148:10 you animals and all you cattle,
you creeping things and birds,
8:8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea
and everything that moves through the currents 1 of the seas.
102:7 I stay awake; 2
I am like a solitary bird on a roof.
104:17 where the birds make nests,
near the evergreens in which the herons live. 3
For the music director; by David.
11:1 In the Lord I have taken shelter. 5
How can you say to me, 6
“Flee to a mountain like a bird! 7
124:7 We escaped with our lives, 8 like a bird from a hunter’s snare.
The snare broke, and we escaped.
84:3 Even the birds find a home there,
and the swallow 9 builds a nest,
where she can protect her young 10
near your altars, O Lord who rules over all,
my king and my God.
1 tn Heb “paths.”
1 tn This probably refers to the psalmist’s inability to sleep. Another option is to translate, “I keep watch,” in which case it might refer to watching for a response from the
1 tn Heb “[the] heron [in the] evergreens [is] its home.”
1 sn Psalm 11. The psalmist rejects the advice to flee from his dangerous enemies. Instead he affirms his confidence in God’s just character and calls down judgment on evildoers.
2 tn The Hebrew perfect verbal form probably refers here to a completed action with continuing results.
3 tn The pronominal suffix attached to נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is equivalent to a personal pronoun. See Ps 6:3.
4 tc The MT is corrupt here. The Kethib (consonantal text) reads: “flee [masculine plural!] to your [masculine plural!] mountain, bird.” The Qere (marginal reading) has “flee” in a feminine singular form, agreeing grammatically with the addressee, the feminine noun “bird.” Rather than being a second masculine plural pronominal suffix, the ending כֶם- (-khem) attached to “mountain” is better interpreted as a second feminine singular pronominal suffix followed by an enclitic mem (ם). “Bird” may be taken as vocative (“O bird”) or as an adverbial accusative of manner (“like a bird”). Either way, the psalmist’s advisers compare him to a helpless bird whose only option in the face of danger is to fly away to an inaccessible place.
1 tn Heb “our life escaped.”
1 tn The word translated “swallow” occurs only here and in Prov 26:2.
2 tn Heb “even a bird finds a home, and a swallow a nest for herself, [in] which she places her young.”