9:13 when they prayed: 1
“Have mercy on me, 2 Lord!
See how I am oppressed by those who hate me, 3
O one who can snatch me away 4 from the gates of death!
31:11 Because of all my enemies, people disdain me; 5
my neighbors are appalled by my suffering 6 –
those who know me are horrified by my condition; 7
those who see me in the street run away from me.
40:3 He gave me reason to sing a new song, 8
praising our God. 9
May many see what God has done,
so that they might swear allegiance to him and trust in the Lord! 10
74:9 We do not see any signs of God’s presence; 11
there are no longer any prophets 12
and we have no one to tell us how long this will last. 13
1 tn The words “when they prayed,” though not represented in the Hebrew text, are supplied in the translation for clarification. The petition in vv. 13-14 is best understood as the cry for help which the oppressed offered to God when the nations threatened. The
2 tn Or “show me favor.”
3 tn Heb “see my misery from the ones who hate me.”
4 tn Heb “one who lifts me up.”
5 tn Heb “because of all my enemies I am a reproach.”
6 tc Heb “and to my neighbors, exceedingly.” If the MT is retained, then these words probably go with what precedes. However the syntactical awkwardness of the text suggests it is textually corrupt. P. C. Craigie (Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 258) suggests that the initial mem (מ) on מְאֹד (me’od, “exceedingly”) be understood as an enclitic mem (ם) which was originally suffixed to the preceding form and then later misinterpreted. The resulting form אֵד (’ed) can then be taken as a defectively written form of אֵיד (’ed, “calamity”). If one follows this emendation, then the text reads literally, “and to my neighbors [I am one who experiences] calamity.” The noun פַחַד (fakhad, “[object of] horror”) occurs in the next line; אֵיד and פַחַד appear in parallelism elsewhere (see Prov 1:26-27).
7 tn Heb “and [an object of ] horror to those known by me.”
8 sn A new song was appropriate because the Lord had intervened in the psalmist’s experience in a fresh and exciting way.
9 tn Heb “and he placed in my mouth a new song, praise to our God.”
10 tn Heb “may many see and fear and trust in the
11 tn Heb “our signs we do not see.” Because of the reference to a prophet in the next line, it is likely that the “signs” in view here include the evidence of God’s presence as typically revealed through the prophets. These could include miraculous acts performed by the prophets (see, for example, Isa 38:7-8) or object lessons which they acted out (see, for example, Isa 20:3).
12 tn Heb “there is not still a prophet.”
13 tn Heb “and [there is] not with us one who knows how long.”