6:10 May all my enemies be humiliated 1 and absolutely terrified! 2
May they turn back and be suddenly humiliated!
A psalm of David.
15:1 Lord, who may be a guest in your home? 4
Who may live on your holy hill? 5
68:23 so that your feet may stomp 6 in their blood,
and your dogs may eat their portion of the enemies’ corpses.” 7
69:22 May their dining table become a trap before them!
May it be a snare for that group of friends! 8
71:13 May my accusers be humiliated and defeated!
May those who want to harm me 9 be covered with scorn and disgrace!
104:31 May the splendor of the Lord endure! 10
May the Lord find pleasure in the living things he has made! 11
109:14 May his ancestors’ 12 sins be remembered by the Lord!
May his mother’s sin not be forgotten! 13
1 tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist concludes his prayer with an imprecation, calling judgment down on his enemies.
2 tn Heb “and may they be very terrified.” The psalmist uses the same expression in v. 3 to describe the terror he was experiencing. Now he asks the
3 sn Psalm 15. This psalm describes the character qualities that one must possess to be allowed access to the divine presence.
4 tn Heb “Who may live as a resident alien in your tent?”
5 sn In this context the Lord’s holy hill probably refers to Zion/Jerusalem. See Isa 66:20; Joel 2:1; 3:17; Zech 8:3; Pss 2:6; 43:3; 48:1; 87:1; Dan 9:16.
6 tc Some (e.g. NRSV) prefer to emend מָחַץ (makhats, “smash; stomp”; see v. 21) to רָחַץ (rakhats, “bathe”; see Ps 58:10).
7 tn Heb “[and] the tongue of your dogs from [the] enemies [may eat] its portion.”
8 tc Heb “and to the friends for a snare.” The plural of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is used in Ps 55:20 of one’s “friends.” If the reading of the MT is retained here, the term depicts the psalmist’s enemies as a close-knit group of friends who are bound together by their hatred for the psalmist. Some prefer to revocalize the text as וּלְשִׁלּוּמִים (ulÿshillumim, “and for retribution”). In this case the noun stands parallel to פַּח (pakh, “trap”) and מוֹקֵשׁ (moqesh, “snare”), and one might translate, “may their dining table become a trap before them, [a means of] retribution and a snare” (cf. NIV).
9 tn Heb “those who seek my harm.”
10 tn Heb “be forever.”
11 tn Or “rejoice in his works.”
12 tn Or “fathers’ sins.”
13 tn Heb “not be wiped out.”
sn According to ancient Israelite theology and its doctrine of corporate solidarity and responsibility, children could be and often were punished for the sins of their parents. For a discussion of this issue see J. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup). (Kaminsky, however, does not deal with Ps 109.)