Mazmur 28:3

28:3 Do not drag me away with evil men,

with those who behave wickedly, ¹ 

who talk so friendly to their neighbors, ² 

while they plan to harm them! ³ 

Mazmur 34:16

34:16 But the Lord opposes evildoers

and wipes out all memory of them from the earth. ⁴ 

Mazmur 37:25

37:25 I was once young, now I am old.

I have never seen a godly man abandoned,

or his children ⁵  forced to search for food. ⁶ 

Mazmur 39:6

39:6 Surely people go through life as mere ghosts. ⁷ 

Surely they accumulate worthless wealth

without knowing who will eventually haul it away.” ⁸ 

Mazmur 78:56

78:56 Yet they challenged and defied ⁹  the sovereign God, ¹⁰ 

and did not obey ¹¹  his commands. ¹² 

Mazmur 88:13

88:13 As for me, I cry out to you, O Lord;

in the morning my prayer confronts you.

Mazmur 89:38

89:38 But you have spurned ¹³  and rejected him;

you are angry with your chosen king. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 119:78

119:78 May the arrogant be humiliated, for they have slandered me! ¹⁵ 

But I meditate on your precepts.

[28:3]  ¹ tn Heb “workers of wickedness.”

[28:3]  ² tn Heb “speakers of peace with their neighbors.”

[28:3]  ³ tn Heb “and evil [is] in their heart[s].”

[34:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “the face of the Lord [is] against the doers of evil to cut off from the earth memory of them.”

[37:25]  ⁵ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[37:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “or his offspring searching for food.” The expression “search for food” also appears in Lam 1:11, where Jerusalem’s refugees are forced to search for food and to trade their valuable possessions for something to eat.

[39:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “surely, as an image man walks about.” The preposition prefixed to “image” indicates identity here.

[39:6]  sn People go through life (Heb “man walks about”). “Walking” is here used as a metaphor for living. The point is that human beings are here today, gone tomorrow. They have no lasting substance and are comparable to mere images or ghosts.

[39:6]  ⁸ tc Heb “Surely [in] vain they strive, he accumulates and does not know who gathers them.” The MT as it stands is syntactically awkward. The verb forms switch from singular (“walks about”) to plural (“they strive”) and then back to singular (“accumulates and does not know”), even though the subject (generic “man”) remains the same. Furthermore there is no object for the verb “accumulates” and no plural antecedent for the plural pronoun (“them”) attached to “gathers.” These problems can be removed if one emends the text from הֶבֶל יֶהֱמָיוּן (hevel yehemaun, “[in] vain they strive”) to הֶבְלֵי הָמוֹן (hevley hamon, “vain things of wealth”). This assumes a misdivision in the MT and a virtual dittography of vav (ו) between the mem and nun of המון. The present translation follows this emendation.

[78:56]  ⁹ tn Or “tested and rebelled against.”

[78:56]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “God, the Most High.”

[78:56]  ¹¹ tn Or “keep.”

[78:56]  ¹² tn Heb “his testimonies” (see Ps 25:10).

[89:38]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew construction (conjunction + pronoun, followed by the verb) draws attention to the contrast between what follows and what precedes.

[89:38]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “your anointed one.” The Hebrew phrase מְשִׁיחֶךָ (mÿshikhekha, “your anointed one”) refers here to the Davidic king (see Pss 2:2; 18:50; 20:6; 28:8; 84:9; 132:10, 17).

[119:78]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for [with] falsehood they have denied me justice.”