Psalms 55:9-11

55:9 Confuse them, ¹  O Lord!

Frustrate their plans! ² 

For I see violence and conflict in the city.

55:10 Day and night they walk around on its walls, ³ 

while wickedness and destruction ⁴  are within it.

55:11 Disaster is within it;

violence ⁵  and deceit do not depart from its public square.

[55:9]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”

[55:10]  ³ 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]  ⁴ sn Wickedness and destruction. These terms are also closely associated in Ps 7:14.

[55:11]  ⁵ tn Or “injury, harm.”