Psalms 94:8

94:8 Take notice of this, ¹  you ignorant people! ² 

You fools, when will you ever understand?

Psalms 106:18

106:18 Fire burned their group;

the flames scorched the wicked. ³ 

Psalms 83:14

83:14 Like the fire that burns down the forest,

or the flames that consume the mountainsides, ⁴ 

Psalms 18:8

18:8 Smoke ascended from ⁵  his nose; ⁶ 

fire devoured as it came from his mouth; ⁷ 

he hurled down fiery coals. ⁸ 

Psalms 39:3

39:3 my anxiety intensified. ⁹ 

As I thought about it, I became impatient. ¹⁰ 

Finally I spoke these words: ¹¹ 

Psalms 79:5

79:5 How long will this go on, O Lord? ¹² 

Will you stay angry forever?

How long will your rage ¹³  burn like fire?

Psalms 89:46

89:46 How long, O Lord, will this last?

Will you remain hidden forever? ¹⁴ 

Will your anger continue to burn like fire?

Psalms 2:12

2:12 Give sincere homage! ¹⁵ 

Otherwise he ¹⁶  will be angry, ¹⁷ 

and you will die because of your behavior, ¹⁸ 

when his anger quickly ignites. ¹⁹ 

How blessed ²⁰  are all who take shelter in him! ²¹ 

[94:8]  ¹ tn Heb “understand.” The verb used in v. 7 is repeated here for rhetorical effect. The people referred to here claim God is ignorant of their actions, but the psalmist corrects their faulty viewpoint.

[94:8]  ² tn Heb “[you] brutish among the people.”

[106:18]  ³ sn Verses 16-18 describe the events of Num 16:1-40.

[83:14]  ⁵ sn The imagery of fire and flames suggests unrelenting, destructive judgment.

[18:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “within”; or “[from] within.” For a discussion of the use of the preposition -בְּ (bÿ) here, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 163-64.

[18:8]  ⁸ tn Or “in his anger.” The noun אַף (’af) can carry the abstract meaning “anger,” but the parallelism (note “from his mouth”) suggests the more concrete meaning “nose” here. See also v. 15, “the powerful breath of your nose.”

[18:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “fire from his mouth devoured.” In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the two perfect verbal forms in the verse.

[18:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “coals burned from him.” Perhaps the psalmist pictures God’s fiery breath igniting coals (cf. Job 41:21), which he then hurls as weapons (cf. Ps 120:4).

[39:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “my heart was hot within me.”

[39:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “In my reflection fire burned.” The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite (past tense) or an imperfect being used in a past progressive or customary sense (“fire was burning”).

[39:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I spoke with my tongue.” The phrase “these words” is supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

[79:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “How long, O Lord?”

[79:5]  ¹² tn Or “jealous anger.”

[89:46]  ¹³ tn Heb “How long, O Lord, will hide yourself forever?”

[2:12]  ¹⁵ tn Traditionally, “kiss the son” (KJV). But בַּר (bar) is the Aramaic word for “son,” not the Hebrew. For this reason many regard the reading as suspect. Some propose emendations of vv. 11b-12a. One of the more popular proposals is to read בִּרְעָדָה נַשְּׁקוּ לְרַגְלָיו (bir’adah nashÿqu lÿraslayv, “in trembling kiss his feet”). It makes better sense to understand בַּר (bar) as an adjective meaning “pure” (see Pss 24:4; 73:1 and BDB 141 s.v. בַּר 3) functioning here in an adverbial sense. If read this way, then the syntactical structure of exhortation (imperative followed by adverbial modifier) corresponds to the two preceding lines (see v. 11). The verb נָשַׁק (nashaq, “kiss”) refers metonymically to showing homage (see 1 Sam 10:1; Hos 13:2). The exhortation in v. 12a advocates a genuine expression of allegiance and warns against insincerity. When swearing allegiance, vassal kings would sometimes do so insincerely, with the intent of rebelling when the time was right. The so-called “Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon” also warn against such an attitude. In this treaty the vassal is told: “If you, as you stand on the soil where this oath [is sworn], swear the oath with your words and lips [only], do not swear with your entire heart, do not transmit it to your sons who will live after this treaty, if you take this curse upon yourselves but do not plan to keep the treaty of Esarhaddon…may your sons and grandsons because of this fear in the future” (see J. B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East, 2:62).

[2:12]  ¹⁶ tn Throughout the translation of this verse the third person masculine pronouns refer to the Lord (cf. v. 11).

[2:12]  ¹⁷ tn The implied subject of the verb is the Lord, mentioned in v. 11. Elsewhere the subject of this verb is consistently the Lord, suggesting it may be a technical term for divine anger. Anger is here used metonymically for judgment, as the following statement makes clear. A Moabite cognate occurs in the Mesha inscription, where it is used of the Moabite god Chemosh’s anger at his people (see J. B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East, 1:209).

[2:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and you will perish [in the] way.” The Hebrew word דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way”) here refers to their rebellious behavior (not to a pathway, as often understood). It functions syntactically as an adverbial accusative in relation to the verb “perish.”

[2:12]  ¹⁹ tn Or “burns.” The Lord’s anger is compared here to fire, the most destructive force known in ancient Israel.

[2:12]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see Pss 1:1; 34:9; 41:1; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).

[2:12]  ²¹ sn Who take shelter in him. “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 5:11-12; 31:17-20; 34:21-22).