48:16 the Angel 1 who has protected me 2
from all harm –
bless these boys.
May my name be named in them, 3
and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.
May they grow into a multitude on the earth.”
27:2 When evil men attack me 4
to devour my flesh, 5
when my adversaries and enemies attack me, 6
they stumble and fall. 7
37:40 The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from evil men and delivers them, 8
for they seek his protection.
49:24 Can spoils be taken from a warrior,
or captives be rescued from a conqueror? 9
49:25 Indeed,” says the Lord,
“captives will be taken from a warrior;
spoils will be rescued from a conqueror.
I will oppose your adversary
and I will rescue your children.
54:17 No weapon forged to be used against you will succeed;
you will refute everyone who tries to accuse you. 10
This is what the Lord will do for his servants –
I will vindicate them,” 11
says the Lord.
6:13 And do not lead us into temptation, 12 but deliver us from the evil one. 13
1 sn The Samaritan Pentateuch reads “king” here, but the traditional reading (“angel”) may be maintained. Jacob closely associates God with an angelic protective presence. This does not mean that Jacob viewed his God as a mere angel, but it does suggest that he was aware of an angelic presence sent by God to protect him. Here he so closely associates the two that they become virtually indistinguishable. In this culture messengers typically carried the authority of the one who sent them and could even be addressed as such. Perhaps Jacob thought that the divine blessing would be mediated through this angelic messenger.
2 tn The verb גָּאַל (ga’al) has the basic idea of “protect” as a near relative might do. It is used for buying someone out of bondage, marrying a deceased brother’s widow, paying off debts, avenging the family, and the like. The meanings of “deliver, protect, avenge” are most fitting when God is the subject (see A. R. Johnson, “The Primary Meaning of √גאל,” Congress Volume: Copenhagen, 1953 [VTSup], 67-77).
3 tn Or “be recalled through them.”
4 tn Heb “draw near to me.”
5 sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).
6 tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.
7 tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”
8 tn The prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive carry on the generalizing tone of the preceding verse.
9 tc The Hebrew text has צָדִיק (tsadiq, “a righteous [one]”), but this makes no sense in the parallelism. The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa reads correctly עריץ (“violent [one], tyrant”; see v. 25).
10 tn Heb “and every tongue that rises up for judgment with you will prove to be guilty.”
11 tn Heb “this is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication from me.”
12 tn Or “into a time of testing.”
13 tc Most
14 tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”
15 tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”