Psalms 19:13

19:13 Moreover, keep me from committing flagrant ¹  sins;

do not allow such sins to control me. ² 

Then I will be blameless,

and innocent of blatant ³  rebellion.

Psalms 32:5

32:5 Then I confessed my sin;

I no longer covered up my wrongdoing.

I said, “I will confess ⁴  my rebellious acts to the Lord.”

And then you forgave my sins. ⁵  (Selah)

Psalms 36:1

Psalm 36 ⁶ 

For the music director; written by the Lord’s servant, David; an oracle. ⁷ 

36:1 An evil man is rebellious to the core. ⁸ 

He does not fear God, ⁹ 

Psalms 59:3

59:3 For look, they wait to ambush me; ¹⁰ 

powerful men stalk ¹¹  me,

but not because I have rebelled or sinned, O Lord. ¹² 

[19:13]  ¹ tn Or “presumptuous.”

[19:13]  ² tn Heb “let them not rule over me.”

[19:13]  ³ tn Heb “great.”

[32:5]  ⁴ tn The Hiphil of ידה normally means “give thanks, praise,” but here, as in Prov 28:13, it means “confess.”

[32:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “the wrongdoing of my sin.” By joining synonyms for “sin” in this way, the psalmist may be emphasizing the degree of his wrongdoing.

[36:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 36. Though evil men plan to harm others, the psalmist is confident that the Lord is the just ruler of the earth who gives and sustains all life. He prays for divine blessing and protection and anticipates God’s judgment of the wicked.

[36:1]  ⁸ tn In the Hebrew text the word נאם (“oracle”) appears at the beginning of the next verse (v. 2 in the Hebrew text because the superscription is considered v. 1). The resulting reading, “an oracle of rebellion for the wicked [is] in the midst of my heart” (cf. NIV) apparently means that the psalm, which foresees the downfall of the wicked, is a prophetic oracle about the rebellion of the wicked which emerges from the soul of the psalmist. One could translate, “Here is a poem written as I reflected on the rebellious character of evil men.” Another option, followed in the translation above, is to attach נאם (nÿ’um, “oracle”) with the superscription. For another example of a Davidic poem being labeled an “oracle,” see 2 Sam 23:1.

[36:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “[the] rebellion of an evil man [is] in the midst of my heart.” The translation assumes a reading “in the midst of his heart” (i.e., “to the core”) instead of “in the midst of my heart,” a change which finds support in a a few medieval Hebrew mss, the Hebrew text of Origen’s Hexapla, and the Syriac.

[36:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “there is no dread of God before his eyes.” The phrase “dread of God” refers here to a healthy respect for God which recognizes that he will punish evil behavior.

[59:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my life.”

[59:3]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew verb is from the root גּוּר (gur), which means “to challenge, attack” in Isa 54:15 and “to stalk” (with hostile intent) in Ps 56:8.

[59:3]  ¹² sn The point is that the psalmist’s enemies have no justifiable reason for attacking him. He has neither rebelled or sinned against the Lord.