Psalms 42:10

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ¹ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ² 

Psalms 55:12

55:12 Indeed, ³  it is not an enemy who insults me,

or else I could bear it;

it is not one who hates me who arrogantly taunts me, ⁴ 

or else I could hide from him.

Psalms 57:3

57:3 May he send help from heaven and deliver me ⁵ 

from my enemies who hurl insults! ⁶  (Selah)

May God send his loyal love and faithfulness!

Psalms 69:9

69:9 Certainly ⁷  zeal for ⁸  your house ⁹  consumes me;

I endure the insults of those who insult you. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 74:10

74:10 How long, O God, will the adversary hurl insults?

Will the enemy blaspheme your name forever?

Psalms 74:18

74:18 Remember how ¹¹  the enemy hurls insults, O Lord, ¹² 

and how a foolish nation blasphemes your name!

Psalms 79:12

79:12 Pay back our neighbors in full! ¹³ 

May they be insulted the same way they insulted you, O Lord! ¹⁴ 

[42:10]  ¹ tc Heb “with a shattering in my bones my enemies taunt me.” A few medieval Hebrew mss and Symmachus’ Greek version read “like” instead of “with.”

[42:10]  ² sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

[55:12]  ³ tn Or “for.”

[55:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “[who] magnifies against me.” See Pss 35:26; 38:16.

[57:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “may he send from heaven and deliver me.” The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives expressing the psalmist’s prayer. The second verb, which has a vav (ו) conjunctive prefixed to it, probably indicates purpose. Another option is to take the forms as imperfects expressing confidence, “he will send from heaven and deliver me” (cf. NRSV).

[57:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “he hurls insults, one who crushes me.” The translation assumes that this line identifies those from whom the psalmist seeks deliverance. (The singular is representative; the psalmist is surrounded by enemies, see v. 4.) Another option is to understand God as the subject of the verb חָרַף (kharaf), which could then be taken as a homonym of the more common root חָרַף (“insult”) meaning “confuse.” In this case “one who crushes me” is the object of the verb. One might translate, “he [God] confuses my enemies.”

[69:9]  ⁷ tn Or “for.” This verse explains that the psalmist’s suffering is due to his allegiance to God.

[69:9]  ⁸ tn Or “devotion to.”

[69:9]  ⁹ sn God’s house, the temple, here represents by metonymy God himself.

[69:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the insults of those who insult you fall upon me.”

[74:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “remember this.”

[74:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “[how] the enemy insults the Lord.”

[79:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Return to our neighbors sevenfold into their lap.” The number seven is used rhetorically to express the thorough nature of the action. For other rhetorical/figurative uses of the Hebrew phrase שִׁבְעָתַיִם (shiv’atayim, “seven times”) see Gen 4:15, 24; Ps 12:6; Prov 6:31; Isa 30:26.

[79:12]  ¹² tn Heb “their reproach with which they reproached you, O Lord.”