Mazmur 4:8

4:8 I will lie down and sleep peacefully, ¹ 

for you, Lord, make me safe and secure. ² 

Mazmur 9:7

9:7 But the Lord ³  rules ⁴  forever;

he reigns in a just manner. ⁵ 

Mazmur 9:20

9:20 Terrify them, Lord! ⁶ 

Let the nations know they are mere mortals! ⁷  (Selah)

Mazmur 11:1

Psalm 11 ⁸ 

For the music director; by David.

11:1 In the Lord I have taken shelter. ⁹ 

How can you say to me, ¹⁰ 

“Flee to a mountain like a bird! ¹¹ 

Mazmur 15:4

15:4 He despises a reprobate, ¹² 

but honors the Lord’s loyal followers. ¹³ 

He makes firm commitments and does not renege on his promise. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 21:12

21:12 For you make them retreat ¹⁵ 

when you shoot your arrows at them. ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 39:6

39:6 Surely people go through life as mere ghosts. ¹⁷ 

Surely they accumulate worthless wealth

without knowing who will eventually haul it away.” ¹⁸ 

Mazmur 40:1

Psalm 40 ¹⁹ 

For the music director; By David, a psalm.

40:1 I relied completely ²⁰  on the Lord,

and he turned toward me

and heard my cry for help.

Mazmur 56:6

56:6 They stalk ²¹  and lurk; ²² 

they watch my every step, ²³ 

as ²⁴  they prepare to take my life. ²⁵ 

Mazmur 59:4

59:4 Though I have done nothing wrong, ²⁶  they are anxious to attack. ²⁷ 

Spring into action and help me! Take notice of me! ²⁸ 

Mazmur 68:12

68:12 Kings leading armies run away – they run away! ²⁹ 

The lovely lady ³⁰  of the house divides up the loot.

Mazmur 74:22

74:22 Rise up, O God! Defend your honor! ³¹ 

Remember how fools insult you all day long! ³² 

Mazmur 80:15

80:15 the root ³³  your right hand planted,

the shoot you made to grow! ³⁴ 

Mazmur 81:15

81:15 (May those who hate the Lord ³⁵  cower in fear ³⁶  before him!

May they be permanently humiliated!) ³⁷ 

Mazmur 85:3

85:3 You withdrew all your fury;

you turned back from your raging anger. ³⁸ 

Mazmur 97:7

97:7 All who worship idols are ashamed,

those who boast about worthless idols.

All the gods bow down before him. ³⁹ 

[4:8]  ¹ tn Heb “in peace at the same time I will lie down and sleep.”

[4:8]  ² tn Heb “for you, Lord, solitarily, securely make me dwell.” The translation understands לְבָדָד (lÿvadad) as modifying the verb; the Lord keeps enemies away from the psalmist so that he is safe and secure. Another option is to take לְבָדָד with what precedes and translate, “you alone, Lord, make me secure.”

[9:7]  ³ tn The construction vav (ו) + subject highlights the contrast between the exalted Lord and his defeated foes (see v. 6).

[9:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “sits” (i.e., enthroned, see v. 4). The imperfect verbal form highlights the generalization.

[9:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “he establishes for justice his throne.”

[9:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “place, Lord, terror with regard to them.” The Hebrew term מוֹרָה (morah, “terror”) is an alternative form of מוֹרָא (mora’; a reading that appears in some mss and finds support in several ancient textual witnesses).

[9:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “let the nations know they [are] man[kind]”; i.e., mere human beings (as opposed to God).

[11:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 11. The psalmist rejects the advice to flee from his dangerous enemies. Instead he affirms his confidence in God’s just character and calls down judgment on evildoers.

[11:1]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew perfect verbal form probably refers here to a completed action with continuing results.

[11:1]  ¹⁰ tn The pronominal suffix attached to נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is equivalent to a personal pronoun. See Ps 6:3.

[11:1]  ¹¹ tc The MT is corrupt here. The Kethib (consonantal text) reads: “flee [masculine plural!] to your [masculine plural!] mountain, bird.” The Qere (marginal reading) has “flee” in a feminine singular form, agreeing grammatically with the addressee, the feminine noun “bird.” Rather than being a second masculine plural pronominal suffix, the ending כֶם- (-khem) attached to “mountain” is better interpreted as a second feminine singular pronominal suffix followed by an enclitic mem (ם). “Bird” may be taken as vocative (“O bird”) or as an adverbial accusative of manner (“like a bird”). Either way, the psalmist’s advisers compare him to a helpless bird whose only option in the face of danger is to fly away to an inaccessible place.

[15:4]  ¹² tn Heb “despised in his eyes [is] a rejected [one].” The Hebrew term נִמְאָס (nim’as, “rejected [one]”) apparently refers here to one who has been rejected by God because of his godless behavior. It stands in contrast to “those who fear God” in the following line.

[15:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “those who fear the Lord.” The one who fears the Lord respects his sovereignty and obeys his commandments. See Ps 128:1; Prov 14:2.

[15:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he takes an oath to do harm and does not change.” The phrase “to do harm” cannot mean “do harm to others,” for the preceding verse clearly characterizes this individual as one who does not harm others. In this context the phrase must refer to an oath to which a self-imprecation is attached. The godly individual takes his commitments to others so seriously he is willing to “swear to his own hurt.” For an example of such an oath, see Ruth 1:16-17.

[21:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you make them a shoulder,” i.e., “you make them turn and run, showing the back of their neck and shoulders.”

[21:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “with your bowstrings you fix against their faces,” i.e., “you fix your arrows on the bowstrings to shoot at them.”

[39:6]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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.

[40:1]  ¹⁹ sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).

[40:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “relying, I relied.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form to emphasize the verbal idea. The emphasis is reflected in the translation through the adverb “completely.” Another option is to translate, “I waited patiently” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[56:6]  ²¹ tn The verb is from the root גּוּר (gur), which means “to challenge, attack” in Isa 54:15 and “to stalk” (with hostile intent) in Ps 59:3.

[56:6]  ²² tn Or “hide.”

[56:6]  ²³ tn Heb “my heels.”

[56:6]  ²⁴ tn Heb “according to,” in the sense of “inasmuch as; since,” or “when; while.”

[56:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “they wait [for] my life.”

[59:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “without sin.”

[59:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they run and they are determined.”

[59:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “arise to meet me and see.” The Hebrew verb קָרָא (qara’, “to meet; to encounter”) here carries the nuance of “to help.”

[68:12]  ²⁹ tn The verbal repetition draws attention to the statement.

[68:12]  ³⁰ tn The Hebrew form appears to be the construct of נוּה (nuh, “pasture”) but the phrase “pasture of the house” makes no sense here. The translation assumes that the form is an alternative or corruption of נצוה (“beautiful woman”). A reference to a woman would be appropriate in light of v. 11b.

[74:22]  ³¹ tn Or “defend your cause.”

[74:22]  ³² tn Heb “remember your reproach from a fool all the day.”

[80:15]  ³³ tn The Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT. HALOT 483 s.v. III כֵּן emends the form to כַּנָּהּ (kannah, “its shoot”).

[80:15]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and upon a son you strengthened for yourself.” In this context, where the extended metaphor of the vine dominates, בֵּן (ben, “son”) probably refers to the shoots that grow from the vine. Cf. Gen 49:22.

[81:15]  ³⁵ tn “Those who hate the Lord” are also mentioned in 2 Chr 19:2 and Ps 139:21.

[81:15]  ³⁶ tn See Deut 33:29; Ps 66:3 for other uses of the verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) in the sense “cower in fear.” In Ps 18:44 the verb seems to carry the nuance “to be weak; to be powerless” (see also Ps 109:24). The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive, parallel to the jussive form in the next line.

[81:15]  ³⁷ tc Heb “and may their time be forever.” The Hebrew term עִתָּם (’ittam, “their time”) must refer here to the “time” of the demise and humiliation of those who hate the Lord. Some propose an emendation to בַּעֲתָתָם (ba’atatam) or בִּעֻתָם (bi’utam; “their terror”; i.e., “may their terror last forever”), but the omission of bet (ב) in the present Hebrew text is difficult to explain, making the proposed emendation unlikely.

[81:15]  tn The verb form at the beginning of the line is jussive, indicating that this is a prayer. The translation assumes that v. 15 is a parenthetical “curse” offered by the psalmist. Having heard the reference to Israel’s enemies (v. 14), the psalmist inserts this prayer, reminding the Lord that they are God’s enemies as well.

[85:3]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the rage of your anger.” The phrase “rage of your anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81. See Pss 69:24; 78:49.

[97:7]  ³⁹ tn The translation assumes that the prefixed verbal form in the first line is an imperfect (“are ashamed”) and that the ambiguous form in the third line is a perfect (“bow down”) because the psalmist appears to be describing the effect of the Lord’s mighty theophany on those who witness it (see vv. 5, 8). Another option is to take the prefixed form in the first line as a jussive (“let all who worship idols be ashamed”) and the ambiguous form in the third line as an imperative (“All you gods, bow down before him!”; cf. NIV).