108:12 Give us help against the enemy,
for any help men might offer is futile. 1
A song of ascents, 3 by David.
124:1 “If the Lord had not been on our side” –
let Israel say this! –
124:2 if the Lord had not been on our side,
when men attacked us, 4
124:3 they would have swallowed us alive,
when their anger raged against us.
146:3 Do not trust in princes,
or in human beings, who cannot deliver! 5
30:7 Egypt is totally incapable of helping. 6
For this reason I call her
‘Proud one 7 who is silenced.’” 8
31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;
their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.
The Lord will strike with 9 his hand;
the one who helps will stumble
and the one being helped will fall.
Together they will perish. 10
1 tn Heb “and futile [is] the deliverance of man.”
2 sn Psalm 124. Israel acknowledges that the Lord delivered them from certain disaster.
3 sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.
4 tn Heb “rose up against us.”
5 tn Heb “in a son of man, to whom there is no deliverance.”
6 tn Heb “As for Egypt, with vanity and emptiness they help.”
7 tn Heb “Rahab” (רַהַב, rahav), which also appears as a name for Egypt in Ps 87:4. The epithet is also used in the OT for a mythical sea monster symbolic of chaos. See the note at 51:9. A number of English versions use the name “Rahab” (e.g., ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) while others attempt some sort of translation (cf. CEV “a helpless monster”; TEV, NLT “the Harmless Dragon”).
8 tn The MT reads “Rahab, they, sitting.” The translation above assumes an emendation of הֵם שָׁבֶת (hem shavet) to הַמָּשְׁבָּת (hammashbat), a Hophal participle with prefixed definite article, meaning “the one who is made to cease,” i.e., “destroyed,” or “silenced.” See HALOT 444-45 s.v. ישׁב.
9 tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”
10 tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”