68:7 O God, when you lead your people into battle, 1
when you march through the desert, 2 (Selah)
78:17 Yet they continued to sin against him,
and rebelled against the sovereign One 3 in the desert.
78:40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness,
and insulted him 4 in the desert!
106:14 In the wilderness they had an insatiable craving 5 for meat; 6
they challenged God 7 in the desert.
106:26 So he made a solemn vow 8
that he would make them die 9 in the desert,
107:33 He turned 10 streams into a desert,
springs of water into arid land,
1 tn Heb “when you go out before your people.” The Hebrew idiom “go out before” is used here in a militaristic sense of leading troops into battle (see Judg 4:14; 9:39; 2 Sam 5:24).
2 sn When you march through the desert. Some interpreters think that v. 7 alludes to Israel’s exodus from Egypt and its subsequent travels in the desert. Another option is that v. 7, like v. 8, echoes Judg 5:4, which describes how the God of Sinai marched across the desert regions to do battle with Sisera and his Canaanite army.
3 tn Heb “rebelling [against] the Most High.”
4 tn Or “caused him pain.”
5 sn They had an insatiable craving. This is described in Num 11:4-35.
6 tn Heb “they craved [with] a craving.”
7 tn Heb “they tested God.”
8 tn Heb “and he lifted his hand to [or “concerning”] them.” The idiom “to lift a hand” here refers to swearing an oath. One would sometimes solemnly lift one’s hand when making such a vow (see Ezek 20:5-6, 15).
9 tn Heb “to cause them to fall.”
10 tn The verbal form appears to be a preterite, which is most naturally taken as narrational. (The use of prefixed forms with vav [ו] consecutive in vv. 36-37 favor this.) The psalmist may return to the theme of God’s intervention for the exiles (see vv. 4-22, especially vv. 4-9). However, many regard vv. 33-41 as a hymnic description which generalizes about God’s activities among men. In this case it would be preferable to use the English present tense throughout (cf. NEB, NRSV).