18:29 Indeed, 1 with your help 2 I can charge against 3 an army; 4
by my God’s power 5 I can jump over a wall. 6
118:10 All the nations surrounded me. 7
Indeed, in the name of the Lord 8 I pushed them away. 9
118:11 They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me.
Indeed, in the name of the Lord I pushed them away.
118:12 They surrounded me like bees.
But they disappeared as quickly 10 as a fire among thorns. 11
Indeed, in the name of the Lord I pushed them away.
1 tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.
2 tn Heb “by you.”
3 tn Heb “I will run.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 29 indicate the subject’s potential or capacity to perform an action. Though one might expect a preposition to follow the verb here, this need not be the case with the verb רוּץ (ruts; see 1 Sam 17:22). Some emend the Qal to a Hiphil form of the verb and translate, “I put to flight [Heb “cause to run”] an army.”
4 tn More specifically, the noun גְּדוּד (gÿdud) refers to a raiding party or to a contingent of troops.
5 tn Heb “and by my God.”
6 sn I can jump over a wall. The psalmist uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.
7 sn The reference to an attack by the nations suggests the psalmist may have been a military leader.
8 tn In this context the phrase “in the name of the
9 tn Traditionally the verb has been derived from מוּל (mul, “to circumcise”) and translated “[I] cut [them] off” (see BDB 557-58 s.v. II מוּל). However, it is likely that this is a homonym meaning “to fend off” (see HALOT 556 s.v. II מול) or “to push away.” In this context, where the psalmist is reporting his past experience, the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite. The phrase also occurs in vv. 11, 12.
10 tn Heb “were extinguished.”
11 tn The point seems to be that the hostility of the nations (v. 10) is short-lived, like a fire that quickly devours thorns and then burns out. Some, attempting to create a better parallel with the preceding line, emend דֹּעֲכוּ (do’akhu, “they were extinguished”) to בָּעֲרוּ (ba’aru, “they burned”). In this case the statement emphasizes their hostility.
12 tn BDAG 1034 s.v. ὑπερνικάω states, “as a heightened form of νικᾶν prevail completely ὑπερνικῶμεν we are winning a most glorious victory Ro 8:37.”
13 tn Here the referent could be either God or Christ, but in v. 39 it is God’s love that is mentioned.
14 tn The Greek word translated “all things” is in emphatic position at the beginning of the Greek sentence.
15 tc Although some excellent witnesses lack explicit reference to the one strengthening Paul (so א* A B D* I 33 1739 lat co Cl), the majority of witnesses (א2 D2 [F G] Ψ 075 1881 Ï sy) add Χριστῷ (Cristw) here (thus, “through Christ who strengthens me”). But this kind of reading is patently secondary, and is a predictable variant. Further, the shorter reading is much harder, for it leaves the agent unspecified.