Psalm 145:13–14

Footnotes

1. 13 Heb “a kingdom of all ages.”
2. 14 Psalm 145 is an acrostic psalm, with each successive verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. However, in the traditional Hebrew (Masoretic) text of Psalm 145 there is no verse beginning with the letter nun. One would expect such a verse to appear as the fourteenth verse, between the mem (ם) and samek (ס) verses. Several ancient witnesses, including one medieval Hebrew manuscript, the Qumran scroll from cave 11, the , and the , supply the missing nun (ן) verse, which reads as follows: “The Lord is reliable in all his words, and faithful in all his deeds.” One might paraphrase this as follows: “The Lord’s words are always reliable; his actions are always faithful.” Scholars are divided as to the originality of this verse. L. C. Allen argues for its inclusion on the basis of structural considerations (Psalms 101–150 [], ), but there is no apparent explanation for why, if original, it would have been accidentally omitted. The psalm may be a partial acrostic, as in Pss 25 and 34 (see M. Dahood, Psalms [], 3:). The glaring omission of the nun line would have invited a later redactor to add such a line.
3. 15 Perhaps “discouraged” (see Ps 57:6).