13:3 Look at me! 1 Answer me, O Lord my God!
Revive me, 2 or else I will die! 3
31:17 O Lord, do not let me be humiliated,
for I call out to you!
May evil men be humiliated!
May they go wailing to the grave! 4
115:17 The dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do any of those who descend into the silence of death. 5
1 tn Heb “see.”
2 tn Heb “Give light [to] my eyes.” The Hiphil of אוּר (’ur), when used elsewhere with “eyes” as object, refers to the law of God giving moral enlightenment (Ps 19:8), to God the creator giving literal eyesight to all people (Prov 29:13), and to God giving encouragement to his people (Ezra 9:8). Here the psalmist pictures himself as being on the verge of death. His eyes are falling shut and, if God does not intervene soon, he will “fall asleep” for good.
3 tn Heb “or else I will sleep [in?] the death.” Perhaps the statement is elliptical, “I will sleep [the sleep] of death,” or “I will sleep [with the sleepers in] death.”
4 tn The verb יִדְּמוּ (yiddÿmu) is understood as a form of דָּמַם (damam, “wail, lament”). Another option is to take the verb from דָּמַם (“be quiet”; see BDB 198-99 s.v. I דָּמַם), in which case one might translate, “May they lie silent in the grave.”
5 tn Heb “silence,” a metonymy here for death (see Ps 94:17).