A psalm of David, written when he fled from his son Absalom. 2
3:1 Lord, how 3 numerous are my enemies!
Many attack me. 4
18:38 I beat them 5 to death; 6
they fall at my feet. 7
A psalm by Asaph.
50:1 El, God, the Lord 9 speaks,
and summons the earth to come from the east and west. 10
94:16 Who will rise up to defend me 11 against the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against the evildoers? 12
113:3 From east to west 13
the Lord’s name is deserving of praise.
139:21 O Lord, do I not hate those who hate you,
and despise those who oppose you? 14
140:10 May he rain down 15 fiery coals upon them!
May he throw them into the fire!
From bottomless pits they will not escape. 16
1 sn Psalm 3. The psalmist acknowledges that he is confronted by many enemies (vv. 1-2). But, alluding to a divine oracle he has received (vv. 4-5), he affirms his confidence in God’s ability to protect him (vv. 3, 6) and requests that God make his promise a reality (vv. 7-8).
2 sn According to Jewish tradition, David offered this prayer when he was forced to flee from Jerusalem during his son Absalom’s attempted coup (see 2 Sam 15:13-17).
3 tn The Hebrew term מָה (mah, “how”) is used here as an adverbial exclamation (see BDB 553 s.v.).
4 tn Heb “many rise up against me.”
5 tn Or “smash them.” 2 Sam 22:39 reads, “and I wiped them out and smashed them.”
6 tn Heb “until they are unable to rise.” 2 Sam 22:39 reads, “until they do not rise.”
7 sn They fall at my feet. For ancient Near Eastern parallels, see O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 294-97.
9 sn Psalm 50. This psalm takes the form of a covenant lawsuit in which the Lord comes to confront his people in a formal manner (as in Isa 1:2-20). The Lord emphasizes that he places priority on obedience and genuine worship, not empty ritual.
10 sn Israel’s God is here identified with three names: El (אֵל [’el], or “God”), Elohim (אֱלֹהִים [’elohim], or “God”), and Yahweh (יְהוָה [yÿhvah] or “the
11 tn Heb “and calls [the] earth from the sunrise to its going.”
13 tn Heb “for me.”
14 sn Who will stand up for me…? The questions anticipate the answer, “No one except God” (see v. 17).
17 tn Heb “from the rising of the sun to its setting.” The extent is not temporal (“from sunrise to sunset”) but spatial (“from the place where the sun rises [the east] to the place where it sets [the west].” In the phenomenological language of OT cosmology, the sun was described as rising in the east and setting in the west.
21 tc Heb “who raise themselves up against you.” The form וּבִתְקוֹמְמֶיךָ (uvitqomÿmekha) should be emended to וּבְמִתְקוֹמְמֶיךָ (uvÿmitqomÿmekha), a Hitpolel participle (the prefixed mem [מ] of the participle is accidentally omitted in the MT, though a few medieval Hebrew
25 tn The verb form in the Kethib (consonantal Hebrew text) appears to be a Hiphil imperfect from the root מוּט (mut, “to sway”), but the Hiphil occurs only here and in Ps 55:3, where it is preferable to read יַמְטִירוּ (yamtiru, “they rain down”). In Ps 140:10 the form יַמְטֵר (yamter, “let him rain down”) should probably be read.
26 tn Heb “into bottomless pits, they will not arise.” The translation assumes that the preposition -בְּ (bet) has the nuance “from” here. Another option is to connect the line with what precedes, take the final clause as an asyndetic relative clause, and translate, “into bottomless pits [from which] they cannot arise.” The Hebrew noun מַהֲמֹרָה (mahamorah, “bottomless pit”) occurs only here in the OT.