Psalms 124:2-8

124:2 if the Lord had not been on our side,

when men attacked us, ¹ 

124:3 they would have swallowed us alive,

when their anger raged against us.

124:4 The water would have overpowered us;

the current ²  would have overwhelmed ³  us. ⁴ 

124:5 The raging water

would have overwhelmed us. ⁵ 

124:6 The Lord deserves praise, ⁶ 

for ⁷  he did not hand us over as prey to their teeth.

124:7 We escaped with our lives, ⁸  like a bird from a hunter’s snare.

The snare broke, and we escaped.

124:8 Our deliverer is the Lord, ⁹ 

the Creator ¹⁰  of heaven and earth.

[124:2]  ¹ tn Heb “rose up against us.”

[124:4]  ² tn Or “stream.”

[124:4]  ³ tn Heb “would have passed over.”

[124:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “our being.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[124:5]  ³ tn Heb “then they would have passed over our being, the raging waters.”

[124:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “blessed [be] the Lord.”

[124:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “[the one] who.”

[124:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “our life escaped.”

[124:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “our help [is] in the name of the Lord.”

[124:8]  ⁷ tn Or “Maker.”