Proverbs 14:14

14:14 The backslider ¹  will be paid back ²  from his own ways,

but a good person will be rewarded ³  for his.

Psalms 81:12

81:12 I gave them over to their stubborn desires; ⁴ 

they did what seemed right to them. ⁵ 

Psalms 81:2

81:2 Sing ⁶  a song and play the tambourine,

the pleasant sounding harp, and the ten-stringed instrument!

Psalms 2:1

Psalm 2 ⁷ 

2:1 Why ⁸  do the nations rebel? ⁹ 

Why ¹⁰  are the countries ¹¹  devising ¹²  plots that will fail? ¹³ 

[14:14]  ¹ tn Heb “a turning away of heart.” The genitive לֵב (lev, “heart”) functions as an attributive adjective: “a backslidden heart.” The term סוּג (sug) means “to move away; to move backwards; to depart; to backslide” (BDB 690 s.v. I סוּג). This individual is the one who backslides, that is, who departs from the path of righteousness.

[14:14]  ² tn Heb “will be filled”; cf. KJV, ASV. The verb (“to be filled, to be satisfied”) here means “to be repaid,” that is, to partake in his own evil ways. His faithlessness will come back to haunt him.

[14:14]  ³ tn The phrase “will be rewarded” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[81:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “and I sent him away in the stubbornness of their heart.”

[81:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “they walked in their counsel.” The prefixed verbal form is either preterite (“walked”) or a customary imperfect (“were walking”).

[81:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “lift up.”

[2:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 2. In this royal psalm the author asserts the special status of the divinely chosen Davidic king and warns the nations and their rulers to submit to the authority of God and his chosen vice-regent.

[2:1]  ⁸ tn The question is rhetorical. Rather than seeking information, the psalmist expresses his outrage that the nations would have the audacity to rebel against God and his chosen king.

[2:1]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew verb רָגַשׁ (ragash) occurs only here. In Dan 6:6, 11, 15 the Aramaic cognate verb describes several officials acting as a group. A Hebrew nominal derivative is used in Ps 55:14 of a crowd of people in the temple.

[2:1]  ¹⁰ tn The interrogative לָמָּה (lamah, “why?”) is understood by ellipsis in the second line.

[2:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “peoples” (so many English versions).

[2:1]  ¹² tn The Hebrew imperfect form describes the rebellion as underway. The verb הָגָה (hagah), which means “to recite quietly, meditate,” here has the metonymic nuance “devise, plan, plot” (see Ps 38:12; Prov 24:2).

[2:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “devising emptiness.” The noun רִיק (riq, “emptiness”) may characterize their behavior as “worthless, morally bankrupt” but more likely refers to the outcome of their plots (i.e., failure). As the rest of the psalm emphasizes, their rebellion will fail.