem Bible, in part following the Septuagint, “under the roof of the Most High” (that is, the Temple). Most translations which follow the Masoretic text agree with Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. Given the difficulty and obscurity of the Masoretic text, the translator may choose to follow the Septuagint, which Toombs translates “how I went into the tent of the Glorious One, in procession to the house of God.”4 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project takes the Masoretic text, as pointed, to mean “in the crowd”; with a change of vowels the Masoretic text means “under the hut,” which Hebrew Old Testament Text Project says is more probable and which it identifies with the covered portico mentioned in 2 Kings 16.18. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project also endorses “I led them” as a translation of the second phrase. It is recommended, however, that the translator imitate the Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation rendering.

With the throng or “with the crowds” must sometimes be rendered “with many people,” “with great numbers of people,” or idiomatically, “with many other bodies.”

Led them in procession: this seems to indicate a group of religious pilgrims making their way to the Temple (the house of God) for one of the great annual festivals. Led them is sometimes said “I walked before them” or “they followed me as I went ahead.” The expression house of God in many languages means the Christian church building. Therefore it will often be necessary to qualify the house of God so that it will refer to the Temple; for example, “the Jew’s big house of God” or “the house of God in Jerusalem.”

With glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving represents a combination of two nouns joined by “and,” in which the first noun modifies the second–a form of hendiadys. In this case the two nouns can be translated as one event, “a joyful song of thanksgiving.” It is often necessary to express the object of shouts and thanksgiving as Good News Translation says, “to God.”

In the last line, by changing a vowel in the Hebrew word translated multitude, it becomes the word for “sound”; so New English Bible “the clamour of pilgrims.” This change, however, is not recommended.

Keeping festival: celebrating a festival, or in a festival procession. Keeping festival is a summary way of naming the events of singing and praising in the previous line. The final line of verse 4 may be rendered “many people together remembering the feast” or “crowds of people remembering the day for praising God.”

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 .