Psalms 9:15

9:15 The nations fell ¹  into the pit they had made;

their feet were caught in the net they had hidden. ² 

Psalms 12:7

12:7 You, Lord, will protect them; ³ 

you will continually shelter each one from these evil people, ⁴ 

Psalms 31:4

31:4 You will free me ⁵  from the net they hid for me,

for you are my place of refuge.

Psalms 62:11

62:11 God has declared one principle;

two principles I have heard: ⁶ 

God is strong, ⁷ 

Psalms 68:28

68:28 God has decreed that you will be powerful. ⁸ 

O God, you who have acted on our behalf, demonstrate your power,

[9:15]  ¹ tn Heb “sank down.”

[9:15]  ² sn The hostility of the nations against God’s people is their downfall, for it prompts God to intervene and destroy them. See also Ps 7:15-16.

[12:7]  ³ tn The third person plural pronominal suffix on the verb is masculine, referring back to the “oppressed” and “needy” in v. 5 (both of those nouns are plural in form), suggesting that the verb means “protect” here. The suffix does not refer to אִמֲרוֹת (’imarot, “words”) in v. 6, because that term is feminine gender.

[12:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “you will protect him from this generation permanently.” The third masculine singular suffix on the verb “protect” is probably used in a distributive sense, referring to each one within the group mentioned previously (the oppressed/needy, referred to as “them” in the preceding line). On this grammatical point see GKC 396 §123.f (where the present text is not cited). (Some Hebrew mss and ancient textual witnesses read “us,” both here and in the preceding line.) The noun דוֹר (dor, “generation”) refers here to the psalmist’s contemporaries, who were characterized by deceit and arrogance (see vv. 1-2). See BDB 189-90 s.v. for other examples where “generation” refers to a class of people.

[31:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “bring me out.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form expresses the psalmist’s confidence about the future. Another option is to take the form as expressing a prayer, “free me.”

[62:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “one God spoke, two which I heard.” This is a numerical saying utilizing the “x” followed by “x + 1” pattern to facilitate poetic parallelism. (See W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament [VTSup], 55-56.) As is typical in such sayings, a list corresponding to the second number (in this case “two”) follows. Another option is to translate, “God has spoken once, twice [he has spoken] that which I have heard.” The terms אַחַת (’akhat, “one; once”) and שְׁתַּיִם (shÿtayim, “two; twice”) are also juxtaposed in 2 Kgs 6:10 (where they refer to an action that was done more than “once or twice”) and in Job 33:14 (where they refer to God speaking “one way” and then in “another manner”).

[62:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “that strength [belongs] to God.”

[68:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “God has commanded your strength.” The statement is apparently addressed to Israel (see v. 26).