6:8 Turn back from me, all you who behave wickedly, 1
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping! 2
6:10 May all my enemies be humiliated 3 and absolutely terrified! 4
May they turn back and be suddenly humiliated!
18:37 I chase my enemies and catch 5 them;
I do not turn back until I wipe them out.
22:27 Let all the people of the earth acknowledge the Lord and turn to him! 6
Let all the nations 7 worship you! 8
27:12 Do not turn me over to my enemies, 9
for false witnesses who want to destroy me testify against me. 10
69:16 Answer me, O Lord, for your loyal love is good! 11
Because of your great compassion, turn toward me!
90:13 Turn back toward us, O Lord!
How long must this suffering last? 12
Have pity on your servants! 13
119:51 Arrogant people do nothing but scoff at me. 14
Yet I do not turn aside from your law.
119:115 Turn away from me, you evil men,
so that I can observe 15 the commands of my God. 16
1 tn Heb “all [you] workers of wickedness.” See Ps 5:5.
2 sn The
3 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.
4 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
5 tn 2 Sam 22:38 reads “destroy.”
6 tn Heb “may all the ends of the earth remember and turn to the
7 tn Heb “families of the nations.”
8 tn Heb “before you.”
9 tn Heb “do not give me over to the desire of my enemies.”
10 tn Heb “for they have risen up against me, lying witnesses and a testifier of violence.” The form יָפֵחַ (yafeakh) is traditionally understood as a verb meaning “snort, breathe out”: “for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty” (KJV; cf. BDB 422 s.v.). A better option is to take the form as a noun meaning “a witness” (or “testifier”). See Prov 6:19; 12:17; 14:5, 25; 19:5, 9, and Hab 2:3.
11 tn Or “pleasant”; or “desirable.”
12 tn Heb “Return, O
13 tn Elsewhere the Niphal of נָחַם (nakham) + the preposition עַל (’al) + a personal object has the nuance “be comforted concerning [the personal object’s death]” (see 2 Sam 13:39; Jer 31:15). However, here the context seems to demand “feel sorrow for,” “have pity on.” In Deut 32:36 and Ps 135:14, where “servants” is also the object of the preposition, this idea is expressed with the Hitpael form of the verb.
14 tn Heb “scoff at me to excess.”
15 tn The cohortative verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding imperative.
16 tn The psalmist has already declared that he observes God’s commands despite persecution, so here the idea must be “so that I might observe the commands of my God unhindered by threats.”