20:4 May he grant your heart’s desire; 1
may he bring all your plans to pass! 2
33:10 The Lord frustrates 3 the decisions of the nations;
he nullifies the plans 4 of the peoples.
33:11 The Lord’s decisions stand forever;
his plans abide throughout the ages. 5
55:9 Confuse them, 6 O Lord!
Frustrate their plans! 7
For I see violence and conflict in the city.
83:3 They carefully plot 8 against your people,
and make plans to harm 9 the ones you cherish. 10
92:5 How great are your works, O Lord!
Your plans are very intricate! 11
1 tn Heb “may he give to you according to your heart.” This probably refers to the king’s prayer for protection and victory in battle. See vv. 5-6.
2 sn May he bring all your plans to pass. This probably refers to the king’s strategy for battle.
3 tn Heb “breaks” or “destroys.” The Hebrew perfect verbal forms here and in the next line generalize about the
4 tn Heb “thoughts.”
5 tn Heb “the thoughts of his heart for generation to generation.” The verb “abides” is supplied in the translation. The
6 tn Traditionally בַּלַּע (bala’) has been taken to mean “swallow” in the sense of “devour” or “destroy” (cf. KJV), but this may be a homonym meaning “confuse” (see BDB 118 s.v. בַּלַּע; HALOT 135 s.v. III *בֶּלַע). “Their tongue” is the understood object of the verb (see the next line).
7 tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”
8 tn Heb “they make crafty a plot.”
9 tn Heb “and consult together against.”
10 tn The passive participle of the Hebrew verb צָפַן (tsafan, “to hide”) is used here in the sense of “treasured; cherished.”
11 tn Heb “very deep [are] your thoughts.” God’s “thoughts” refer here to his moral design of the world, as outlined in vv. 6-15.