31:4 You will free me 1 from the net they hid for me,
for you are my place of refuge.
124:7 We escaped with our lives, 2 like a bird from a hunter’s snare.
The snare broke, and we escaped.
124:8 Our deliverer is the Lord, 3
the Creator 4 of heaven and earth.
5:26 “Indeed, there are wicked scoundrels among my people.
They lie in wait like bird catchers hiding in ambush. 5
They set deadly traps 6 to catch people.
5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord. 7
But the fact is, 8 what they swear to is really a lie.” 9
2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out
and your throats become dry. 10
But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me
because I love those foreign gods 11 and want to pursue them!’
2:26 Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught,
so the people of Israel 12 will suffer dishonor for what they have done. 13
So will their kings and officials,
their priests and their prophets.
1 tn Heb “bring me out.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form expresses the psalmist’s confidence about the future. Another option is to take the form as expressing a prayer, “free me.”
2 tn Heb “our life escaped.”
3 tn Heb “our help [is] in the name of the
4 tn Or “Maker.”
5 tn The meaning of the last three words is uncertain. The pointing and meaning of the Hebrew word rendered “hiding in ambush” is debated. BDB relates the form (כְּשַׁךְ, kÿshakh) to a root שָׁכַךְ (shakhakh), which elsewhere means “decrease, abate” (cf. BDB 1013 s.v. שָׁכַךְ), and notes that this is usually understood as “like the crouching of fowlers,” but they say this meaning is dubious. HALOT 1345 s.v. I שׁוֹר questions the validity of the text and offers three proposals; the second appears to create the least textual modification, i.e., reading כְּשַׂךְ (kesakh, “as in the hiding place of (bird catchers)”; for the word שַׂךְ (sakh) see HALOT 1236 s.v. שׂךְ 4 and compare Lam 2:6 for usage. The versions do not help. The Greek does not translate the first two words of the line. The proposal given in HALOT is accepted with some hesitancy.
6 tn Heb “a destroying thing.”
7 tn Heb “Though they say, ‘As surely as the
8 tc The translation follows many Hebrew
9 tn Heb “they swear falsely.”
10 tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”
11 tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”
12 tn Heb “house of Israel.”
13 tn The words “for what they have done” are implicit in the comparison and are supplied in the translation for clarification.