Psalms 5:7

5:7 But as for me, ¹  because of your great faithfulness I will enter your house; ² 

I will bow down toward your holy temple as I worship you. ³ 

Psalms 5:10

5:10 Condemn them, ⁴  O God!

May their own schemes be their downfall! ⁵ 

Drive them away ⁶  because of their many acts of insurrection, ⁷ 

for they have rebelled against you.

Psalms 52:7

52:7 “Look, here is the man who would not make ⁸  God his protector!

He trusted in his great wealth

and was confident about his plans to destroy others.” ⁹ 

Psalms 66:3

66:3 Say to God:

“How awesome are your deeds!

Because of your great power your enemies cower in fear ¹⁰  before you.

Psalms 69:16

69:16 Answer me, O Lord, for your loyal love is good! ¹¹ 

Because of your great compassion, turn toward me!

[5:7]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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.”

[5:10]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Or “banish them.”

[5:10]  ⁷ 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).

[52:7]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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”).

[66:3]  ¹⁰ tn See Deut 33:29; Ps 81:15 for other uses of the verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) in the sense “cower in fear.” In Ps 18:44 the verb seems to carry the nuance “be weak, powerless” (see also Ps 109:24).

[69:16]  ¹³ tn Or “pleasant”; or “desirable.”