62:10 Do not trust in what you can gain by oppression! 1
Do not put false confidence in what you can gain by robbery! 2
If wealth increases, do not become attached to it! 3
90:10 The days of our lives add up to seventy years, 4
or eighty, if one is especially strong. 5
But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. 6
Yes, 7 they pass quickly 8 and we fly away. 9
137:6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
and do not give Jerusalem priority
over whatever gives me the most joy. 10
1 tn Heb “do not trust in oppression.” Here “oppression” stands by metonymy for the riches that can be gained by oppressive measures, as the final line of the verse indicates.
2 tn Heb “and in robbery do not place vain hope.” Here “robbery” stands by metonymy for the riches that can be gained by theft, as the next line of the verse indicates.
3 tn Heb “[as for] wealth, when it bears fruit, do not set [your] heart [on it].”
4 tn Heb “the days of our years, in them [are] seventy years.”
5 tn Heb “or if [there is] strength, eighty years.”
6 tn Heb “and their pride [is] destruction and wickedness.” The Hebrew noun רֹהַב (rohav) occurs only here. BDB 923 s.v. assigns the meaning “pride,” deriving the noun from the verbal root רהב (“to act stormily [boisterously, arrogantly]”). Here the “pride” of one’s days (see v. 9) probably refers to one’s most productive years in the prime of life. The words translated “destruction and wickedness” are also paired in Ps 10:7. They also appear in proximity in Pss 7:14 and 55:10. The oppressive and abusive actions of evil men are probably in view (see Job 4:8; 5:6; 15:35; Isa 10:1; 59:4).
7 tn or “for.”
8 tn Heb “it passes quickly.” The subject of the verb is probably “their pride” (see the preceding line). The verb גּוּז (guz) means “to pass” here; it occurs only here and in Num 11:31.
9 sn We fly away. The psalmist compares life to a bird that quickly flies off (see Job 20:8).
10 tn Heb “if I do not lift up Jerusalem over the top of my joy.”