10:1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you pay no attention during times of trouble? 2
10:11 He says to himself, 3
“God overlooks it;
he does not pay attention;
he never notices.” 4
For the music director; a psalm of David.
13:1 How long, Lord, will you continue to ignore me? 6
How long will you pay no attention to me? 7
43:1 Vindicate me, O God!
Fight for me 9 against an ungodly nation!
Deliver me 10 from deceitful and evil men! 11
43:2 For you are the God who shelters me. 12
Why do you reject me? 13
Why must I walk around 14 mourning 15
because my enemies oppress me?
43:3 Reveal 16 your light 17 and your faithfulness!
They will lead me, 18
they will escort 19 me back to your holy hill, 20
and to the place where you live. 21
43:4 Then I will go 22 to the altar of God,
to the God who gives me ecstatic joy, 23
so that I express my thanks to you, 24 O God, my God, with a harp.
32:20 He said, “I will reject them, 25
I will see what will happen to them;
for they are a perverse generation,
children 26 who show no loyalty.
13:24 Why do you hide your face 27
and regard me as your enemy?
1 sn Psalm 10. Many Hebrew
2 tn Heb “you hide for times in trouble.” The interrogative “why” is understood by ellipsis; note the preceding line. The Hiphil verbal form “hide” has no expressed object. Some supply “your eyes” by ellipsis (see BDB 761 s.v. I עָלַם Hiph and HALOT 835 s.v. I עלם hif) or emend the form to a Niphal (“you hide yourself,” see BHS, note c; cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV).
3 tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.
4 tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”
5 sn Psalm 13. The psalmist, who is close to death, desperately pleads for God’s deliverance and affirms his trust in God’s faithfulness.
6 tn Heb “will you forget me continually.”
7 tn Heb “will you hide your face from me.”
8 sn Psalm 43. Many medieval Hebrew
9 tn Or “argue my case.”
10 tn The imperfect here expresses a request or wish. Note the imperatives in the first half of the verse. See also v. 3.
11 tn Heb “from the deceitful and evil man.” The Hebrew text uses the singular form “man” in a collective sense, as the reference to a “nation” in the parallel line indicates.
12 tn Heb “God of my place of refuge,” that is, “God who is my place of refuge.” See Ps 31:4.
13 tn The question is similar to that of Ps 42:9, but זָנַח (zanakh, “reject”) is a stronger verb than שָׁכַח (shakhakh, “forget”).
14 tn The language is similar to that of Ps 42:9, but the Hitpael form of the verb הָלַךְ (halakh; as opposed to the Qal form in 42:9) expresses more forcefully the continuing nature of the psalmist’s distress.
15 sn Walk around mourning. See Ps 38:6 for a similar statement.
16 tn Heb “send.”
17 sn God’s deliverance is compared here to a light which will lead the psalmist back home to the Lord’s temple. Divine deliverance will in turn demonstrate the Lord’s faithfulness to his people.
18 tn Or “may they lead me.” The prefixed verbal forms here and in the next line may be taken as jussives.
19 tn Heb “bring.”
20 sn In this context the Lord’s holy hill is Zion/Jerusalem. See Isa 66:20; Joel 2:1; 3:17; Zech 8:3; Pss 2:6; 15:1; 48:1; 87:1; Dan 9:16.
21 tn Or “to your dwelling place[s].” The plural form of the noun may indicate degree or quality; this is the
22 tn The cohortative expresses the psalmist’s resolve. Prefixed with the vav (ו) conjunctive it also expresses the result or outcome of the preceding verbs “lead” and “escort.”
23 tn Heb “to God, the joy of my happiness.” The phrase “joy of my happiness” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the degree of the psalmist’s joy. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.
24 tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive probably indicates purpose (“so that”) or intention.
25 tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”
26 tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”
27 sn The anthropomorphism of “hide the face” indicates a withdrawal of favor and an outpouring of wrath (see Ps 30:7 [8]; Isa 54:8; Ps 27:9). Sometimes God “hides his face” to make himself invisible or aloof (see 34:29). In either case, if God covers his face it is because he considers Job an enemy – at least this is what Job thinks.