Psalms 5:10

5:10 Condemn them, ¹  O God!

May their own schemes be their downfall! ² 

Drive them away ³  because of their many acts of insurrection, ⁴ 

for they have rebelled against you.

Psalms 30:9

30:9 “What ⁵  profit is there in taking my life, ⁶ 

in my descending into the Pit? ⁷ 

Can the dust of the grave ⁸  praise you?

Can it declare your loyalty? ⁹ 

Psalms 37:20

37:20 But ¹⁰  evil men will die;

the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated ¹¹  –

they will go up in smoke. ¹² 

Psalms 37:34

37:34 Rely ¹³  on the Lord! Obey his commands! ¹⁴ 

Then he will permit you ¹⁵  to possess the land;

you will see the demise of evil men. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 40:14

40:14 May those who are trying to snatch away my life

be totally embarrassed and ashamed! ¹⁷ 

May those who want to harm me

be turned back and ashamed! ¹⁸ 

Psalms 52:7

52:7 “Look, here is the man who would not make ¹⁹  God his protector!

He trusted in his great wealth

and was confident about his plans to destroy others.” ²⁰ 

Psalms 57:3

57:3 May he send help from heaven and deliver me ²¹ 

from my enemies who hurl insults! ²²  (Selah)

May God send his loyal love and faithfulness!

Psalms 71:13

71:13 May my accusers be humiliated and defeated!

May those who want to harm me ²³  be covered with scorn and disgrace!

Psalms 78:50

78:50 He sent his anger in full force; ²⁴ 

he did not spare them from death;

he handed their lives over to destruction. ²⁵ 

Psalms 106:23

106:23 He threatened ²⁶  to destroy them,

but ²⁷  Moses, his chosen one, interceded with him ²⁸ 

and turned back his destructive anger. ²⁹ 

Psalms 146:9

146:9 The Lord protects those residing outside their native land;

he lifts up the fatherless and the widow, ³⁰ 

but he opposes the wicked. ³¹ 

[5:10]  ¹ tn Heb “declare/regard them as guilty.” Declaring the psalmist’s adversaries guilty is here metonymic for judging them or paying them back for their wrongdoing.

[5:10]  ² tn Heb “may they fall from their plans.” The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation. The psalmist calls judgment down on the evildoers. Their plans will be their downfall in that God will judge them for their evil schemes.

[5:10]  ³ tn Or “banish them.”

[5:10]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew noun used here, פֶּשַׁע (pesha’), refers to rebellious actions. The psalmist pictures his enemies as rebels against God (see the next line).

[30:9]  ⁵ sn The following two verses (vv. 9-10) contain the prayer (or an excerpt of the prayer) that the psalmist offered to the Lord during his crisis.

[30:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.

[30:9]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4).

[30:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[30:9]  ⁹ tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”

[37:20]  ⁹ tn Or “for,” but Hebrew כי in this case would have to extend all the way back to v. 17a. Another option is to understand the particle as asseverative, “surely” (see v. 22).

[37:20]  ¹⁰ tc The meaning of the MT (כִּיקַר כָּרִים [kiqar karim], “like what is precious among the pastures/rams”) is uncertain. One possibility is to take the noun כָּרִים as “pastures” and interpret “what is precious” as referring to flowers that blossom but then quickly disappear (see v. 2 and BDB 430 s.v. יָקָר 3). If כָּרִים is taken as “rams,” then “what is precious” might refer to the choicest portions of rams. The present translation follows a reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpPs37), כיקוד כורם (“like the burning of an oven”). The next line, which pictures the Lord’s enemies being consumed in smoke, supports this reading, which assumes confusion of the Hebrew letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) at the end of the first word in the sequence.

[37:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they perish in smoke, they perish.” In addition to repeating the verb for emphasis, the psalmist uses the perfect form of the verb to picture the enemies’ demise as if it had already taken place. In this way he draws attention to the certitude of their judgment.

[37:34]  ¹³ tn Or “wait.”

[37:34]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “keep his way.” The Lord’s “way” refers here to the “conduct required” by the Lord. In Ps 25 the Lord’s “ways” are associated with his covenantal demands (see vv. 4, 9-10). See also Ps 119:3 (cf. vv. 1, 4), as well as Deut 8:6; 10:12; 11:22; 19:9; 26:17; 28:9; 30:16.

[37:34]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and he will lift you up.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) is best taken here as a result clause following the imperatives in the preceding lines.

[37:34]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “when evil men are cut off you will see.”

[40:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “may they be embarrassed and ashamed together, the ones seeking my life to snatch it away.”

[40:14]  ¹⁸ tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse (“may those…be…embarrassed and ashamed…may those…be turned back and ashamed”) are understood as jussives. The psalmist is calling judgment down on his enemies.

[52:7]  ²¹ tn The imperfect verbal form here draws attention to the ongoing nature of the action. The evildoer customarily rejected God and trusted in his own abilities. Another option is to take the imperfect as generalizing, “[here is the man who] does not make.”

[52:7]  ²² tn Heb “he was strong in his destruction.” “Destruction” must refer back to the destructive plans mentioned in v. 2. The verb (derived from the root עָזַז, ’azaz, “be strong”) as it stands is either an imperfect (if so, probably used in a customary sense) or a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive). However the form should probably be emended to וַיָּעָז (vayya’az), a Qal preterite (with vav [ו] consecutive) from עָזַז. Note the preterite form without vav (ו) consecutive in the preceding line (וַיִּבְטַח, vayyivtakh, “and he trusted”). The prefixed vav (ו) was likely omitted by haplography (note the suffixed vav [ו] on the preceding עָשְׁרוֹ, ’oshro, “his wealth”).

[57:3]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ 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.”

[71:13]  ²⁹ tn Heb “those who seek my harm.”

[78:50]  ³³ tn Heb “he leveled a path for his anger.” There were no obstacles to impede its progress; it moved swiftly and destructively.

[78:50]  ³⁴ tn Or perhaps “[the] plague.”

[106:23]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and he said.”

[106:23]  ³⁸ tn Heb “if not,” that is, “[and would have] if [Moses] had not.”

[106:23]  ³⁹ tn Heb “stood in the gap before him.”

[106:23]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “to turn back his anger from destroying.”

[146:9]  ⁴¹ sn God is depicted here as a just ruler. In the ancient Near Eastern world a king was responsible for promoting justice, including caring for the weak and vulnerable, epitomized by resident aliens, the fatherless, and widows.

[146:9]  ⁴² tn Heb “he makes the way of the wicked twisted.” The “way of the wicked” probably refers to their course of life (see Prov 4:19; Jer 12:1). God makes their path tortuous in the sense that he makes them pay the harmful consequences of their actions.