18:11 He shrouded himself in darkness, 5
in thick rain clouds. 6
27:5 He will surely 7 give me shelter 8 in the day of danger; 9
he will hide me in his home; 10
he will place me 11 on an inaccessible rocky summit. 12
31:20 You hide them with you, where they are safe from the attacks 13 of men; 14
you conceal them in a shelter, where they are safe from slanderous attacks. 15
1 tn Heb “When he heard this word.”
2 tn Heb “in the temporary shelters.” This is probably referring to tents.
3 tn Heb “drinking and drunken.”
4 tn Heb “in the temporary shelters.” This is probably referring to tents.
5 tc Heb “he made darkness his hiding place around him, his covering.” 2 Sam 22:12 reads, “he made darkness around him coverings,” omitting “his hiding place” and pluralizing “covering.” Ps 18:11 may include a conflation of synonyms (“his hiding place” and “his covering”) or 2 Sam 22:12 may be the result of haplography/homoioarcton. Note that three successive words in Ps 18:11 begin with the Hebrew letter samek: סִתְרוֹ סְבִיבוֹתָיו סֻכָּתוֹ (sitro sÿvivotayv sukkato).
6 tc Heb “darkness of water, clouds of clouds.” The noun “darkness” (חֶשְׁכַת, kheshkhat) is probably a corruption of an original reading חשׁרת, a form that is preserved in 2 Sam 22:12. The latter is a construct form of חַשְׁרָה (khashrah, “sieve”) which occurs only here in the OT. A cognate Ugaritic noun means “sieve,” and a related verb חָשַׁר (khashar, “to sift”) is attested in postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic. The phrase חַשְׁרַת מַיִם (khashrat mayim) means literally “a sieve of water.” It pictures the rain clouds as a sieve through which the rain falls to the ground (see F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry [SBLDS], 146, n. 33).
7 tn Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי (ki) is asseverative here, rather than causal.
8 tn Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”
9 tn Or “trouble.”
10 tn Heb “tent.”
11 tn The three imperfect verb forms in v. 5 anticipate a positive response to the prayer offered in vv. 7-12.
12 tn Heb “on a rocky summit he lifts me up.” The
13 tn The noun רֹכֶס (rokhes) occurs only here. Its meaning is debated; some suggest “snare,” while others propose “slander” or “conspiracy.”
14 tn Heb “you hide them in the hiding place of your face from the attacks of man.” The imperfect verbal forms in this verse draw attention to God’s typical treatment of the faithful.
15 tn Heb “you conceal them in a shelter from the strife of tongues.”