Psalms 37:28

37:28 For the Lord promotes ¹  justice,

and never abandons ²  his faithful followers.

They are permanently secure, ³ 

but the children ⁴  of evil men are wiped out. ⁵ 

Psalms 37:1

Psalm 37 ⁶ 

By David.

37:1 Do not fret ⁷  when wicked men seem to succeed! ⁸ 

Do not envy evildoers!

Psalms 2:1

Psalm 2 ⁹ 

2:1 Why ¹⁰  do the nations rebel? ¹¹ 

Why ¹²  are the countries ¹³  devising ¹⁴  plots that will fail? ¹⁵ 

Psalms 3:1-2

Psalm 3 ¹⁶ 

A psalm of David, written when he fled from his son Absalom. ¹⁷ 

3:1 Lord, how ¹⁸  numerous are my enemies!

Many attack me. ¹⁹ 

3:2 Many say about me,

“God will not deliver him.” ²⁰  (Selah) ²¹ 

Psalms 10:10-11

10:10 His victims are crushed and beaten down;

they are trapped in his sturdy nets. ²² 

10:11 He says to himself, ²³ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ²⁴ 

Job 18:19

18:19 He has neither children nor descendants ²⁵  among his people,

no survivor in those places he once stayed. ²⁶ 

Isaiah 14:20-22

14:20 You will not be buried with them, ²⁷ 

because you destroyed your land

and killed your people.

The offspring of the wicked

will never be mentioned again.

14:21 Prepare to execute ²⁸  his sons

for the sins their ancestors have committed. ²⁹ 

They must not rise up and take possession of the earth,

or fill the surface of the world with cities.” ³⁰ 

14:22 “I will rise up against them,”

says the Lord who commands armies.

“I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people, ³¹ 

including the offspring she produces,” ³² 

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 22:30

22:30 The Lord says,

“Enroll this man in the register as though he were childless. ³³ 

Enroll him as a man who will not enjoy success during his lifetime.

For none of his sons will succeed in occupying the throne of David

or ever succeed in ruling over Judah.”

[37:28]  ¹ tn Heb “loves.” The verb “loves” is here metonymic; the Lord’s commitment to principles of justice causes him to actively promote these principles as he governs the world. The active participle describes characteristic behavior.

[37:28]  ² tn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to this generalizing statement.

[37:28]  ³ tn Or “protected forever.”

[37:28]  ⁴ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[37:28]  ⁵ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 28b state general truths.

[37:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 37. The psalmist urges his audience not to envy the wicked, but to trust in and obey the Lord, for he will destroy sinners and preserve the godly. When the smoke of judgment clears, the wicked will be gone, but the godly will remain and inherit God’s promised blessings. The psalm is an acrostic; every other verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[37:1]  ⁷ tn The verb form is singular (see vv. 3-10 as well, where the second person verbs and pronouns are also singular). The psalmist’s exhortation has a wisdom flavor to it; it is personalized for each member of his audience.

[37:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “over sinners.” The context indicates that the psalmist has in mind the apparent power and success of sinners. See v. 7b.

[2:1]  ⁹ sn Psalm 2. In this royal psalm the author asserts the special status of the divinely chosen Davidic king and warns the nations and their rulers to submit to the authority of God and his chosen vice-regent.

[2:1]  ¹⁰ tn The question is rhetorical. Rather than seeking information, the psalmist expresses his outrage that the nations would have the audacity to rebel against God and his chosen king.

[2:1]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew verb רָגַשׁ (ragash) occurs only here. In Dan 6:6, 11, 15 the Aramaic cognate verb describes several officials acting as a group. A Hebrew nominal derivative is used in Ps 55:14 of a crowd of people in the temple.

[2:1]  ¹² tn The interrogative לָמָּה (lamah, “why?”) is understood by ellipsis in the second line.

[2:1]  ¹³ tn Or “peoples” (so many English versions).

[2:1]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew imperfect form describes the rebellion as underway. The verb הָגָה (hagah), which means “to recite quietly, meditate,” here has the metonymic nuance “devise, plan, plot” (see Ps 38:12; Prov 24:2).

[2:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “devising emptiness.” The noun רִיק (riq, “emptiness”) may characterize their behavior as “worthless, morally bankrupt” but more likely refers to the outcome of their plots (i.e., failure). As the rest of the psalm emphasizes, their rebellion will fail.

[3:1]  ¹⁶ sn Psalm 3. The psalmist acknowledges that he is confronted by many enemies (vv. 1-2). But, alluding to a divine oracle he has received (vv. 4-5), he affirms his confidence in God’s ability to protect him (vv. 3, 6) and requests that God make his promise a reality (vv. 7-8).

[3:1]  ¹⁷ sn According to Jewish tradition, David offered this prayer when he was forced to flee from Jerusalem during his son Absalom’s attempted coup (see 2 Sam 15:13-17).

[3:1]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term מָה (mah, “how”) is used here as an adverbial exclamation (see BDB 553 s.v.).

[3:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “many rise up against me.”

[3:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “there is no deliverance for him in God.”

[3:2]  ²¹ sn The function of the Hebrew term סֶלָה (selah), transliterated here “Selah,” is uncertain. It may be a musical direction of some kind.

[10:10]  ²² tn Heb “he crushes, he is bowed down, and he falls into his strong [ones], [the] unfortunate [ones].” This verse presents several lexical and syntactical difficulties. The first word (יִדְכֶּה, yidekeh) is an otherwise unattested Qal form of the verb דָּכָה (dakhah, “crush”). (The Qere [marginal] form is imperfect; the consonantal text [Kethib] has the perfect with a prefixed conjunction vav [ו].) If the wicked man’s victim is the subject, which seems to be the case (note the two verbs which follow), then the form should be emended to a Niphal (יִדָּכֶה, yiddakheh). The phrase בַּעֲצוּמָיו (ba’atsumayv, “into his strong [ones]”), poses interpretive problems. The preposition -בְּ (bet) follows the verb נָפַל (nafal, “fall”), so it may very well carry the nuance “into” here, with “his strong [ones]” then referring to something into which the oppressed individual falls. Since a net is mentioned in the preceding verse as the instrument used to entrap the victim, it is possible that “strong [ones]” here refers metonymically to the wicked man’s nets or traps. Ps 35:8 refers to a man falling into a net (רֶשֶׁת, reshet), as does Ps 141:10 (where the plural of מִכְמָר [mikhmar, “net”] is used). A hunter’s net (רֶשֶׁת), is associated with snares (פַּח [pakh], מֹקְשִׁים, [moqÿshim]) and ropes (חֲבָלִים, khavalim) in Ps 140:5. The final word in the verse (חֶלְכָּאִים (khelka’im, “unfortunate [ones]”) may be an alternate form of חֵלְכָח (khelkhakh, “unfortunate [one]”; see vv. 8, 14). The Qere (marginal reading) divides the form into two words, חֵיל כָּאִים (khel ka’im, “army/host of disheartened [ones]”). The three verb forms in v. 10 are singular because the representative “oppressed” individual is the grammatical subject (see the singular עָנִי [’aniy] in v. 9).

[10:11]  ²³ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[18:19]  ²⁵ tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”

[18:19]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.

[14:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “you will not be united with them in burial” (so NASB).

[14:21]  ²⁸ tn Or “the place of slaughter for.”

[14:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “for the sin of their fathers.”

[14:21]  ³⁰ sn J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:320, n. 10) suggests that the garrison cities of the mighty empire are in view here.

[14:22]  ³¹ tn Heb “I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant” (ASV, NAB, and NRSV all similar).

[14:22]  ³² tn Heb “descendant and child.”

[22:30]  ³³ tn Heb “Write this man childless.” For the explanation see the study note. The word translated “childless” has spawned some debate because Jeconiah was in fact not childless. There is record from both the Bible and ancient Near Eastern texts that he had children (see, e.g., 1 Chr 3:17). G. R. Driver, “Linguistic and Textual Problems: Jeremiah,” JQR 28 (1937-38): 115, has suggested that the word both here and in Lev 20:20-21 should be translated “stripped of honor.” While that would relieve some of the difficulties here, the word definitely means “childless” in Gen 15:2 and also in Sir 16:3 where it is contrasted with having godless children. The issue is not one of childlessness but of having “one of his sons” succeed to the Davidic throne. The term for “one of his sons” is literally “from his seed a man” and the word “seed” is the same one that is used to refer to his “children” who were forced into exile with him (v. 28).