32:23 I will increase their 1 disasters,
I will use up my arrows on them.
7:12 If a person 2 does not repent, God sharpens his sword 3
and prepares to shoot his bow. 4
7:13 He prepares to use deadly weapons against him; 5
he gets ready to shoot flaming arrows. 6
By David.
35:1 O Lord, fight 8 those who fight with me!
Attack those who attack me!
35:2 Grab your small shield and large shield, 9
and rise up to help me!
35:3 Use your spear and lance 10 against 11 those who chase me!
Assure me with these words: 12 “I am your deliverer!”
51:9 Wake up! Wake up!
Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord! 13
Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity!
Did you not smash 14 the Proud One? 15
Did you not 16 wound the sea monster? 17
51:10 Did you not dry up the sea,
the waters of the great deep?
Did you not make 18 a path through the depths of the sea,
so those delivered from bondage 19 could cross over?
52:10 The Lord reveals 20 his royal power 21
in the sight of all the nations;
the entire 22 earth sees
our God deliver. 23
ד (Dalet)
2:4 He prepared his bow 24 like an enemy;
his right hand was ready to shoot. 25
Like a foe he killed everyone,
even our strong young men; 26
he has poured out his anger like fire
on the tent 27 of Daughter Zion.
1 tn Heb “upon them.”
2 tn Heb “If he”; the referent (a person who is a sinner) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The subject of the first verb is understood as the sinner who fails to repent of his ways and becomes the target of God’s judgment (vv. 9, 14-16).
3 tn Heb “if he does not return, his sword he sharpens.” The referent (God) of the pronominal subject of the second verb (“sharpens”) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Heb “his bow he treads and prepares it.” “Treading the bow” involved stepping on one end of it in order to string it and thus prepare it for battle.
5 tn Heb “and for him he prepares the weapons of death.”
6 tn Heb “his arrows into flaming [things] he makes.”
7 sn Psalm 35. The author, who faces ruthless enemies who seek his life for no reason, begs the Lord to fight his battles for him and to vindicate him by annihilating his adversaries.
8 tn Or “contend.”
9 tn Two different types of shields are mentioned here. See also Ezek 38:4. Many modern translations render the first term (translated here “small shield”) as “buckler” (cf. NASB “buckler and shield”; the order is often reversed in the translation, apparently for stylistic reasons: cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV “shield and buckler”). The English term “buckler,” referring to a small round shield held on the arm to protect the upper body, is unfamiliar to many modern readers, so the term “small shield” was used in the present translation for clarity.
10 tn Or “javelin.” On the meaning of this word, which occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, see M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:210-11.
11 tn Heb “draw out spear and lance to meet.”
12 tn Heb “say to me,” or “say to my soul.”
13 tn The arm of the Lord is a symbol of divine military power. Here it is personified and told to arouse itself from sleep and prepare for action.
14 tn Heb “Are you not the one who smashed?” The feminine singular forms agree grammatically with the feminine noun “arm.” The Hebrew text has ַהמַּחְצֶבֶת (hammakhtsevet), from the verbal root חָצַב (khatsav, “hew, chop”). The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has, probably correctly, המחצת, from the verbal root מָחַץ (makhats, “smash”) which is used in Job 26:12 to describe God’s victory over “the Proud One.”
15 tn This title (רַהַב, rahav, “proud one”) is sometimes translated as a proper name: “Rahab” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). It is used here of a symbolic sea monster, known elsewhere in the Bible and in Ugaritic myth as Leviathan. This sea creature symbolizes the forces of chaos that seek to destroy the created order. In the Bible “the Proud One” opposes God’s creative work, but is defeated (see Job 26:12; Ps 89:10). Here the title refers to Pharaoh’s Egyptian army that opposed Israel at the Red Sea (see v. 10, and note also Isa 30:7 and Ps 87:4, where the title is used of Egypt).
16 tn The words “did you not” are understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line). The rhetorical questions here and in v. 10 expect the answer, “Yes, you certainly did!”
17 tn Hebrew תַּנִּין (tannin) is another name for the symbolic sea monster. See the note at 27:1. In this context the sea creature represents Egypt. See the note on the title “Proud One” earlier in this verse.
18 tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made…?”
19 tn Heb “the redeemed” (so ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV “the ransomed.”
20 tn Heb “lays bare”; NLT “will demonstrate.”
21 tn Heb “his holy arm.” This is a metonymy for his power.
22 tn Heb “the remote regions,” which here stand for the extremities and everything in between.
23 tn Heb “the deliverance of our God.” “God” is a subjective genitive here.
24 tn Heb “bent His bow.” When the verb דָּרַךְ (darakh) is used with the noun קֶשֶׁת (qeshet, “archer-bow”), it means “to bend [a bow]” to string it in preparation for shooting arrows (1 Chr 5:18; 8:40; 2 Chr 14:7; Jer 50:14, 29; 51:3). This idiom is used figuratively to describe the assaults of the wicked (Pss 11:2; 37:14) and the judgments of the
25 tn Heb “His right hand is stationed.”
26 tn Heb “the ones who were pleasing to the eye.”
27 tn The singular noun אֹהֶל (’ohel, “tent”) may function as a collective, referring to all tents in Judah. A parallel expression occurs in verse 2 using the plural: “all the dwellings of Jacob” (כָּל־נְאוֹת יַעֲקֹב, kol-nÿ’ot ya’aqov). The singular “tent” matches the image of “Daughter Zion.” On the other hand, the singular “the tent of Daughter Zion” might be a hyperbolic synecdoche of container (= tent) for contents (= inhabitants of Zion).