68:10 for you live among them. 1
You sustain the oppressed with your good blessings, O God.
119:23 Though rulers plot and slander me, 2
your servant meditates on your statutes.
122:5 Indeed, 3 the leaders sit 4 there on thrones and make legal decisions,
on the thrones of the house of David. 5
6:10 May all my enemies be humiliated 6 and absolutely terrified! 7
May they turn back and be suddenly humiliated!
140:13 Certainly the godly will give thanks to your name;
the morally upright will live in your presence.
132:12 If your sons keep my covenant
and the rules I teach them,
their sons will also sit on your throne forever.”
1 tn The meaning of the Hebrew text is unclear; it appears to read, “your animals, they live in it,” but this makes little, if any, sense in this context. Some suggest that חָיָּה (khayah) is a rare homonym here, meaning “community” (BDB 312 s.v.) or “dwelling place” (HALOT 310 s.v. III *הַיָּה). In this case one may take “your community/dwelling place” as appositional to the third feminine singular pronominal suffix at the end of v. 9, the antecedent of which is “your inheritance.” The phrase יָשְׁבוּ־בָהּ (yashvu-vah, “they live in it”) may then be understood as an asyndetic relative clause modifying “your community/dwelling place.” A literal translation of vv. 9b-10a would be, “when it [your inheritance] is tired, you sustain it, your community/dwelling place in [which] they live.”
2 tn Heb “though rulers sit, about me they talk together.” (For another example of the Niphal of דָּבַר (davar) used with a suffixed form of the preposition ב, see Ezek 33:30.)
3 tn Or “for.”
4 tn Or “sat.”
5 tn Heb “Indeed, there they sit [on] thrones for judgment, [on] thrones [belonging] to the house of David.”
4 tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist concludes his prayer with an imprecation, calling judgment down on his enemies.
5 tn Heb “and may they be very terrified.” The psalmist uses the same expression in v. 3 to describe the terror he was experiencing. Now he asks the