Psalms 18:29

18:29 Indeed, ¹  with your help ²  I can charge against ³  an army; ⁴ 

by my God’s power ⁵  I can jump over a wall. ⁶ 

Psalms 18:34-35

18:34 He trains my hands for battle; ⁷ 

my arms can bend even the strongest bow. ⁸ 

18:35 You give me your protective shield; ⁹ 

your right hand supports me; ¹⁰ 

your willingness to help ¹¹  enables me to prevail. ¹² 

[18:29]  ¹ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.

[18:29]  ² tn Heb “by you.”

[18:29]  ³ tn Heb “I will run.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 29 indicate the subject’s potential or capacity to perform an action. Though one might expect a preposition to follow the verb here, this need not be the case with the verb רוּץ (ruts; see 1 Sam 17:22). Some emend the Qal to a Hiphil form of the verb and translate, “I put to flight [Heb “cause to run”] an army.”

[18:29]  ⁴ tn More specifically, the noun גְּדוּד (gÿdud) refers to a raiding party or to a contingent of troops.

[18:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “and by my God.”

[18:29]  ⁶ sn I can jump over a wall. The psalmist uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.

[18:34]  ⁷ sn He trains my hands. The psalmist attributes his skill with weapons to divine enablement. Egyptian reliefs picture gods teaching the king how to shoot a bow. See O. Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World, 265.

[18:34]  ⁸ tn Heb “and a bow of bronze is bent by my arms”; or “my arms bend a bow of bronze.” The verb נָחַת (nakhat) apparently means “pull back, bend” here (see HALOT 692 s.v. נחת). The third feminine singular verbal form appears to agree with the feminine singular noun קֶשֶׁת (qeshet, “bow”). In this case the verb must be taken as Niphal (passive). However, it is possible that “my arms” is the subject of the verb and “bow” the object. In this case the verb is Piel (active). For other examples of a feminine singular verb being construed with a plural noun, see GKC 464 §145.k.

[18:35]  ⁹ tn Heb “and you give to me the shield of your deliverance.”

[18:35]  ¹⁰ tc 2 Sam 22:36 omits this line, perhaps due to homoioarcton. A scribe’s eye may have jumped from the vav (ו) prefixed to “your right hand” to the vav prefixed to the following “and your answer,” causing the copyist to omit by accident the intervening words (“your right hand supports me and”).

[18:35]  ¹¹ tn The MT of Ps 18:35 appears to read, “your condescension,” apparently referring to God’s willingness to intervene (cf. NIV “you stoop down”). However, the noun עֲנָוָה (’anavah) elsewhere means “humility” and is used only here of God. The form עַנְוַתְךָ (’anvatÿkha) may be a fully written form of the suffixed infinitive construct of עָנָה (’anah, “to answer”; a defectively written form of the infinitive appears in 2 Sam 22:36). In this case the psalmist refers to God’s willingness to answer his prayer; one might translate, “your favorable response.”

[18:35]  ¹² tn Heb “makes me great.”