Psalms 3:7

3:7 Rise up, ¹  Lord!

Deliver me, my God!

Yes, ²  you will strike ³  all my enemies on the jaw;

you will break the teeth ⁴  of the wicked. ⁵ 

Psalms 17:7-9

17:7 Accomplish awesome, faithful deeds, ⁶ 

you who powerfully deliver those who look to you for protection from their enemies. ⁷ 

17:8 Protect me as you would protect the pupil of your eye! ⁸ 

Hide me in the shadow of your wings! ⁹ 

17:9 Protect me from ¹⁰  the wicked men who attack ¹¹  me,

my enemies who crowd around me for the kill. ¹² 

Psalms 31:15

31:15 You determine my destiny! ¹³ 

Rescue me from the power of my enemies and those who chase me.

Psalms 35:1-3

Psalm 35 ¹⁴ 

By David.

35:1 O Lord, fight ¹⁵  those who fight with me!

Attack those who attack me!

35:2 Grab your small shield and large shield, ¹⁶ 

and rise up to help me!

35:3 Use your spear and lance ¹⁷  against ¹⁸  those who chase me!

Assure me with these words: ¹⁹  “I am your deliverer!”

Jeremiah 15:15

15:15 I said, ²⁰ 

“Lord, you know how I suffer. ²¹ 

Take thought of me and care for me.

Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me.

Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me.

Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake.

Jeremiah 20:11

20:11 But the Lord is with me to help me like an awe-inspiring warrior. ²² 

Therefore those who persecute me will fail and will not prevail over me.

They will be thoroughly disgraced because they did not succeed.

Their disgrace will never be forgotten.

Jeremiah 20:1

Jeremiah is Flogged and Put in A Cell

20:1 Now Pashhur son of Immer heard Jeremiah prophesy these things. He was the priest who was chief of security ²³  in the Lord’s temple.

Jeremiah 4:19

4:19 I said, ²⁴ 

“Oh, the feeling in the pit of my stomach! ²⁵ 

I writhe in anguish.

Oh, the pain in my heart! ²⁶ 

My heart pounds within me.

I cannot keep silent.

For I hear the sound of the trumpet; ²⁷ 

the sound of the battle cry pierces my soul! ²⁸ 

[3:7]  ¹ tn In v. 2 the psalmist describes his enemies as those who “confront” him (קָמִים [qamim], literally, “rise up against him”). Now, using the same verbal root (קוּם, qum) he asks the Lord to rise up (קוּמָה, qumah) in his defense.

[3:7]  ² tn Elsewhere in the psalms the particle כִּי (ki), when collocated with a perfect verbal form and subordinated to a preceding imperative directed to God, almost always has an explanatory or causal force (“for, because”) and introduces a motivating argument for why God should respond positively to the request (see Pss 5:10; 6:2; 12:1; 16:1; 41:4; 55:9; 56:1; 57:1; 60:2; 69:1; 74:20; 119:94; 123:3; 142:6; 143:8). (On three occasions the כִּי is recitative after a verb of perception [“see/know that,” see Pss 4:3; 25:19; 119:159]). If כִּי is taken as explanatory here, then the psalmist is arguing that God should deliver him now because that is what God characteristically does. However, such a motivating argument is not used in the passages cited above. The motivating argument usually focuses on the nature of the psalmist’s dilemma or the fact that he trusts in the Lord. For this reason it is unlikely that כִּי has its normal force here. Most scholars understand the particle כִּי as having an asseverative (emphasizing) function here (“indeed, yes”; NEB leaves the particle untranslated).

[3:7]  ³ tn If the particle כִּי (ki) is taken as explanatory, then the perfect verbal forms in v. 7b would describe God’s characteristic behavior. However, as pointed out in the preceding note on the word “yes,” the particle probably has an asseverative force here. If so, the perfects may be taken as indicating rhetorically the psalmist’s certitude and confidence that God will intervene. The psalmist is so confident of God’s positive response to his prayer, he can describe God’s assault on his enemies as if it had already happened. Such confidence is consistent with the mood of the psalm, as expressed before (vv. 3-6) and after this (v. 8). Another option is to take the perfects as precative, expressing a wish or request (“Strike all my enemies on the jaw, break the teeth of the wicked”). See IBHS 494-95 §30.5.4c, d. However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.

[3:7]  ⁴ sn The expression break the teeth may envision violent hand-to hand combat, though it is possible that the enemies are pictured here as a dangerous animal (see Job 29:17).

[3:7]  ⁵ tn In the psalms the Hebrew term רְשָׁעִים (rÿsha’im, “wicked”) describes people who are proud, practical atheists (Ps 10:2, 4, 11) who hate God’s commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander (Ps 50:16-20), and cheat others (Ps 37:21). They oppose God and his people.

[17:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “Set apart faithful acts.”

[17:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “[O] one who delivers those who seek shelter from the ones raising themselves up, by your right hand.” The Lord’s “right hand” here symbolizes his power to protect and deliver.

[17:8]  ⁸ tc Heb “Protect me like the pupil, a daughter of an eye.” The noun בַּת (bat, “daughter”) should probably be emended to בָּבַת (bavat, “pupil”). See Zech 2:12 HT (2:8 ET) and HALOT 107 s.v. *בָּבָה.

[17:8]  ⁹ sn Your wings. The metaphor compares God to a protective mother bird.

[17:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from before”; or “because.” In the Hebrew text v. 9 is subordinated to v. 8. The words “protect me” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[17:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “destroy.” The psalmist uses the perfect verbal form to emphasize the degree of danger. He describes the wicked as being already in the process of destroying him.

[17:9]  ¹² tn Heb “my enemies, at the risk of life they surround me.” The Hebrew phrase בְּנֶפֶשׁ (bÿnefesh) sometimes has the nuance “at the risk of [one’s] life” (see 1 Kgs 2:23; Prov 7:23; Lam 5:9).

[31:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “in your hand [are] my times.”

[35:1]  ¹⁴ sn Psalm 35. The author, who faces ruthless enemies who seek his life for no reason, begs the Lord to fight his battles for him and to vindicate him by annihilating his adversaries.

[35:1]  ¹⁵ tn Or “contend.”

[35:2]  ¹⁶ tn Two different types of shields are mentioned here. See also Ezek 38:4. Many modern translations render the first term (translated here “small shield”) as “buckler” (cf. NASB “buckler and shield”; the order is often reversed in the translation, apparently for stylistic reasons: cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV “shield and buckler”). The English term “buckler,” referring to a small round shield held on the arm to protect the upper body, is unfamiliar to many modern readers, so the term “small shield” was used in the present translation for clarity.

[35:3]  ¹⁷ tn Or “javelin.” On the meaning of this word, which occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, see M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:210-11.

[35:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “draw out spear and lance to meet.”

[35:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “say to me,” or “say to my soul.”

[15:15]  ²⁰ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark the shift from the Lord speaking to Jerusalem, to Jeremiah speaking to God.

[15:15]  ²¹ tn The words “how I suffer” are not in the text but are implicit from the continuation. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. Jeremiah is not saying “you are all knowing.”

[20:11]  ²² sn This line has some interesting ties with Jer 15:20-21 where Jeremiah is assured by God that he is indeed with him as he promised him when he called him (1:8, 19) and will deliver him from the clutches of wicked and violent people. The word translated here “awe-inspiring” is the same as the word “violent people” there. Jeremiah is confident that his “awe-inspiring” warrior will overcome “violent people.” The statement of confidence here is, by the way, a common element in the psalms of petition in the Psalter. The common elements of that type of psalm are all here: invocation (v. 7), lament (vv. 7-10), confession of trust/confidence in being heard (v. 11), petition (v. 12), thanksgiving or praise (v. 13). For some examples of this type of psalm see Pss 3, 7, 26.

[20:1]  ²³ tn Heb “chief overseer/officer.” The translation follows the suggestion of P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, J. F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25 (WBC), 267, based on the parallel passage in 29:26-27 where this official appears to have been in charge of maintaining order in the temple.

[4:19]  ²⁴ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are used to mark the shift from the Lord’s promise of judgment to Jeremiah’s lament concerning it.

[4:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “My bowels! My bowels!”

[4:19]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the walls of my heart!”

[4:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.

[4:19]  ²⁸ tc The translation reflects a different division of the last two lines than that suggested by the Masoretes. The written text (the Kethib) reads “for the sound of the ram’s horn I have heard [or “you have heard,” if the form is understood as the old second feminine singular perfect] my soul” followed by “the battle cry” in the last line. The translation is based on taking “my soul” with the last line and understanding an elliptical expression “the battle cry [to] my soul.” Such an elliptical expression is in keeping with the elliptical nature of the exclamations at the beginning of the verse (cf. the literal translations of the first two lines of the verse in the notes on the words “stomach” and “heart”).