Mazmur 5:10

5:10 Condemn them, ¹  O God!

May their own schemes be their downfall! ² 

Drive them away ³  because of their many acts of insurrection, ⁴ 

for they have rebelled against you.

Mazmur 6:1

Psalm 6 ⁵ 

For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments, according to the sheminith style; ⁶  a psalm of David.

6:1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger!

Do not discipline me in your raging fury! ⁷ 

Mazmur 7:6

7:6 Stand up angrily, ⁸  Lord!

Rise up with raging fury against my enemies! ⁹ 

Wake up for my sake and execute the judgment you have decreed for them! ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 8:2

8:2 From the mouths of children and nursing babies

you have ordained praise on account of your adversaries, ¹¹ 

so that you might put an end to the vindictive enemy. ¹² 

Mazmur 9:14

9:14 Then I will ¹³  tell about all your praiseworthy acts; ¹⁴ 

in the gates of Daughter Zion ¹⁵  I will rejoice because of your deliverance.” ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 18:35

18:35 You give me your protective shield; ¹⁷ 

your right hand supports me; ¹⁸ 

your willingness to help ¹⁹  enables me to prevail. ²⁰ 

Mazmur 18:48

18:48 He delivers me ²¹  from my enemies;

you snatch me away ²²  from those who attack me; ²³ 

you rescue me from violent men.

Mazmur 36:8

36:8 They are filled with food from your house,

and you allow them to drink from the river of your delicacies.

Mazmur 60:4

60:4 You have given your loyal followers ²⁴  a rallying flag,

so that they might seek safety from the bow. ²⁵  (Selah)

[5:10]  ¹ tn Heb “declare/regard them as guilty.” Declaring the psalmist’s adversaries guilty is here metonymic for judging them or paying them back for their wrongdoing.

[5:10]  ² tn Heb “may they fall from their plans.” The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation. The psalmist calls judgment down on the evildoers. Their plans will be their downfall in that God will judge them for their evil schemes.

[5:10]  ³ tn Or “banish them.”

[5:10]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew noun used here, פֶּשַׁע (pesha’), refers to rebellious actions. The psalmist pictures his enemies as rebels against God (see the next line).

[6:1]  ⁵ sn Psalm 6. The psalmist begs the Lord to withdraw his anger and spare his life. Having received a positive response to his prayer, the psalmist then confronts his enemies and describes how they retreat.

[6:1]  ⁶ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term שְׁמִינִית (shÿminit, “sheminith”) is uncertain; perhaps it refers to a particular style of music. See 1 Chr 15:21.

[6:1]  ⁷ sn The implication is that the psalmist has sinned, causing God to discipline him by bringing a life-threatening illness upon him (see vv. 2-7).

[7:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “in your anger.”

[7:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “Lift yourself up in the angry outbursts of my enemies.” Many understand the preposition prefixed to עַבְרוֹת (’avrot, “angry outbursts”) as adversative, “against,” and the following genitive “enemies” as subjective. In this case one could translate, “rise up against my furious enemies” (cf. NIV, NRSV). The present translation, however, takes the preposition as indicating manner (cf. “in your anger” in the previous line) and understands the plural form of the noun as indicating an abstract quality (“fury”) or excessive degree (“raging fury”). Cf. Job 21:30.

[7:6]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “Wake up to me [with the] judgment [which] you have commanded.” The LXX understands אֵלִי (’eliy, “my God”) instead of אֵלַי (’elay, “to me”; the LXX reading is followed by NEB, NIV, NRSV.) If the reading of the MT is retained, the preposition probably has the sense of “on account of, for the sake of.” The noun מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “judgment”) is probably an adverbial accusative, modifying the initial imperative, “wake up.” In this case צִוִּיתָ (tsivvita, “[which] you have commanded”) is an asyndetic relative clause. Some take the perfect as precative. In this case one could translate the final line, “Wake up for my sake! Decree judgment!” (cf. NIV). However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.

[8:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you establish strength because of your foes.” The meaning of the statement is unclear. The present translation follows the reading of the LXX which has “praise” (αἶνος, ainos) in place of “strength” (עֹז, ’oz); cf. NIV, NCV, NLT.

[8:2]  ¹² tn Heb “to cause to cease an enemy and an avenger.” The singular forms are collective. The Hitpael participle of נָקַם (naqam) also occurs in Ps 44:16.

[9:14]  ¹³ tn Or “so that I might.”

[9:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “all your praise.” “Praise” stands by metonymy for the mighty acts that prompt it.

[9:14]  ¹⁵ sn Daughter Zion is an idiomatic title for Jerusalem. It appears frequently in the prophets, but only here in the psalms.

[9:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in your deliverance.”

[18:35]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and you give to me the shield of your deliverance.”

[18:35]  sn You give me your protective shield. Ancient Near Eastern literature often refers to a god giving a king special weapons. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 260-61.

[18:35]  ¹⁸ tc 2 Sam 22:36 omits this line, perhaps due to homoioarcton. A scribe’s eye may have jumped from the vav (ו) prefixed to “your right hand” to the vav prefixed to the following “and your answer,” causing the copyist to omit by accident the intervening words (“your right hand supports me and”).

[18:35]  ¹⁹ tn The MT of Ps 18:35 appears to read, “your condescension,” apparently referring to God’s willingness to intervene (cf. NIV “you stoop down”). However, the noun עֲנָוָה (’anavah) elsewhere means “humility” and is used only here of God. The form עַנְוַתְךָ (’anvatÿkha) may be a fully written form of the suffixed infinitive construct of עָנָה (’anah, “to answer”; a defectively written form of the infinitive appears in 2 Sam 22:36). In this case the psalmist refers to God’s willingness to answer his prayer; one might translate, “your favorable response.”

[18:35]  ²⁰ tn Heb “makes me great.”

[18:48]  ²¹ tn Heb “[the one who] delivers me.” 2 Sam 22:49 reads “and [the one who] brings me out.”

[18:48]  ²² tn Heb “lifts me up.” In light of the preceding and following references to deliverance, the verb רום probably here refers to being rescued from danger (see Ps 9:13). However, it could mean “exalt, elevate” here, indicating that the Lord has given the psalmist victory over his enemies and forced them to acknowledge the psalmist’s superiority (cf. NIV, NRSV).

[18:48]  ²³ tn Heb “from those who rise against me.”

[60:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “those who fear you.”

[60:4]  ²⁵ tn There is a ray of hope in that God has allowed his loyal followers to rally under a battle flag. The translation assumes the verb is from the root נוּס (nus, “flee”) used here in the Hitpolel in the sense of “find safety for oneself” (HALOT 681 s.v. נוס) or “take flight for oneself” (BDB 630-31 s.v. נוּס). Another option is to take the verb as a denominative from נֵס (nes, “flag”) and translate “that it may be displayed” (BDB 651 s.v. II נסס) or “that they may assemble under the banner” (HALOT 704 s.v. II נסס). Here קֹשֶׁט (qoshet) is taken as an Aramaized form of קֶשֶׁת (qeshet, “bow”; BDB 905-6 s.v. קֶשֶׁת), though some understand the homonymic קֹשְׁטְ (qosht, “truth”) here (see Prov 22:21; cf. NASB). If one follows the latter interpretation, the line may be translated, “so that they might assemble under the banner for the sake of truth.”