14:4 All those who behave wickedly 1 do not understand – 2
those who devour my people as if they were eating bread,
and do not call out to the Lord.
35:13 When they were sick, I wore sackcloth, 3
and refrained from eating food. 4
(If I am lying, may my prayers go unanswered!) 5
53:4 All those who behave wickedly 6 do not understand 7 –
those who devour my people as if they were eating bread,
and do not call out to God.
78:8 Then they will not be like their ancestors,
who were a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation that was not committed
and faithful to God. 8
99:6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests;
Samuel was one of those who prayed to him. 9
They 10 prayed to the Lord and he answered them.
106:9 He shouted at 11 the Red Sea and it dried up;
he led them through the deep water as if it were a desert.
139:9 If I were to fly away 12 on the wings of the dawn, 13
and settle down on the other side 14 of the sea,
139:11 If I were to say, “Certainly the darkness will cover me, 15
and the light will turn to night all around me,” 16
139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,
when 17 I was made in secret
and sewed together in the depths of the earth. 18
1 tn Heb “all the workers of wickedness.” See Pss 5:5; 6:8.
2 tn Heb “Do they not understand?” The rhetorical question (rendered in the translation as a positive affirmation) expresses the psalmist’s amazement at their apparent lack of understanding. This may refer to their lack of moral understanding, but it more likely refers to their failure to anticipate God’s defense of his people (see vv. 5-7).
3 tn Heb “as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth.” Sackcloth was worn by mourners. When the psalmist’s enemies were sick, he was sorry for their misfortune and mourned for them.
4 sn Fasting was also a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities, such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.
5 tn Heb “and my prayer upon my chest will return.” One could translate, “but my prayer was returning upon my chest,” but the use of the imperfect verbal form sets this line apart from the preceding and following lines (vv. 13a, 14), which use the perfect to describe the psalmist’s past actions.
6 tn Heb “the workers of wickedness.” See Pss 5:5; 6:8. Ps 14:4 adds כֹּל (kol, “all of”) before “workers of wickedness.”
7 tn Heb “Do they not understand?” The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s amazement at their apparent lack of understanding. This may refer to their lack of moral understanding, but it more likely refers to their failure to anticipate God’s defense of his people (see vv. 5-6).
8 tn Heb “a generation that did not make firm its heart and whose spirit was not faithful with God.” The expression “make firm the heart” means “to be committed, devoted” (see 1 Sam 7:3).
9 tn Heb “among those who called on his name.”
10 tn Heb “those who.” The participle is in apposition to the phrase “those who called on his name” in the preceding line.
11 tn Or “rebuked.”
12 tn Heb “rise up.”
13 sn On the wings of the dawn. This personification of the “dawn” may find its roots in mythological traditions about the god Shachar, whose birth is described in an Ugaritic myth (see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 126) and who is mentioned in Isa 14:12 as the father of Helel.
14 tn Heb “at the end.”
15 tn The Hebrew verb שׁוּף (shuf), which means “to crush; to wound,” in Gen 3:15 and Job 9:17, is problematic here. For a discussion of attempts to relate the verb to Arabic roots, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 251. Many emend the form to יְשׂוּכֵּנִי (yesukkeniy), from the root שׂכך (“to cover,” an alternate form of סכך), a reading assumed in the present translation.
16 tn Heb “and night, light, around me.”
17 tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (ka’asher, “when”). The kaf (כ) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).
18 sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.