Psalms 18:45

18:45 foreigners lose their courage; ¹ 

they shake with fear ²  as they leave ³  their strongholds. ⁴ 

Psalms 83:2-18

83:2 For look, your enemies are making a commotion;

those who hate you are hostile. ⁵ 

83:3 They carefully plot ⁶  against your people,

and make plans to harm ⁷  the ones you cherish. ⁸ 

83:4 They say, “Come on, let’s annihilate them so they are no longer a nation! ⁹ 

Then the name of Israel will be remembered no more.”

83:5 Yes, ¹⁰  they devise a unified strategy; ¹¹ 

they form an alliance ¹²  against you.

83:6 It includes ¹³  the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,

Moab and the Hagrites, ¹⁴ 

83:7 Gebal, ¹⁵  Ammon, and Amalek,

Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre. ¹⁶ 

83:8 Even Assyria has allied with them,

lending its strength to the descendants of Lot. ¹⁷  (Selah)

83:9 Do to them as you did to Midian ¹⁸  –

as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River! ¹⁹ 

83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; ²⁰ 

their corpses were like manure ²¹  on the ground.

83:11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, ²² 

and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna, ²³ 

83:12 who said, ²⁴  “Let’s take over ²⁵  the pastures of God!”

83:13 O my God, make them like dead thistles, ²⁶ 

like dead weeds blown away by ²⁷  the wind!

83:14 Like the fire that burns down the forest,

or the flames that consume the mountainsides, ²⁸ 

83:15 chase them with your gale winds,

and terrify ²⁹  them with your windstorm.

83:16 Cover ³⁰  their faces with shame,

so they might seek ³¹  you, ³²  O Lord.

83:17 May they be humiliated and continually terrified! ³³ 

May they die in shame! ³⁴ 

83:18 Then they will know ³⁵  that you alone are the Lord, ³⁶ 

the sovereign king ³⁷  over all the earth.

Exodus 20:5

20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ³⁸  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ³⁹  God, responding to ⁴⁰  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ⁴¹  of those who reject me, ⁴² 

Deuteronomy 7:10

7:10 but who pays back those who hate ⁴³  him as they deserve and destroys them. He will not ignore ⁴⁴  those who hate him but will repay them as they deserve!

John 15:22-23

15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. ⁴⁵  But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. 15:23 The one who hates me hates my Father too.

Romans 1:30

1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents,

Romans 8:7

8:7 because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so.

[18:45]  ¹ tn Heb “wither, wear out.”

[18:45]  ² tn The meaning of חָרַג (kharag, “shake”) is established on the basis of cognates in Arabic and Aramaic. 2 Sam 22:46 reads חָגַר (khagar), which might mean here, “[they] come limping” (on the basis of a cognate in postbiblical Hebrew). The normal meaning for חָגַר (“gird”) makes little sense here.

[18:45]  ³ tn Heb “from.”

[18:45]  ⁴ tn Heb “their prisons.” The besieged cities of the foreigners are compared to prisons.

[83:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “lift up [their] head[s].” The phrase “lift up [the] head” here means “to threaten; to be hostile,” as in Judg 8:28.

[83:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “they make crafty a plot.”

[83:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “and consult together against.”

[83:3]  ⁸ tn The passive participle of the Hebrew verb צָפַן (tsafan, “to hide”) is used here in the sense of “treasured; cherished.”

[83:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “we will cause them to disappear from [being] a nation.”

[83:5]  ¹⁰ tn Or “for.”

[83:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they consult [with] a heart together.”

[83:5]  ¹² tn Heb “cut a covenant.”

[83:6]  ¹³ tn The words “it includes” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[83:6]  ¹⁴ sn The Hagrites are also mentioned in 1 Chr 5:10, 19-20.

[83:7]  ¹⁵ sn Some identify Gebal with the Phoenician coastal city of Byblos (see Ezek 27:9, where the name is spelled differently), though others locate this site south of the Dead Sea (see BDB 148 s.v. גְּבַל; HALOT 174 s.v. גְּבַל).

[83:7]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[83:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they are an arm for the sons of Lot.” The “arm” is here a symbol of military might.

[83:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “do to them like Midian.”

[83:9]  ¹⁹ sn The psalmist alludes here to Gideon’s victory over the Midianites (see Judg 7-8) and to Barak’s victory over Jabin’s army, which was led by his general Sisera (Judg 4-5).

[83:10]  ²⁰ sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)

[83:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.

[83:11]  ²² sn Oreb and Zeeb were the generals of the Midianite army that was defeated by Gideon. The Ephraimites captured and executed both of them and sent their heads to Gideon (Judg 7:24-25).

[83:11]  ²³ sn Zebah and Zalmunna were the Midianite kings. Gideon captured them and executed them (Judg 8:1-21).

[83:12]  ²⁴ tn The translation assumes that “Zebah and Zalmunna” are the antecedents of the relative pronoun (“who [said]”). Another option is to take “their nobles…all their rulers” as the antecedent and to translate, “those who say.”

[83:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “let’s take possession for ourselves.”

[83:13]  ²⁶ tn Or “tumbleweed.” The Hebrew noun גַּלְגַּל (galgal) refers to a “wheel” or, metaphorically, to a whirling wind (see Ps 77:18). If taken in the latter sense here, one could understand the term as a metonymical reference to dust blown by a whirlwind (cf. NRSV “like whirling dust”). However, HALOT 190 s.v. II גַּלְגַּל understands the noun as a homonym referring to a “dead thistle” here and in Isa 17:13. The parallel line, which refers to קַשׁ (qash, “chaff”), favors this interpretation.

[83:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “before.”

[83:14]  ²⁸ sn The imagery of fire and flames suggests unrelenting, destructive judgment.

[83:15]  ²⁹ tn The two imperfect verbal forms in v. 15 express the psalmist’s wish or prayer.

[83:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “fill.”

[83:16]  ³¹ tn After the preceding imperative, the prefixed verbal form with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose or result (“then they will seek”).

[83:16]  ³² tn Heb “your name,” which stands here for God’s person.

[83:17]  ³³ tn Heb “and may they be terrified to perpetuity.” The Hebrew expression עֲדֵי־עַד (’adey-’ad, “to perpetuity”) can mean “forevermore” (see Pss 92:7; 132:12, 14), but here it may be used hyperbolically, for the psalmist asks that the experience of judgment might lead the nations to recognize (v. 18) and even to seek (v. 16) God.

[83:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “may they be ashamed and perish.” The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist concludes his prayer with an imprecation, calling severe judgment down on his enemies. The strong language of the imprecation seems to run contrary to the positive outcome of divine judgment envisioned in v. 16b. Perhaps the language of v. 17 is overstated for effect. Another option is that v. 16b expresses an ideal, while the strong imprecation of vv. 17-18 anticipates reality. It would be nice if the defeated nations actually pursued a relationship with God, but if judgment does not bring them to that point, the psalmist asks that they be annihilated so that they might at least be forced to acknowledge God’s power.

[83:18]  ³⁵ tn After the preceding jussives (v. 17), the prefixed verbal form with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose (“so that they may know”) or result.

[83:18]  ³⁶ tn Heb “that you, your name [is] the Lord, you alone.”

[83:18]  ³⁷ tn Traditionally “the Most High.”

[20:5]  ³⁸ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ³⁹ sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ⁴⁰ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ⁴² tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[7:10]  ⁴³ tn For the term “hate” as synonymous with rejection or disobedience see note on the word “reject” in Deut 5:9 (cf. NRSV “reject”).

[7:10]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “he will not hesitate concerning.”

[15:22]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).