5:10 Condemn them, 1 O God!
May their own schemes be their downfall! 2
Drive them away 3 because of their many acts of insurrection, 4
for they have rebelled against you.
59:3 For look, they wait to ambush me; 5
powerful men stalk 6 me,
but not because I have rebelled or sinned, O Lord. 7
1 tn Heb “declare/regard them as guilty.” Declaring the psalmist’s adversaries guilty is here metonymic for judging them or paying them back for their wrongdoing.
2 tn Heb “may they fall from their plans.” The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation. The psalmist calls judgment down on the evildoers. Their plans will be their downfall in that God will judge them for their evil schemes.
3 tn Or “banish them.”
4 tn The Hebrew noun used here, פֶּשַׁע (pesha’), refers to rebellious actions. The psalmist pictures his enemies as rebels against God (see the next line).
5 tn Heb “my life.”
6 tn The Hebrew verb is from the root גּוּר (gur), which means “to challenge, attack” in Isa 54:15 and “to stalk” (with hostile intent) in Ps 56:8.
7 sn The point is that the psalmist’s enemies have no justifiable reason for attacking him. He has neither rebelled or sinned against the