9:19 Rise up, Lord! 1
Don’t let men be defiant! 2
May the nations be judged in your presence!
17:9 Protect me from 3 the wicked men who attack 4 me,
my enemies who crowd around me for the kill. 5
27:2 When evil men attack me 6
to devour my flesh, 7
when my adversaries and enemies attack me, 8
they stumble and fall. 9
37:10 Evil men will soon disappear; 10
you will stare at the spot where they once were, but they will be gone. 11
37:16 The little bit that a godly man owns is better than
the wealth of many evil men, 12
37:20 But 13 evil men will die;
the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated 14 –
they will go up in smoke. 15
37:21 Evil men borrow, but do not repay their debt,
but the godly show compassion and are generous. 16
37:35 I have seen ruthless evil men 17
growing in influence, like a green tree grows in its native soil. 18
43:1 Vindicate me, O God!
Fight for me 20 against an ungodly nation!
Deliver me 21 from deceitful and evil men! 22
49:5 Why should I be afraid in times of trouble, 23
when the sinful deeds of deceptive men threaten to overwhelm me? 24
49:18 He pronounces this blessing on himself while he is alive:
“May men praise you, for you have done well!”
50:18 When you see a thief, you join him; 25
you associate with men who are unfaithful to their wives. 26
76:10 Certainly 27 your angry judgment upon men will bring you praise; 28
you reveal your anger in full measure. 29
119:115 Turn away from me, you evil men,
so that I can observe 30 the commands of my God. 31
1 sn Rise up,
2 tn Or “prevail.”
3 tn Heb “from before”; or “because.” In the Hebrew text v. 9 is subordinated to v. 8. The words “protect me” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
4 tn Heb “destroy.” The psalmist uses the perfect verbal form to emphasize the degree of danger. He describes the wicked as being already in the process of destroying him.
5 tn Heb “my enemies, at the risk of life they surround me.” The Hebrew phrase בְּנֶפֶשׁ (bÿnefesh) sometimes has the nuance “at the risk of [one’s] life” (see 1 Kgs 2:23; Prov 7:23; Lam 5:9).
6 tn Heb “draw near to me.”
7 sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).
8 tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.
9 tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”
10 tn Heb “and yet, a little, there will be no wicked [one].”
11 tn Heb “and you will carefully look upon his place, but he will not be [there].” The singular is used here in a representative sense; the typical evildoer is in view.
12 tn Heb “Better [is] a little to the godly one than the wealth of many evil ones.” The following verses explain why this is true. Though a godly individual may seem to have only meager possessions, he always has what he needs and will eventually possess the land. The wicked may prosper for a brief time, but will eventually be destroyed by divine judgment and lose everything.
13 tn Or “for,” but Hebrew כי in this case would have to extend all the way back to v. 17a. Another option is to understand the particle as asseverative, “surely” (see v. 22).
14 tc The meaning of the MT (כִּיקַר כָּרִים [kiqar karim], “like what is precious among the pastures/rams”) is uncertain. One possibility is to take the noun כָּרִים as “pastures” and interpret “what is precious” as referring to flowers that blossom but then quickly disappear (see v. 2 and BDB 430 s.v. יָקָר 3). If כָּרִים is taken as “rams,” then “what is precious” might refer to the choicest portions of rams. The present translation follows a reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpPs37), כיקוד כורם (“like the burning of an oven”). The next line, which pictures the
15 tn Heb “they perish in smoke, they perish.” In addition to repeating the verb for emphasis, the psalmist uses the perfect form of the verb to picture the enemies’ demise as if it had already taken place. In this way he draws attention to the certitude of their judgment.
16 tn Heb “an evil [man] borrows and does not repay; but a godly [man] is gracious and gives.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and godly individual are in view. The three active participles and one imperfect (“repay”) draw attention to the characteristic behavior of the two types.
17 tn The Hebrew uses the representative singular again here.
18 tn Heb “being exposed [?] like a native, luxuriant.” The Hebrew form מִתְעָרֶה (mit’areh) appears to be a Hitpael participle from עָרָה (’arah, “be exposed”), but this makes no sense in this context. Perhaps the form is a dialectal variant of מִתְעָלָה (“giving oneself an air of importance”; see Jer 51:3), from עָלָה (’alah, “go up”; see P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 296). The noun אֶזְרָח (’ezrakh, “native, full citizen”) refers elsewhere to people, but here, where it is collocated with “luxuriant, green,” it probably refers to a tree growing in native soil.
19 sn Psalm 43. Many medieval Hebrew
20 tn Or “argue my case.”
21 tn The imperfect here expresses a request or wish. Note the imperatives in the first half of the verse. See also v. 3.
22 tn Heb “from the deceitful and evil man.” The Hebrew text uses the singular form “man” in a collective sense, as the reference to a “nation” in the parallel line indicates.
23 tn Heb “days of trouble.” The phrase also occurs in Ps 94:13. The question is rhetorical; there is no reason to be afraid when the rich oppressors threaten the weak (see v. 17). The following verses explain why this is so.
24 tc The MT has, “the iniquity of my heels surrounds me.” The clause is best understood as temporal and as elaborating on the preceding phrase “times of trouble.” If the MT is retained, the genitive “of my heels” would probably indicate location (“the iniquity at my heels”); the sinful actions of the rich threaten to overtake the psalmist, as it were. It is better, however, to emend עֲקֵבַי (’aqivay, “my heels”) to either (1) עֲקֻבַּי (’aqubay, “my deceitful ones,” i.e., “those who deceive me” [from the adjective עָקֹב (’aqov), “deceitful,” see Jer 17:9]) or (2) עֹקְבַי (’oqÿvay, “those who deceive me” [a suffixed active participle from עָקַב, ’aqav, “betray, deceive”]). Origen’s transliteration of the Hebrew text favors the first of these options. Either of the emendations provides a much smoother transition to v. 6, because “those who trust in their wealth” would then be appositional to “those who deceive me.”
25 tn Heb “you run with him.”
26 tn Heb “and with adulterers [is] your portion.”
27 tn Or “for.”
28 tn Heb “the anger of men will praise you.” This could mean that men’s anger (subjective genitive), when punished by God, will bring him praise, but this interpretation does not harmonize well with the next line. The translation assumes that God’s anger is in view here (see v. 7) and that “men” is an objective genitive. God’s angry judgment against men brings him praise because it reveals his power and majesty (see vv. 1-4).
29 tn Heb “the rest of anger you put on.” The meaning of the statement is not entirely clear. Perhaps the idea is that God, as he prepares for battle, girds himself with every last ounce of his anger, as if it were a weapon.
30 tn The cohortative verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding imperative.
31 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.”