30:5 For his anger lasts only a brief moment,
and his good favor restores one’s life. 1
One may experience sorrow during the night,
but joy arrives in the morning. 2
55:3 because of what the enemy says, 3
and because of how the wicked 4 pressure me, 5
for they hurl trouble 6 down upon me 7
and angrily attack me.
1 tn Heb “for [there is] a moment in his anger, [but] life in his favor.” Because of the parallelism with “moment,” some understand חַיִּים (khayyim) in a quantitative sense: “lifetime” (cf. NIV, NRSV). However, the immediate context, which emphasizes deliverance from death (see v. 3), suggests that חַיִּים has a qualitative sense: “physical life” or even “prosperous life” (cf. NEB “in his favour there is life”).
2 tn Heb “in the evening weeping comes to lodge, but at morning a shout of joy.” “Weeping” is personified here as a traveler who lodges with one temporarily.
3 tn Heb “because of [the] voice of [the] enemy.”
4 tn The singular forms “enemy” and “wicked” are collective or representative, as the plural verb forms in the second half of the verse indicate.
5 tn Heb “from before the pressure of the wicked.” Some suggest the meaning “screech” (note the parallel “voice”; cf. NEB “shrill clamour”; NRSV “clamor”) for the rare noun עָקָה (’aqah, “pressure”).
6 tn Heb “wickedness,” but here the term refers to the destructive effects of their wicked acts.
7 tc The verb form in the MT appears to be a Hiphil imperfect from the root מוֹט (mot, “to sway”), but the Hiphil occurs only here and in the Kethib (consonantal text) of Ps 140:10, where the form יַמְטֵר (yamter, “let him rain down”) should probably be read. Here in Ps 55:3 it is preferable to read יַמְטִירוּ (yamtiru, “they rain down”). It is odd for “rain down” to be used with an abstract object like “wickedness,” but in Job 20:23 God “rains down” anger (unless one emends the text there; see BHS).