Psalms 21:11

21:11 Yes, ¹  they intend to do you harm; ² 

they dream up a scheme, ³  but they do not succeed. ⁴ 

Psalms 27:5

27:5 He will surely ⁵  give me shelter ⁶  in the day of danger; ⁷ 

he will hide me in his home; ⁸ 

he will place me ⁹  on an inaccessible rocky summit. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 38:20

38:20 They repay me evil for the good I have done;

though I have tried to do good to them, they hurl accusations at me. ¹¹ 

Psalms 41:1

Psalm 41 ¹² 

For the music director; a psalm of David.

41:1 How blessed ¹³  is the one who treats the poor properly! ¹⁴ 

When trouble comes, ¹⁵  the Lord delivers him. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 41:7

41:7 All who hate me whisper insults about me to one another; ¹⁷ 

they plan ways to harm me.

Psalms 144:10

144:10 the one who delivers ¹⁸  kings,

and rescued David his servant from a deadly ¹⁹  sword.

[21:11]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[21:11]  ² tn Heb “they extend against you harm.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 11 are taken as generalizing, stating factually what the king’s enemies typically do. Another option is to translate with the past tense (“they intended…planned”).

[21:11]  ³ sn See Ps 10:2.

[21:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “they lack ability.”

[27:5]  ⁵ tn Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי (ki) is asseverative here, rather than causal.

[27:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”

[27:5]  ⁷ tn Or “trouble.”

[27:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “tent.”

[27:5]  ⁹ tn The three imperfect verb forms in v. 5 anticipate a positive response to the prayer offered in vv. 7-12.

[27:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “on a rocky summit he lifts me up.” The Lord places the psalmist in an inaccessible place where his enemies cannot reach him. See Ps 18:2.

[38:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “the ones who repay evil instead of good accuse me, instead of my pursuing good.”

[41:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 41. The psalmist is confident (vv. 11-12) that the Lord has heard his request to be healed (vv. 4-10), and he anticipates the joy he will experience when the Lord intervenes (vv. 1-3). One must assume that the psalmist is responding to a divine oracle of assurance (see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 319-20). The final verse is a fitting conclusion to this psalm, but it is also serves as a fitting conclusion to the first “book” (or major editorial division) of the Psalter. Similar statements appear at or near the end of each of the second, third, and fourth “books” of the Psalter (see Pss 72:19, 89:52, and 106:48 respectively).

[41:1]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see Pss 1:1, 3; 2:12; 34:9; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).

[41:1]  ¹⁵ sn One who treats the poor properly. The psalmist is characterizing himself as such an individual and supplying a reason why God has responded favorably to his prayer. The Lord’s attitude toward the merciful mirrors their treatment of the poor.

[41:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in the day of trouble” (see Ps 27:5).

[41:1]  ¹⁷ tn That is, the one who has been kind to the poor. The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive of prayer (“may the Lord deliver,” see v. 2), but the preceding parallel line is a declaration of fact, not a prayer per se. The imperfect can be taken here as future (“will deliver,” cf. NEB, NASB) or as generalizing (“delivers,” cf. NIV, NRSV). The parallel line, which has a generalizing tone, favors the latter. At the same time, though the psalmist uses a generalizing style here, he clearly has himself primarily in view.

[41:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “together against me they whisper, all those who hate me.” The Hitpael of לָחַשׁ (lakhash) refers here to whispering to one another (see 2 Sam 12:19).

[144:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “grants deliverance to.”

[144:10]  ²² tn Heb “harmful.”