18:39 You give me strength 1 for battle;
you make my foes kneel before me. 2
13:4 Then 3 my enemy will say, “I have defeated him!”
Then 4 my foes will rejoice because I am upended.
44:5 By your power 5 we will drive back 6 our enemies;
by your strength 7 we will trample down 8 our foes! 9
92:11 I gloat in triumph over those who tried to ambush me; 10
I hear the defeated cries of the evil foes who attacked me. 11
1 tn Heb “clothed me.” See v. 32.
2 tn Heb “you make those who rise against me kneel beneath me.”
sn My foes kneel before me. For ancient Near Eastern parallels, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 268.
3 tn Heb “or else.”
4 tn Heb “or else.”
5 tn Heb “by you.”
6 tn Heb “gore” (like an ox). If this portion of the psalm contains the song of confidence/petition the Israelites recited prior to battle, then the imperfects here and in the next line may express their expectation of victory. Another option is that the imperfects function in an emphatic generalizing manner. In this case one might translate, “you [always] drive back…you [always] trample down.”
sn The Hebrew verb translated “drive back” is literally “gore”; the imagery is that of a powerful wild ox that “gores” its enemies and tramples them underfoot.
7 tn Heb “in your name.” The
8 sn The image of the powerful wild ox continues; see the note on the phrase “drive back” in the preceding line.
9 tn Heb “those who rise up [against] us.”
10 tn Heb “my eye gazes upon those who watch me [with evil intent].” See also Pss 5:8; 27:11; 56:2. The form שׁוּרָי (shuray) should be emended to שׁוֹרְרָי (shorÿray).
11 tn Heb “those who rise up against me, evil [foes], my ears hear.”