Psalm 1:2a

כִּי אִמ בְּתֹורַת יְהוָה חֶפְצֹו וּבְתֹורָתֹו יֶהְגֶּה יֹוםָם וָלָיְלָה

כִּי אִמ- After a neg. but is expressed by כִּי אִם, Gen. 32:29 לֹא יַֽעֲקֹב ··· כִּי אִם יִשְׂרָאֵל not Jacob but Israel. 1 S. 21:5, 2 K. 23:9, Jer. 16:14, 15. Or simply by כִּי, Gen. 45:8 לֹא אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם כִּי א׳ it is not you who sent but God. 1 K. 21:15, 2 Chr. 20:15.

The two conjunctions go together here, after the negatives in the first verse to contrast with the statement about to be made in verse 2

בְּתֹורַת יְהוָה - in the Torah of God. Prefixed prep בְּ "in" (location) - the noun Torah is made definite by the definiteness of "YHWH" . Torah could be translated "law or instruction".. but I think it is a specialized term that may be best translated (at least for my purposes) as Torah. I'm going to label this construct pair as either a subjective genitive or as a possessive genitive. I wasn't sure which to chose... they both made sense to me.

חֶפְצֹו- noun singular "delight, joy, pleasure" - with a pronominal suffix attached to the end (3ms suffix) "his"... I'm going to add the word "is" here in my english translation so it makes a little more sense and flows a little better. So it goes from "but in the Torah of YHWH his pleasure" to (after a little moving around) "but his pleasure is in the Torah of YHWH". I'm not sure if I will move the translation around this way or if I will leave it closer to the way the Hebrew has it structured. The Psalms seems to emphasis the importance of God's Torah and I kind of think that perhaps the phrase "in the Torah of YHWH is placed in the beginning of the phrase in order to draw attention to the phrase. So I may translate it "But in the Torah of YHWH is his joy" I am also not sure which word I will use for חֶפְצֹ "joy, pleasure, or delight" Right now I am leaning toward either delight or joy."

I heard a great illustration from my Greek professor from Moody just last week. He was discussing the practice in Greek (but it also happens in Hebrew) of placing a word out of the normal order for the purpose of drawing attention to the word. He said (not an exact quote), "Suppose you were coming over to my house for a visit and I had just purchased a lovely new chair for my living room that I wanted you to complement me on. During your whole visit you did not even once comment on my new chair. The next time you come for a visit I place the chair in a new spot, so that perhaps you will comment on it during your second visit. This time, when you visit, I place the chair on top of my kitchen table. Will you miss it this time?"