¹ tn Heb “do not gather up my life with.”

² tn Heb “or with men of bloodshed my life.” The verb is supplied; it is understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).

³ tn Or “do good.”

⁴ tn Heb “seek peace and pursue it.”

⁵ tn Heb “you see, O Lord.” There is a deliberate play on words. In v. 21 the enemies say, “our eye sees,” but the psalmist is confident that the Lord “sees” as well, so he appeals to him for help (see also v. 17).

⁶ tn Heb “like green vegetation.”

⁷ tn Or “Do good!” The imperatives are singular (see v. 1).

⁸ tn Heb “and dwell permanently.” The imperative with vav (ו) is best taken here as a result clause after the preceding imperatives.

⁹ sn In this context Hide your face from my sins means “Do not hold me accountable for my sins.”

¹⁰ tn See the note on the similar expression “wipe away my rebellious acts” in v. 1.

¹¹ tn Heb “do not cast me away from before you.”

¹² sn Your Holy Spirit. The personal Spirit of God is mentioned frequently in the OT, but only here and in Isa 63:10-11 is he called “your/his Holy Spirit.”

¹³ sn Do not take…away. The psalmist expresses his fear that, due to his sin, God will take away the Holy Spirit from him. NT believers enjoy the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit and need not make such a request nor fear such a consequence. However, in the OT God’s Spirit empowered certain individuals for special tasks and only temporarily resided in them. For example, when God rejected Saul as king and chose David to replace him, the divine Spirit left Saul and came upon David (1 Sam 16:13-14).

¹⁴ tn Following the imperatival forms in v. 6, the prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive expressing the psalmist’s wish. Another option is to take the form as an imperfect (indicative) and translate, “they will scatter” (see v. 9). The verb מָאַס (ma’as; which is a homonym of the more common מָאַס, “to refuse, reject”) appears only here and in Job 7:5, where it is used of a festering wound from which fluid runs or flows.

¹⁵ tn Heb “like water, they go about for themselves.” The translation assumes that the phrase “they go about for themselves” is an implied relative clause modifying “water.” Another option is to take the clause as independent and parallel to what precedes. In this case the enemies would be the subject and the verb could be taken as jussive, “let them wander about.”

¹⁶ tc The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult and the meaning uncertain. The text reads literally, “he treads his arrows (following the Qere; Kethib has “his arrow”), like they are cut off/dry up.” It is not clear if the verbal root is מָלַל (malal, “circumcise”; BDB 576 s.v. IV מָלַל) or the homonymic מָלַל (“wither”; HALOT 593-94 s.v. I מלל). Since the verb מָלַל (“to wither”) is used of vegetation, it is possible that the noun חָצִיר (khatsir, “grass,” which is visually similar to חִצָּיו, khitsayv, “his arrows”) originally appeared in the text. The translation above assumes that the text originally was כְּמוֹ חָצִיר יִתְמֹלָלוּ(kÿmo khatsir yitmolalu, “like grass let them wither”). If original, it could have been accidentally corrupted to חִצָּיר כְּמוֹ יִתְמֹלָלוּ (“his arrow(s) like they dry up”) with דָּרַךְ (darakh, “to tread”) being added later in an effort to make sense of “his arrow(s).”

¹⁷ tn Heb “do not hide your face from.” The Hebrew idiom “hide the face” can (1) mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or (2) carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 30:7; 88:14).

¹⁸ tn Or “quickly.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “hurry to my help.”

²⁰ tn Heb “and in your name we will call.”

²¹ tn Or “tumbleweed.” The Hebrew noun גַּלְגַּל (galgal) refers to a “wheel” or, metaphorically, to a whirling wind (see Ps 77:18). If taken in the latter sense here, one could understand the term as a metonymical reference to dust blown by a whirlwind (cf. NRSV “like whirling dust”). However, HALOT 190 s.v. II גַּלְגַּל understands the noun as a homonym referring to a “dead thistle” here and in Isa 17:13. The parallel line, which refers to קַשׁ (qash, “chaff”), favors this interpretation.

²² tn Heb “before.”

²³ tn Or “for.”

²⁴ tn Heb “man goes out to his work, and to his labor until evening.”

²⁵ sn The reference to an attack by the nations suggests the psalmist may have been a military leader.

²⁶ tn In this context the phrase “in the name of the Lord” means “by the Lord’s power.”

²⁷ tn Traditionally the verb has been derived from מוּל (mul, “to circumcise”) and translated “[I] cut [them] off” (see BDB 557-58 s.v. II מוּל). However, it is likely that this is a homonym meaning “to fend off” (see HALOT 556 s.v. II מול) or “to push away.” In this context, where the psalmist is reporting his past experience, the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite. The phrase also occurs in vv. 11, 12.

²⁸ tn Heb “Make my eyes pass by from looking at what is worthless.”

²⁹ tn Heb “by your word.”

³⁰ tn Heb “my reproach that I fear.”

³¹ tn Or “for.”

³² tn Heb “I hold back my feet.”

³³ tn Heb “your word.” Many medieval Hebrew mss read the plural.

³⁴ tn The Hebrew particle אִם (’im, “if”) and following prefixed verbal form here express a wish (see Pss 81:8; 95:7, as well as GKC 321 §109.b).

³⁵ tn Heb “men of bloodshed.”