55:6 I say, 1 “I wish I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and settle in a safe place!
55:7 Look, I will escape to a distant place;
I will stay in the wilderness. (Selah)
55:8 I will hurry off to a place that is safe
from the strong wind 2 and the gale.”
55:9 Confuse them, 3 O Lord!
Frustrate their plans! 4
For I see violence and conflict in the city.
55:10 Day and night they walk around on its walls, 5
while wickedness and destruction 6 are within it.
55:11 Disaster is within it;
violence 7 and deceit do not depart from its public square.
1 tn The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive carries on the descriptive (present progressive) force of the verbs in v. 5.
2 tn Heb “[the] wind [that] sweeps away.” The verb סָעָה (sa’ah, “sweep away”) occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 120).
3 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).
4 tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”
5 tn Heb “day and night they surround it, upon its walls.” Personified “violence and conflict” are the likely subjects. They are compared to watchmen on the city’s walls.
6 sn Wickedness and destruction. These terms are also closely associated in Ps 7:14.
7 tn Or “injury, harm.”