Mazmur 10:4

10:4 The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks,

“God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.” ¹ 

Mazmur 10:11

10:11 He says to himself, ² 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ³ 

Mazmur 10:13

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ⁴ 

He says to himself, ⁵  “You ⁶  will not hold me accountable.” ⁷ 

[10:4]  ¹ tn Heb “the wicked [one], according to the height of his nose, he does not seek, there is no God, all his thoughts.” The phrase “height of his nose” probably refers to an arrogant or snooty attitude; it likely pictures one with his nose turned upward toward the sky in pride. One could take the “wicked” as the subject of the negated verb “seek,” in which case the point is that the wicked do not “seek” God. The translation assumes that this statement, along with “there is no God,” is what the wicked man thinks to himself. In this case God is the subject of the verb “seek,” and the point is that God will not hold the wicked man accountable for his actions. Verse 13 strongly favors this interpretation. The statement “there is no God” is not a philosophical assertion that God does not exist, but rather a confident affirmation that he is unconcerned about how men live morally and ethically (see v. 11).

[10:11]  ² tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ³ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[10:13]  ⁴ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ⁶ tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”