18:37 I chase my enemies and catch 1 them;
I do not turn back until I wipe them out.
18:38 I beat them 2 to death; 3
they fall at my feet. 4
18:39 You give me strength 5 for battle;
you make my foes kneel before me. 6
18:40 You make my enemies retreat; 7
I destroy those who hate me. 8
18:41 They cry out, but there is no one to help them; 9
they cry out to the Lord, 10 but he does not answer them.
18:42 I grind them as fine windblown dust; 11
I beat them underfoot 12 like clay 13 in the streets.
21:8 You 14 prevail over 15 all your enemies;
your power is too great for those who hate you. 16
21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace 17 when you appear; 18
the Lord angrily devours them; 19
the fire consumes them.
21:10 You destroy their offspring 20 from the earth,
their descendants 21 from among the human race. 22
69:22 May their dining table become a trap before them!
May it be a snare for that group of friends! 23
69:23 May their eyes be blinded! 24
Make them shake violently! 25
69:24 Pour out your judgment 26 on them!
May your raging anger 27 overtake them!
69:25 May their camp become desolate,
their tents uninhabited! 28
69:26 For they harass 29 the one whom you discipline; 30
they spread the news about the suffering of those whom you punish. 31
69:27 Hold them accountable for all their sins! 32
Do not vindicate them! 33
69:28 May their names be deleted from the scroll of the living! 34
Do not let their names be listed with the godly! 35
109:6 36 Appoint an evil man to testify against him! 37
May an accuser stand 38 at his right side!
109:7 When he is judged, he will be found 39 guilty! 40
Then his prayer will be regarded as sinful.
109:8 May his days be few! 41
May another take his job! 42
109:9 May his children 43 be fatherless,
and his wife a widow!
109:10 May his children 44 roam around begging,
asking for handouts as they leave their ruined home! 45
109:11 May the creditor seize 46 all he owns!
May strangers loot his property! 47
109:12 May no one show him kindness! 48
May no one have compassion 49 on his fatherless children!
109:13 May his descendants 50 be cut off! 51
May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives! 52
109:14 May his ancestors’ 53 sins be remembered by the Lord!
May his mother’s sin not be forgotten! 54
109:15 May the Lord be constantly aware of them, 55
and cut off the memory of his children 56 from the earth!
109:16 For he never bothered to show kindness; 57
he harassed the oppressed and needy,
and killed the disheartened. 58
109:17 He loved to curse 59 others, so those curses have come upon him. 60
He had no desire to bless anyone, so he has experienced no blessings. 61
109:18 He made cursing a way of life, 62
so curses poured into his stomach like water
and seeped into his bones like oil. 63
109:19 May a curse attach itself to him, like a garment one puts on, 64
or a belt 65 one wears continually!
109:20 May the Lord repay my accusers in this way, 66
those who say evil things about 67 me! 68
1 tn 2 Sam 22:38 reads “destroy.”
2 tn Or “smash them.” 2 Sam 22:39 reads, “and I wiped them out and smashed them.”
3 tn Heb “until they are unable to rise.” 2 Sam 22:39 reads, “until they do not rise.”
4 sn They fall at my feet. For ancient Near Eastern parallels, see O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 294-97.
5 tn Heb “clothed me.” See v. 32.
6 tn Heb “you make those who rise against me kneel beneath me.”
7 tn Heb “and [as for] my enemies, you give to me [the] back [or “neck”].” The idiom “give [the] back” means “to cause [one] to turn the back and run away.” Cf. Exod 23:27.
8 sn Those who hate me. See v. 17, where it is the
9 tn Heb “but there is no deliverer.”
10 tn Heb “to the
11 tn Heb “I pulverize them like dust upon the face of the wind.” The phrase “upon the face of” here means “before.” 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “like dust of the earth.”
12 tc Ps 18:42 reads, “I empty them out” (Hiphil of ריק), while 2 Sam 22:43 reads, “I crush them, I stomp on them” (juxtaposing the synonyms דקק and רקע). It is likely that the latter is a conflation of variants. One, but not both, of the verbs in 2 Sam 22:43 is probably original; “empty out” does not form as good a parallel with “grind, pulverize” in the parallel line.
13 tn Or “mud.”
14 tn The king is now addressed. One could argue that the
15 tn Heb “your hand finds.” The idiom pictures the king grabbing hold of his enemies and defeating them (see 1 Sam 23:17). The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 8-12 may be translated with the future tense, as long as the future is understood as generalizing.
16 tn Heb “your right hand finds those who hate you.”
17 tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).
18 tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.
19 tn Heb “the
20 tn Heb “fruit.” The next line makes it clear that offspring is in view.
21 tn Heb “seed.”
22 tn Heb “sons of man.”
23 tc Heb “and to the friends for a snare.” The plural of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is used in Ps 55:20 of one’s “friends.” If the reading of the MT is retained here, the term depicts the psalmist’s enemies as a close-knit group of friends who are bound together by their hatred for the psalmist. Some prefer to revocalize the text as וּלְשִׁלּוּמִים (ulÿshillumim, “and for retribution”). In this case the noun stands parallel to פַּח (pakh, “trap”) and מוֹקֵשׁ (moqesh, “snare”), and one might translate, “may their dining table become a trap before them, [a means of] retribution and a snare” (cf. NIV).
24 tn Heb “may their eyes be darkened from seeing.”
25 tn Heb “make their hips shake continually.”
26 tn Heb “anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger.
27 tn Heb “the rage of your anger.” The phrase “rage of your anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. 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.
28 tn Heb “in their tents may there not be one who dwells.”
29 tn Or “persecute”; Heb “chase.”
30 tn Heb “for you, the one whom you strike, they chase.”
31 tn Heb “they announce the pain of your wounded ones” (i.e., “the ones whom you wounded,” as the parallel line makes clear).
32 tn Heb “place sin upon their sin.”
33 tn Heb “let them not come into your vindication.”
34 tn Heb “let them be wiped out of the scroll of the living.”
35 tn Heb “and with the godly let them not be written.”
36 sn In vv. 6-19 the psalmist calls on God to judge his enemies severely. Some attribute this curse-list to the psalmist’s enemies rather than the psalmist. In this case one should paraphrase v. 6: “They say about me, ‘Appoint an evil man, etc.’” Those supporting this line of interpretation point out that vv. 2-5 and 20 refer to the enemies’ attack on the psalmist being a verbal one. Furthermore in vv. 1-5, 20 the psalmist speaks of his enemies in the plural, while vv. 6-19 refer to an individual. This use of the singular in vv. 6-19 could be readily explained if this is the psalmist’s enemies’ curse on him. However, it is much more natural to understand vv. 6-19 as the psalmist’s prayer against his enemies. There is no introductory quotation formula in v. 6 to indicate that the psalmist is quoting anyone, and the statement “may the
37 tn Heb “appoint against him an evil [man].”
38 tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive here (note the imperative in the preceding line).
39 tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as a jussive, but the use of the imperfect form in the following line suggests that v. 7 anticipates the outcome of the accusation envisioned in v. 6.
40 tn Heb “he will go out [as] a criminal” (that is, guilty).
41 tn The prefixed verbal forms (except those with vav [ו] consecutive) in vv. 8-20 are taken as jussives of prayer. Note the distinct jussive forms used in vv. 12-13, 15, 19.
42 tn The Hebrew noun פְּקֻדָּה (pÿquddah) can mean “charge” or “office,” though BDB 824 s.v. suggests that here it refers to his possessions.
43 tn Or “sons.”
44 tn Or “sons.”
45 tn Heb “and roaming, may his children roam and beg, and seek from their ruins.” Some, following the LXX, emend the term וְדָרְשׁוּ (vÿdoreshu, “and seek”) to יְגֹרְשׁוּ (yÿgoreshu; a Pual jussive, “may they be driven away” [see Job 30:5; cf. NIV, NRSV]), but דָּרַשׁ (darash) nicely parallels שִׁאֵלוּ (shi’elu, “and beg”) in the preceding line.
46 tn Heb “lay snares for” (see Ps 38:12).
47 tn Heb “the product of his labor.”
48 tn Heb “may there not be for him one who extends loyal love.”
49 tn Perhaps this refers to being generous (see Ps 37:21).
50 tn Or “offspring.”
51 sn On the expression cut off see Ps 37:28.
52 tn Heb “in another generation may their name be wiped out.”
53 tn Or “fathers’ sins.”
54 tn Heb “not be wiped out.”
55 tn Heb “may they [that is, the sins mentioned in v. 14] be before the
56 tn Heb “their memory.” The plural pronominal suffix probably refers back to the children mentioned in v. 13, and for clarity this has been specified in the translation.
57 tn Heb “he did not remember to do loyal love.”
58 tn Heb “and he chased an oppressed and needy man, and one timid of heart to put [him] to death.”
59 sn A curse in OT times consists of a formal appeal to God to bring judgment down upon another. Curses were sometimes justified (such as the one spoken by the psalmist here in vv. 6-19), but when they were not, the one pronouncing the curse was in danger of bringing the anticipated judgment down upon himself.
60 tn Heb “and he loved a curse and it came [upon] him.” A reference to the evil man experiencing a curse seems premature here, for the psalmist is asking God to bring judgment on his enemies. For this reason some (cf. NIV, NRSV) prefer to repoint the vav (ו) on “it came” as conjunctive and translate the verb as a jussive of prayer (“may it come upon him!”). The prefixed form with vav consecutive in the next line is emended in the same way and translated, “may it be far from him.” However, the psalmist may be indicating that the evil man’s lifestyle has already begun to yield its destructive fruit.
61 tn Heb “and he did not delight in a blessing and it is far from him.”
62 tn Heb “he put on a curse as [if it were] his garment.”
63 tn Heb “and it came like water into his inner being, and like oil into his bones.” This may refer to this individual’s appetite for cursing. For him cursing was as refreshing as drinking water or massaging oneself with oil. Another option is that the destructive effects of a curse are in view. In this case a destructive curse invades his very being, like water or oil. Some who interpret the verse this way prefer to repoint the vav (ו) on “it came” to a conjunctive vav and interpret the prefixed verb as a jussive, “may it come!”
64 tn Heb “may it be for him like a garment one puts on.”
65 tn The Hebrew noun מֵזַח (mezakh, “belt; waistband”) occurs only here in the OT. The form apparently occurs in Isa 23:10 as well, but an emendation is necessary there.
66 tn Heb “[may] this [be] the repayment to my accusers from the
67 tn Or “against.”
68 tn The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being; soul”) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).
69 tn Grk “to rule over them.”
70 tn This term, when used of people rather than animals, has some connotations of violence and mercilessness (L&N 20.72).
71 sn Slaughter them. To reject the king is to face certain judgment from him.