Psalms 25:2

25:2 My God, I trust in you.

Please do not let me be humiliated;

do not let my enemies triumphantly rejoice over me!

Psalms 36:11

36:11 Do not let arrogant men overtake me,

or let evil men make me homeless! 1 

Psalms 51:11

51:11 Do not reject me! 2 

Do not take your Holy Spirit 3  away from me! 4 

Psalms 74:19

74:19 Do not hand the life of your dove 5  over to a wild animal!

Do not continue to disregard 6  the lives of your oppressed people!

Psalms 75:4

75:4 7 I say to the proud, “Do not be proud,”

and to the wicked, “Do not be so confident of victory! 8 

Psalms 109:12

109:12 May no one show him kindness! 9 

May no one have compassion 10  on his fatherless children!

Psalms 140:8

140:8 O Lord, do not let the wicked have their way! 11 

Do not allow their 12  plan to succeed when they attack! 13  (Selah)

1 tn Heb “let not a foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the evil ones cause me to wander as a fugitive.”

1 tn Heb “do not cast me away from before you.”

2 sn Your Holy Spirit. The personal Spirit of God is mentioned frequently in the OT, but only here and in Isa 63:10-11 is he called “your/his Holy Spirit.”

3 sn Do not take…away. The psalmist expresses his fear that, due to his sin, God will take away the Holy Spirit from him. NT believers enjoy the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit and need not make such a request nor fear such a consequence. However, in the OT God’s Spirit empowered certain individuals for special tasks and only temporarily resided in them. For example, when God rejected Saul as king and chose David to replace him, the divine Spirit left Saul and came upon David (1 Sam 16:13-14).

1 sn Your dove. The psalmist compares weak and vulnerable Israel to a helpless dove.

2 tn Heb “do not forget forever.”

1 tn The identity of the speaker in vv. 4-6 is unclear. The present translation assumes that the psalmist, who also speaks in vv. 7-9 (where God/the Lord is spoken of in the third person) here addresses the proud and warns them of God’s judgment. The presence of כִּי (ki, “for”) at the beginning of both vv. 6-7 seems to indicate that vv. 4-9 are a unit. However, there is no formal indication of a new speaker in v. 4 (or in v. 10, where God appears to speak). Another option is to see God speaking in vv. 2-6 and v. 10 and to take only vv. 7-9 as the words of the psalmist. In this case one must interpret כִּי at the beginning of v. 7 in an asseverative or emphatic sense (“surely; indeed”).

2 tn Heb “do not lift up a horn.” The horn of an ox underlies the metaphor (see Deut 33:17; 1 Kgs 22:11; Ps 92:10). The horn of the wild ox is frequently a metaphor for military strength; the idiom “exalt/lift up the horn” signifies military victory (see 1 Sam 2:10; Pss 89:17, 24; 92:10; Lam 2:17). Here the idiom seems to refer to an arrogant attitude that assumes victory has been achieved.

1 tn Heb “may there not be for him one who extends loyal love.”

2 tn Perhaps this refers to being generous (see Ps 37:21).

1 tn Heb “do not grant the desires of the wicked.”

2 tn Heb “his.” The singular is used in a representative sense (see v. 1).

3 tn Heb “his plot do not promote, they rise up.” The translation understands the final verb as being an unmarked temporal clause. Another option is to revocalize the verb as a Hiphil and take the verb with the next verse, “those who surround me lift up [their] head,” which could refer to their proud attitude as they anticipate victory (see Ps 27:6).