1 Chronicles 19:2-5

19:2 David said, “I will express my loyalty ¹  to Hanun son of Nahash, for his father was loyal ²  to me.” So David sent messengers to express his sympathy over his father’s death. ³  When David’s servants entered Ammonite territory to visit Hanun and express the king’s sympathy, ⁴  19:3 the Ammonite officials said to Hanun, “Do you really think David is trying to honor your father by sending these messengers to express his sympathy? ⁵  No, his servants have come to you so they can get information and spy out the land!” ⁶  19:4 So Hanun seized David’s servants and shaved their beards off. ⁷  He cut off the lower part of their robes so that their buttocks were exposed ⁸  and then sent them away. 19:5 Messengers ⁹  came and told David what had happened to the men, so he summoned them, for the men were thoroughly humiliated. The king said, “Stay in Jericho ¹⁰  until your beards grow again; then you may come back.”

Psalms 21:8-9

21:8 You ¹¹  prevail over ¹²  all your enemies;

your power is too great for those who hate you. ¹³ 

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ¹⁴  when you appear; ¹⁵ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ¹⁶ 

the fire consumes them.

¹ tn Heb “do loyalty.”

² tn Heb “did loyalty.”

³ tn Heb “to console him concerning his father.”

⁴ tn Heb “and the servants of David came to the land of the sons of Ammon to Hanun to console him.”

⁵ tn Heb “Is David honoring your father in your eyes when he sends to you ones consoling?”

⁶ tc Heb “Is it not to explore and to overturn and to spy out the land (that) his servants have come to you?” The Hebrew term לַהֲפֹךְ (lahafakh, “to overturn”) seems misplaced in the sequence. Some emend the form to לַחְפֹּר (lakhpor, “to spy out”). The sequence of three infinitives may be a conflation of alternative readings.

⁷ tn Heb “shaved them.” See v. 5.

⁸ tn Heb “and he cut their robes in the middle unto the buttocks.”

⁹ tn Heb “they.” The logical referent, though not specified in the Hebrew text, has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰ map For location see Map5-B2; Map6-E1; Map7-E1; Map8-E3; Map10-A2; Map11-A1.

¹¹ tn The king is now addressed. One could argue that the Lord is still being addressed, but v. 9 militates against this proposal, for there the Lord is mentioned in the third person and appears to be distinct from the addressee (unless, of course, one takes “Lord” in v. 9 as vocative; see the note on “them” in v. 9b). Verse 7 begins this transition to a new addressee by referring to both the king and the Lord in the third person (in vv. 1-6 the Lord is addressed and only the king referred to in the third person).

¹² tn Heb “your hand finds.” The idiom pictures the king grabbing hold of his enemies and defeating them (see 1 Sam 23:17). The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 8-12 may be translated with the future tense, as long as the future is understood as generalizing.

¹³ tn Heb “your right hand finds those who hate you.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

¹⁵ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

¹⁶ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).