18:40 You make my enemies retreat; 1
I destroy those who hate me. 2
21:12 For you make them retreat 3
when you shoot your arrows at them. 4
48:5 As soon as they see, 5 they are shocked; 6
they are terrified, they quickly retreat. 7
104:7 Your shout made the waters retreat;
at the sound of your thunderous voice they hurried off –
1 tn Heb “and [as for] my enemies, you give to me [the] back [or “neck”].” The idiom “give [the] back” means “to cause [one] to turn the back and run away.” Cf. Exod 23:27.
2 sn Those who hate me. See v. 17, where it is the
3 tn Heb “you make them a shoulder,” i.e., “you make them turn and run, showing the back of their neck and shoulders.”
4 tn Heb “with your bowstrings you fix against their faces,” i.e., “you fix your arrows on the bowstrings to shoot at them.”
5 tn The object of “see” is omitted, but v. 3b suggests that the
6 tn Heb “they look, so they are shocked.” Here כֵּן (ken, “so”) has the force of “in the same measure.”
7 tn The translation attempts to reflect the staccato style of the Hebrew text, where the main clauses of vv. 4-6 are simply juxtaposed without connectives.