5:10 Condemn them, 1 O God!
May their own schemes be their downfall! 2
Drive them away 3 because of their many acts of insurrection, 4
for they have rebelled against you.
59:12 They speak sinful words. 5
So let them be trapped by their own pride
and by the curses and lies they speak!
59:13 Angrily wipe them out! Wipe them out so they vanish!
Let them know that God rules
in Jacob and to the ends of the earth! (Selah)
69:22 May their dining table become a trap before them!
May it be a snare for that group of friends! 6
69:23 May their eyes be blinded! 7
Make them shake violently! 8
69:24 Pour out your judgment 9 on them!
May your raging anger 10 overtake them!
18:21 So let their children die of starvation.
Let them be cut down by the sword. 11
Let their wives lose their husbands and children.
Let the older men die of disease 12
and the younger men die by the sword in battle.
18:22 Let cries of terror be heard in their houses
when you send bands of raiders unexpectedly to plunder them. 13
For they have virtually dug a pit to capture me
and have hidden traps for me to step into.
18:23 But you, Lord, know
all their plots to kill me.
Do not pardon their crimes!
Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! 14
Let them be brought down in defeat before you!
Deal with them while you are still angry! 15
4:14 “Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil 18
so that you may yet be delivered.
How long will you continue to harbor up
wicked schemes within you?
1 tn Heb “declare/regard them as guilty.” Declaring the psalmist’s adversaries guilty is here metonymic for judging them or paying them back for their wrongdoing.
2 tn Heb “may they fall from their plans.” The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation. The psalmist calls judgment down on the evildoers. Their plans will be their downfall in that God will judge them for their evil schemes.
3 tn Or “banish them.”
4 tn The Hebrew noun used here, פֶּשַׁע (pesha’), refers to rebellious actions. The psalmist pictures his enemies as rebels against God (see the next line).
5 tn Heb “the sin of their mouth [is] the word of their lips.”
6 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).
7 tn Heb “may their eyes be darkened from seeing.”
8 tn Heb “make their hips shake continually.”
9 tn Heb “anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger.
10 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.
11 tn Heb “be poured out to the hand [= power] of the sword.” For this same expression see Ezek 35:5; Ps 63:10 (63:11 HT). Comparison with those two passages show that it involved death by violent means, perhaps death in battle.
12 tn Heb “be slain by death.” The commentaries are generally agreed that this refers to death by disease or plague as in 15:2. Hence, the reference is to the deadly trio of sword, starvation, and disease which were often connected with war. See the notes on 15:2.
13 tn Heb “when you bring marauders in against them.” For the use of the noun translated here “bands of raiders to plunder them” see 1 Sam 30:3, 15, 23 and BDB 151 s.v. גְּדוּד 1.
14 sn Heb “Do not blot out their sins from before you.” For this anthropomorphic figure which looks at God’s actions as though connected with record books, i.e., a book of wrongdoings to be punished, and a book of life for those who are to live, see e.g., Exod 32:32, 33, Ps 51:1 (51:3 HT); 69:28 (69:29 HT).
15 tn Heb “in the time of your anger.”
16 tn Heb “Get up and go down.” The first verb is not literal but is idiomatic for the initiation of an action. See 13:4, 6 for other occurrences of this idiom.
17 tn Heb “And I will cause you to hear my word there.”
18 tn Heb “Oh, Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil.”
19 tn The word “others” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.
20 tn On this term BDAG 252 s.v. διπλόω states, “to double τὰ διπλᾶ pay back double Rv 18:6.”