Psalms 5:4-7

5:4 Certainly ¹  you are not a God who approves of evil; ² 

evil people ³  cannot dwell with you. ⁴ 

5:5 Arrogant people cannot stand in your presence; ⁵ 

you hate ⁶  all who behave wickedly. ⁷ 

5:6 You destroy ⁸  liars; ⁹ 

the Lord despises ¹⁰  violent and deceitful people. ¹¹ 

5:7 But as for me, ¹²  because of your great faithfulness I will enter your house; ¹³ 

I will bow down toward your holy temple as I worship you. ¹⁴ 

[5:4]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[5:4]  ² tn Heb “not a God [who] delights [in] wickedness [are] you.”

[5:4]  ³ tn The Hebrew text has simply the singular form רע, which may be taken as an abstract noun “evil” (the reference to “wickedness” in the preceding line favors this; cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) or as a substantival adjective “evil one” (the references to evil people in the next two verses favor this; cf. NIV “with you the wicked cannot dwell”).

[5:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “cannot dwell as a resident alien [with] you.” The negated imperfect verbal form here indicates incapability or lack of permission. These people are morally incapable of dwelling in God’s presence and are not permitted to do so.

[5:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “before your eyes.”

[5:5]  ⁶ sn You hate. The Lord “hates” the wicked in the sense that he despises their wicked character and deeds and actively opposes and judges them for their wickedness. See Ps 11:5.

[5:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “all the workers of wickedness.”

[5:6]  ⁸ tn The imperfect verbal form indicates God’s typical response to such individuals. Another option is to translate the verb as future (“You will destroy”); the psalmist may be envisioning a time of judgment when God will remove the wicked from the scene.

[5:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “those who speak a lie.” In the OT a “lie” does not refer in a general philosophical sense to any statement that fails to correspond to reality. Instead it refers more specifically to a slanderous and/or deceitful statement that promotes one’s own selfish, sinful interests and/or exploits or harms those who are innocent. Note the emphasis on violence and deceit in the following line.

[5:6]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect verbal form highlights the Lord’s characteristic attitude toward such individuals.

[5:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a man of bloodshed and deceit.” The singular אִישׁ (’ish, “man”) is used here in a collective or representative sense; thus the translation “people” is appropriate here. Note the plural forms in vv. 5-6a.

[5:7]  ¹² sn But as for me. By placing the first person pronoun at the beginning of the verse, the psalmist highlights the contrast between the evildoers’ actions and destiny, outlined in the preceding verses, with his own.

[5:7]  ¹³ sn I will enter your house. The psalmist is confident that God will accept him into his presence, in contrast to the evildoers (see v. 5).

[5:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in fear [of] you.” The Hebrew noun יִרְאָה (yir’ah, “fear”), when used of fearing God, is sometimes used metonymically for what it ideally produces: “worship, reverence, piety.”