¹ tn Heb “see.”

² tn Heb “Give light [to] my eyes.” The Hiphil of אוּר (’ur), when used elsewhere with “eyes” as object, refers to the law of God giving moral enlightenment (Ps 19:8), to God the creator giving literal eyesight to all people (Prov 29:13), and to God giving encouragement to his people (Ezra 9:8). Here the psalmist pictures himself as being on the verge of death. His eyes are falling shut and, if God does not intervene soon, he will “fall asleep” for good.

³ tn Heb “or else I will sleep [in?] the death.” Perhaps the statement is elliptical, “I will sleep [the sleep] of death,” or “I will sleep [with the sleepers in] death.”

⁴ tc Heb “our steps, now they surround me.” The Kethib (consonantal text) has “surround me,” while the Qere (marginal reading) has “surround us,” harmonizing the pronoun to the preceding “our steps.” The first person plural pronoun does not fit the context, where the psalmist speaks as an individual. In the preceding verses the psalmist uses a first person singular verbal or pronominal form twenty times. For this reason it is preferable to emend “our steps” to אִשְּׁרוּנִי (’ishÿruni, “they attack me”) from the verbal root אָשֻׁר (’ashur, “march, stride, track”).

⁵ tn Heb “their eyes they set to bend down in the ground.”

⁶ tn Or “scoff at, deride, mock.”

⁷ tn Heb “they separate with a lip.” Apparently this refers to their verbal taunting.

⁸ sn Shake their heads. Apparently this refers to a taunting gesture. See also Job 16:4; Ps 109:25; Lam 2:15.

⁹ tn Heb “see my enemies for they are numerous, and [with] violent hatred they hate me.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “my voice.”

¹¹ tn Heb “come near my life and redeem it.” The verb “redeem” casts the Lord in the role of a leader who protects members of his extended family in times of need and crisis (see Ps 19:14).

¹² tn Heb “deliver me according to your faithfulness.”

¹³ tn Heb “pushing, you pushed me.” The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following verbal idea. The psalmist appears to address the nations as if they were an individual enemy. Some find this problematic and emend the verb form (which is a Qal perfect second masculine singular with a first person singular suffix) to נִדְחֵיתִי (nidkheti), a Niphal perfect first common singular, “I was pushed.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “to fall,” i.e., “that [I] might fall.”

¹⁵ tn Or “argue my case.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “and redeem me.” The verb “redeem” casts the Lord in the role of a leader who protects members of his extended family in times of need and crisis (see Ps 19:14).

¹⁷ tn Heb “in the day.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “you made me bold in my soul [with] strength.”