74:3 Hurry and look 1 at the permanent ruins,
and all the damage the enemy has done to the temple! 2
74:4 Your enemies roar 3 in the middle of your sanctuary; 4
they set up their battle flags. 5
74:5 They invade like lumberjacks
swinging their axes in a thick forest. 6
74:6 And now 7 they are tearing down 8 all its engravings 9
with axes 10 and crowbars. 11
74:7 They set your sanctuary on fire;
they desecrate your dwelling place by knocking it to the ground. 12
1 tn Heb “lift up your steps to,” which may mean “run, hurry.”
2 tn Heb “everything [the] enemy has damaged in the holy place.”
3 tn This verb is often used of a lion’s roar, so the psalmist may be comparing the enemy to a raging, devouring lion.
4 tn Heb “your meeting place.”
5 tn Heb “they set up their banners [as] banners.” The Hebrew noun אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) here refers to the enemy army’s battle flags and banners (see Num 2:12).
6 tn Heb “it is known like one bringing upwards, in a thicket of wood, axes.” The Babylonian invaders destroyed the woodwork in the temple.
7 tn This is the reading of the Qere (marginal reading). The Kethib (consonantal text) has “and a time.”
8 tn The imperfect verbal form vividly describes the act as underway.
9 tn Heb “its engravings together.”
10 tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49-50).
11 tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT. An Akkadian cognate refers to a “pickaxe” (cf. NEB “hatchet and pick”; NIV “axes and hatchets”; NRSV “hatchets and hammers”).
12 tn Heb “to the ground they desecrate the dwelling place of your name.”