Discovery BoxPsalms 4:4 
Context4:4 Tremble with fear and do not sin! 1
Meditate as you lie in bed, and repent of your ways! 2 (Selah)
Psalms 32:3
Context32:3 When I refused to confess my sin, 3
my whole body wasted away, 4
while I groaned in pain all day long.
Psalms 38:3
Context38:3 My whole body is sick because of your judgment; 5
I am deprived of health because of my sin. 6
Psalms 89:32
Context89:32 I will punish their rebellion by beating them with a club, 7
their sin by inflicting them with bruises. 8
Psalms 106:43
Context106:43 Many times he delivered 9 them,
but they had a rebellious attitude, 10
and degraded themselves 11 by their sin.
Psalms 109:14
Context109:14 May his ancestors’ 12 sins be remembered by the Lord!
May his mother’s sin not be forgotten! 13
1 sn The psalmist warns his enemies that they need to tremble with fear before God and repudiate their sinful ways.
2 tn Heb “say in your heart(s) on your bed(s) and wail/lament.” The verb דֹמּוּ (dommu) is understood as a form of דָמָם (“wail, lament”) in sorrow and repentance. Another option is to take the verb from II דָמָם (damam, “be quiet”); cf. NIV, NRSV “be silent.”
3 tn Heb “when I was silent.”
4 tn Heb “my bones became brittle.” The psalmist pictures himself as aging and growing physically weak. Trying to cover up his sin brought severe physical consequences.
5 tn Heb “there is no soundness in my flesh from before your anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger at the psalmist’s sin.
6 tn Heb “there is no health in my bones from before my sin.”
7 tn Heb “I will punish with a club their rebellion.”
sn Despite the harsh image of beating…with a club, the language reflects a father-son relationship (see v. 30; 2 Sam 7:14). According to Proverbs, a שֵׁבֶט (shevet, “club”) was sometimes utilized to administer corporal punishment to rebellious children (see Prov 13:24; 22:15; 23:13-14; 29:15).
8 tn Heb “with blows their sin.”
9 tn The prefixed verbal form is either preterite or imperfect, in which case it is customary, describing repeated action in past time (“he would deliver”).
10 tn Heb “but they rebelled in their counsel.” The prefixed verbal form is either preterite or imperfect, in which case it is customary, describing repeated action in past time (“they would have a rebellious attitude”).
11 tn Heb “they sank down.” The Hebrew verb מָכַךְ (makhakh, “to lower; to sink”) occurs only here in the Qal.
12 tn Or “fathers’ sins.”
13 tn Heb “not be wiped out.”
sn According to ancient Israelite theology and its doctrine of corporate solidarity and responsibility, children could be and often were punished for the sins of their parents. For a discussion of this issue see J. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup). (Kaminsky, however, does not deal with Ps 109.)
