55:5 Fear and panic overpower me; 1
terror overwhelms 2 me.
61:2 From the most remote place on earth 3
I call out to you in my despair. 4
Lead me 5 up to an inaccessible rocky summit! 6
77:3 I said, “I will remember God while I groan;
I will think about him while my strength leaves me.” 7 (Selah)
The prayer of an oppressed man, as he grows faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.
102:1 O Lord, hear my prayer!
Pay attention to my cry for help! 9
124:4 The water would have overpowered us;
the current 10 would have overwhelmed 11 us. 12
142:3 Even when my strength leaves me, 13
you watch my footsteps. 14
In the path where I walk
they have hidden a trap for me.
6:27 Yes, you would gamble 15 for the fatherless,
and auction off 16 your friend.
1 tn Heb “fear and trembling enter into me.”
2 tn Heb “covers.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive carries on the descriptive (present progressive) force of the preceding imperfect.
3 tn Heb “from the end of the earth.” This may indicate (1) the psalmist is exiled in a distant land, or (2) it may be hyperbolic (the psalmist feels alienated from God’s presence, as if he were in a distant land).
4 tn Heb “while my heart faints.”
5 tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s wish or prayer.
6 tn Heb “on to a rocky summit [that] is higher than I.”
7 tn Heb “I will remember God and I will groan, I will reflect and my spirit will grow faint.” The first three verbs are cohortatives, the last a perfect with vav (ו) consecutive. The psalmist’s statement in v. 4 could be understood as concurrent with v. 1, or, more likely, as a quotation of what he had said earlier as he prayed to God (see v. 2). The words “I said” are supplied in the translation at the beginning of the verse to reflect this interpretation (see v. 10).
8 sn Psalm 102. The psalmist laments his oppressed state, but longs for a day when the Lord will restore Jerusalem and vindicate his suffering people.
9 tn Heb “and may my cry for help come to you.”
10 tn Or “stream.”
11 tn Heb “would have passed over.”
12 tn Heb “our being.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).
13 tn Heb “my spirit grows faint.”
14 tn Heb “you know my path.”
15 tn The word “lots” is not in the text; the verb is simply תַּפִּילוּ (tappilu, “you cast”). But the word “lots” is also omitted in 1 Sam 14:42. Some commentators follow the LXX and repoint the word and divide the object of the preposition to read “and fall upon the blameless one.” Fohrer deletes the verse. Peake transfers it to come after v. 23. Even though it does not follow quite as well here, it nonetheless makes sense as a strong invective against their lack of sympathy, and the lack of connection could be the result of emotional speech. He is saying they are the kind of people who would cast lots over the child of a debtor, who, after the death of the father, would be sold to slavery.
16 tn The verb תִכְרוּ (tikhru) is from כָּרָה (karah), which is found in 40:30 with עַל (’al), to mean “to speculate” on an object. The form is usually taken to mean “to barter for,” which would be an expression showing great callousness to a friend (NIV). NEB has “hurl yourselves,” perhaps following the LXX “rush against.” but G. R. Driver thinks that meaning is very precarious. As for the translation, “to speculate about [or “over”] a friend” could be understood to mean “engage in speculation concerning,” so the translation “auction off” has been used instead.