94:1 O Lord, the God who avenges!
O God who avenges, reveal your splendor! 2
94:2 Rise up, O judge of the earth!
Pay back the proud!
94:3 O Lord, how long will the wicked,
how long will the wicked celebrate? 3
94:4 They spew out threats 4 and speak defiantly;
all the evildoers boast. 5
94:5 O Lord, they crush your people;
they oppress the nation that belongs to you. 6
94:6 They kill the widow and the one residing outside his native land,
and they murder the fatherless. 7
94:7 Then they say, “The Lord does not see this;
the God of Jacob does not take notice of it.” 8
94:8 Take notice of this, 9 you ignorant people! 10
You fools, when will you ever understand?
94:9 Does the one who makes the human ear not hear?
Does the one who forms the human eye not see? 11
1 sn Psalm 94. The psalmist asks God to judge the wicked and affirms his confidence in God’s justice.
2 tn Heb “shine forth” (see Pss 50:2; 80:1).
3 tn Or “exult.”
4 tn Heb “they gush forth [words].”
5 tn The Hitpael of אָמַר (’amar) occurs only here (and perhaps in Isa 61:6).
6 tn Or “your inheritance.”
7 tn The Hebrew noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9). Because they were so vulnerable and were frequently exploited, fatherless children are often mentioned as epitomizing the oppressed (see Pss 10:14; 68:5; 82:3; 146:9; as well as Job 6:27; 22:9; 24:3, 9; 29:12; 31:17, 21).
8 tn Heb “does not understand.”
9 tn Heb “understand.” The verb used in v. 7 is repeated here for rhetorical effect. The people referred to here claim God is ignorant of their actions, but the psalmist corrects their faulty viewpoint.
10 tn Heb “[you] brutish among the people.”
11 tn Heb “The one who plants an ear, does he not hear? The one who forms an eye, does he not see?”