7:15 he digs a pit 1
and then falls into the hole he has made. 2
7:16 He becomes the victim of his own destructive plans 3
and the violence he intended for others falls on his own head. 4
35:8 Let destruction take them by surprise! 5
Let the net they hid catch them!
Let them fall into destruction! 6
37:14 Evil men draw their swords
and prepare their bows,
to bring down 7 the oppressed and needy,
and to slaughter those who are godly. 8
37:15 Their swords will pierce 9 their own hearts,
and their bows will be broken.
64:7 But God will shoot 10 at them;
suddenly they will be 11 wounded by an arrow. 12
64:8 Their slander will bring about their demise. 13
All who see them will shudder, 14
140:9 As for the heads of those who surround me –
may the harm done by 15 their lips overwhelm them!
11:8 The righteous person is delivered 16 out of trouble,
and the wicked turns up in his stead. 17
1 tn Heb “a pit he digs and he excavates it.” Apparently the imagery of hunting is employed; the wicked sinner digs this pit to entrap and destroy his intended victim. The redundancy in the Hebrew text has been simplified in the translation.
2 tn The verb forms in vv. 15-16 describe the typical behavior and destiny of those who attempt to destroy others. The image of the evildoer falling into the very trap he set for his intended victim emphasizes the appropriate nature of God’s judgment.
3 tn Heb “his harm [i.e., the harm he conceived for others, see v. 14] returns on his head.”
4 tn Heb “and on his forehead his violence [i.e., the violence he intended to do to others] comes down.”
5 tn Heb “let destruction [which] he does not know come to him.” The singular is used of the enemy in v. 8, probably in a representative or collective sense. The psalmist has more than one enemy, as vv. 1-7 make clear.
6 tn The psalmist’s prayer for his enemies’ demise continues. See vv. 4-6.
7 tn Heb “to cause to fall.”
8 tn Heb “the upright in way,” i.e., those who lead godly lives.
9 tn Heb “enter into.”
10 tn The prefixed verb with vav (ו) consecutive is normally used in narrative contexts to describe completed past actions. It is possible that the conclusion to the psalm (vv. 7-10) was added to the lament after God’s judgment of the wicked in response to the psalmist’s lament (vv. 1-6). The translation assumes that these verses are anticipatory and express the psalmist’s confidence that God would eventually judge the wicked. The psalmist uses a narrative style as a rhetorical device to emphasize his certitude. See GKC 329-30 §111.w.
11 tn The perfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s certitude about the coming demise of the wicked.
12 tn The translation follows the traditional accentuation of the MT. Another option is to translate, “But God will shoot them down with an arrow, suddenly they will be wounded” (cf. NIV, NRSV).
13 tc The MT reads literally, “and they caused him to stumble, upon them, their tongue.” Perhaps the third plural subject of the verb is indefinite with the third singular pronominal suffix on the verb being distributive (see Ps 63:10). In this case one may translate, “each one will be made to stumble.” The preposition עַל (’al) might then be taken as adversative, “against them [is] their tongue.” Many prefer to emend the text to וַיַּכְשִׁילֵמוֹ עֲלֵי לְשׁוֹנָם (vayyakhshilemo ’aley lÿshonam, “and he caused them to stumble over their tongue”). However, if this reading is original, it is difficult to see how the present reading of the MT arose. Furthermore, the preposition is not collocated with the verb כָּשַׁל (kashal) elsewhere. It is likely that the MT is corrupt, but a satisfying emendation has not yet been proposed.
14 tn The Hitpolel verbal form is probably from the root נוּד (nud; see HALOT 678 s.v. נוד), which is attested elsewhere in the Hitpolel stem, not the root נָדַד (nadad, as proposed by BDB 622 s.v. I נָדַד), which does not occur elsewhere in this stem.
15 tn Heb “harm of their lips.” The genitive here indicates the source or agent of the harm.
16 tn The verb is the Niphal perfect from the first root חָלַץ (khalats), meaning “to draw off; to withdraw,” and hence “to be delivered.”
17 tn The verb is masculine singular, so the subject cannot be “trouble.” The trouble from which the righteous escape will come on the wicked – but the Hebrew text literally says that the wicked “comes [= arrives; turns up; shows up] in the place of the righteous.” Cf. NASB “the wicked takes his place”; NRSV “the wicked get into it instead”; NIV “it comes on the wicked instead.”