Psalms 58:3

58:3 The wicked turn aside from birth; ¹ 

liars go astray as soon as they are born. ² 

Psalms 107:4

107:4 They wandered through the wilderness on a desert road;

they found no city in which to live.

Psalms 107:40

107:40 He would pour ³  contempt upon princes,

and he made them wander in a wasteland with no road.

Psalms 119:110

119:110 The wicked lay a trap for me,

but I do not wander from your precepts.

Psalms 119:176

119:176 I have wandered off like a lost sheep. ⁴ 

Come looking for your servant,

for I do not forget your commands.

Psalms 95:10

95:10 For forty years I was continually disgusted ⁵  with that generation,

and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray; ⁶ 

they do not obey my commands.’ ⁷ 

[58:3]  ¹ tn Heb “from the womb.”

[58:3]  ² tn Heb “speakers of a lie go astray from the womb.”

[107:40]  ³ tn The active participle is understood as past durative here, drawing attention to typical action in a past time frame. However, it could be taken as generalizing (in which case one should translate using the English present tense), in which case the psalmist moves from narrative to present reality. Perhaps the participial form appears because the statement is lifted from Job 12:21.

[119:176]  ⁵ tn Heb “I stray like a lost sheep.” It is possible that the point of the metaphor is vulnerability: The psalmist, who is threatened by his enemies, feels as vulnerable as a straying, lost sheep. This would not suggest, however, that he has wandered from God’s path (see the second half of the verse, as well as v. 110).

[95:10]  ⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form.

[95:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.”

[95:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “and they do not know my ways.” In this context the Lord’s “ways” are his commands, viewed as a pathway from which his people, likened to wayward sheep (see v. 7), wander.