3:6 I am not afraid 1 of the multitude of people 2
who attack me from all directions. 3
17:11 They attack me, now they surround me; 4
they intend to throw me to the ground. 5
54:3 For foreigners 6 attack me; 7
ruthless men, who do not respect God, seek my life. 8 (Selah)
81:14 Then I would quickly subdue their enemies,
and attack 9 their adversaries.”
109:3 They surround me and say hateful things; 10
they attack me for no reason.
1 tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s continuing attitude as he faces the crisis at hand.
2 tn Or perhaps “troops.” The Hebrew noun עָם (’am) sometimes refers to a military contingent or army.
3 tn Heb “who all around take a stand against me.”
4 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”).
5 tn Heb “their eyes they set to bend down in the ground.”
6 tc Many medieval Hebrew
7 tn Heb “rise against me.”
8 tn Heb “and ruthless ones seek my life, they do not set God in front of them.”
9 tn Heb “turn my hand against.” The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack” (see Isa 1:25; Ezek 38:12; Amos 1:8; Zech 13:7).
10 tn Heb “and [with] words of hatred they surround me.”