Psalms 55:6-11

55:6 I say, ¹  “I wish I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and settle in a safe place!

55:7 Look, I will escape to a distant place;

I will stay in the wilderness. (Selah)

55:8 I will hurry off to a place that is safe

from the strong wind ²  and the gale.”

55:9 Confuse them, ³  O Lord!

Frustrate their plans! ⁴ 

For I see violence and conflict in the city.

55:10 Day and night they walk around on its walls, ⁵ 

while wickedness and destruction ⁶  are within it.

55:11 Disaster is within it;

violence ⁷  and deceit do not depart from its public square.

[55:6]  ¹ tn The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive carries on the descriptive (present progressive) force of the verbs in v. 5.

[55:8]  ² tn Heb “[the] wind [that] sweeps away.” The verb סָעָה (sa’ah, “sweep away”) occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 120).

[55:9]  ³ tn Traditionally בַּלַּע (bala’) has been taken to mean “swallow” in the sense of “devour” or “destroy” (cf. KJV), but this may be a homonym meaning “confuse” (see BDB 118 s.v. בַּלַּע; HALOT 135 s.v. III *בֶּלַע). “Their tongue” is the understood object of the verb (see the next line).

[55:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”

[55:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “day and night they surround it, upon its walls.” Personified “violence and conflict” are the likely subjects. They are compared to watchmen on the city’s walls.

[55:10]  ⁶ sn Wickedness and destruction. These terms are also closely associated in Ps 7:14.

[55:11]  ⁷ tn Or “injury, harm.”