Mazmur 3:4

3:4 To the Lord I cried out, ¹ 

and he answered me from his holy hill. ²  (Selah)

Mazmur 27:2

27:2 When evil men attack me ³ 

to devour my flesh, ⁴ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ⁵ 

they stumble and fall. ⁶ 

Mazmur 27:12

27:12 Do not turn me over to my enemies, ⁷ 

for false witnesses who want to destroy me testify against me. ⁸ 

Mazmur 37:25

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

I have never seen a godly man abandoned,

or his children ⁹  forced to search for food. ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 41:6

41:6 When someone comes to visit, ¹¹  he pretends to be friendly; ¹² 

he thinks of ways to defame me, ¹³ 

and when he leaves he slanders me. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 56:4

56:4 In God – I boast in his promise ¹⁵  –

in God I trust, I am not afraid.

What can mere men ¹⁶  do to me? ¹⁷ 

Mazmur 142:5

142:5 I cry out to you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my shelter,

my security ¹⁸  in the land of the living.”

[3:4]  ¹ tn The prefixed verbal form could be an imperfect, yielding the translation “I cry out,” but the verb form in the next line (a vav [ו] consecutive with the preterite) suggests this is a brief narrative of what has already happened. Consequently the verb form in v. 4a is better understood as a preterite, “I cried out.” (For another example of the preterite of this same verb form, see Ps 30:8.) Sometime after the crisis arose, the psalmist prayed to the Lord and received an assuring answer. Now he confidently awaits the fulfillment of the divine promise.

[3:4]  ² sn His holy hill. That is, Zion (see Pss 2:6; 48:1-2). The psalmist recognizes that the Lord dwells in his sanctuary on Mount Zion.

[27:2]  ³ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ⁴ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

[27:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “do not give me over to the desire of my enemies.”

[27:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “for they have risen up against me, lying witnesses and a testifier of violence.” The form יָפֵחַ (yafeakh) is traditionally understood as a verb meaning “snort, breathe out”: “for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty” (KJV; cf. BDB 422 s.v.). A better option is to take the form as a noun meaning “a witness” (or “testifier”). See Prov 6:19; 12:17; 14:5, 25; 19:5, 9, and Hab 2:3.

[37:25]  ⁹ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[37:25]  ¹⁰ 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.

[41:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to see.”

[41:6]  ¹² tn Heb “he speaks deceitfully.”

[41:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “his heart gathers sin to itself.”

[41:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he goes outside and speaks.”

[56:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in God I boast, his word.” The syntax in the Hebrew text is difficult. (1) The line could be translated, “in God I boast, [in] his word.” Such a translation assumes that the prepositional phrase “in God” goes with the following verb “I boast” (see Ps 44:8) and that “his word” is appositional to “in God” and more specifically identifies the basis for the psalmist’s confidence. God’s “word” is here understood as an assuring promise of protection. Another option (2) is to translate, “in God I will boast [with] a word.” In this case, the “word” is a song of praise. (In this view the pronominal suffix “his” must be omitted as in v. 10.) The present translation reflects yet another option (3): In this case “I praise his word” is a parenthetical statement, with “his word” being the object of the verb. The sentence begun with the prepositional phrase “in God” is then completed in the next line, with the prepositional phrase being repeated after the parenthesis.

[56:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “flesh,” which refers by metonymy to human beings (see v. 11, where “man” is used in this same question), envisioned here as mortal and powerless before God.

[56:4]  ¹⁷ tn The rhetorical question assumes the answer, “Nothing!” The imperfect is used in a modal sense here, indicating capability or potential.

[142:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “my portion.” The psalmist compares the Lord to landed property, which was foundational to economic stability in ancient Israel.