17:11 They attack me, now they surround me; 1
they intend to throw me to the ground. 2
44:25 For we lie in the dirt,
with our bellies pressed to the ground. 3
80:9 You cleared the ground for it; 4
it took root, 5
and filled the land.
83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; 6
their corpses were like manure 7 on the ground.
85:11 Faithfulness grows from the ground,
and deliverance looks down from the sky. 8
89:39 You have repudiated 9 your covenant with your servant; 10
you have thrown his crown to the ground. 11
89:44 You have brought to an end his splendor, 12
and have knocked 13 his throne to the ground.
147:6 The Lord lifts up the oppressed,
but knocks 14 the wicked to the ground.
1 tc Heb “our steps, now they surround me.” The Kethib (consonantal text) has “surround me,” while the Qere (marginal reading) has “surround us,” harmonizing the pronoun to the preceding “our steps.” The first person plural pronoun does not fit the context, where the psalmist speaks as an individual. In the preceding verses the psalmist uses a first person singular verbal or pronominal form twenty times. For this reason it is preferable to emend “our steps” to אִשְּׁרוּנִי (’ishÿruni, “they attack me”) from the verbal root אָשֻׁר (’ashur, “march, stride, track”).
2 tn Heb “their eyes they set to bend down in the ground.”
3 tn Heb “for our being/life sinks down to the dirt, our belly clings to the earth.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being, life”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.
4 tn Heb “you cleared away before it.”
5 tn Heb “and it took root [with] its roots.”
6 sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)
7 tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.
8 sn The psalmist already sees undeniable signs of God’s faithfulness and expects deliverance to arrive soon.
9 tn The Hebrew verb appears only here and in Lam 2:7.
10 tn Heb “the covenant of your servant.”
11 tn Heb “you dishonor [or “desecrate”] on the ground his crown.”
12 tc The Hebrew text appears to read, “you have brought to an end from his splendor,” but the form מִטְּהָרוֹ (mittÿharo) should be slightly emended (the daghesh should be removed from the tet [ת]) and read simply “his splendor” (the initial mem [מ] is not the preposition, but a nominal prefix).
13 tn The Hebrew verb מָגַר (magar) occurs only here and perhaps in Ezek 21:17.
14 tn Heb “brings down.”