Psalms 21:12

21:12 For you make them retreat ¹ 

when you shoot your arrows at them. ² 

Psalms 21:9

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ³  when you appear; ⁴ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ⁵ 

the fire consumes them.

Psalms 45:16

45:16 Your ⁶  sons will carry ⁷  on the dynasty of your ancestors; ⁸ 

you will make them princes throughout the land.

[21:12]  ¹ tn Heb “you make them a shoulder,” i.e., “you make them turn and run, showing the back of their neck and shoulders.”

[21:12]  ² tn Heb “with your bowstrings you fix against their faces,” i.e., “you fix your arrows on the bowstrings to shoot at them.”

[21:9]  ³ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[45:16]  ⁵ tn The pronoun is second masculine singular, indicating the king is being addressed from this point to the end of the psalm.

[45:16]  ⁶ tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive and the statement interpreted as a prayer, “May your sons carry on the dynasty of your ancestors!” The next line could then be taken as a relative clause, “[your sons] whom you will make princes throughout the land.”

[45:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “in place of your fathers will be your sons.”