Discovery BoxPsalms 9:15 
Context9:15 The nations fell 1 into the pit they had made;
their feet were caught in the net they had hidden. 2
Psalms 22:31
Context22:31 They will come and tell about his saving deeds; 3
they will tell a future generation what he has accomplished. 4
Psalms 36:12
Context36:12 I can see the evildoers! They have fallen! 5
They have been knocked down and are unable to get up! 6
Psalms 37:10
Context37:10 Evil men will soon disappear; 7
you will stare at the spot where they once were, but they will be gone. 8
Psalms 37:19
Context37:19 They will not be ashamed when hard times come; 9
when famine comes they will have enough to eat. 10
Psalms 37:36
Context37:36 But then one passes by, and suddenly they have disappeared! 11
I looked for them, but they could not be found.
Psalms 59:7
Context59:7 Look, they hurl insults at me
and openly threaten to kill me, 12
for they say, 13
“Who hears?”
Psalms 64:6
Context64:6 They devise 14 unjust schemes;
they disguise 15 a well-conceived plot. 16
Man’s inner thoughts cannot be discovered. 17
Psalms 65:13
Context65:13 The meadows are clothed with sheep,
and the valleys are covered with grain.
They shout joyfully, yes, they sing.
Psalms 69:21
Context69:21 They put bitter poison 18 into my food,
and to quench my thirst they give me vinegar to drink. 19
Psalms 69:26
Context69:26 For they harass 20 the one whom you discipline; 21
they spread the news about the suffering of those whom you punish. 22
Psalms 73:5
Context73:5 They are immune to the trouble common to men;
they do not suffer as other men do. 23
Psalms 74:7
Context74:7 They set your sanctuary on fire;
they desecrate your dwelling place by knocking it to the ground. 24
Psalms 78:57
Context78:57 They were unfaithful 25 and acted as treacherously as 26 their ancestors;
they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow. 27
Psalms 79:12
Context79:12 Pay back our neighbors in full! 28
May they be insulted the same way they insulted you, O Lord! 29
Psalms 82:5
Context82:5 They 30 neither know nor understand.
They stumble 31 around in the dark,
while all the foundations of the earth crumble. 32
Psalms 94:6
Context94:6 They kill the widow and the one residing outside his native land,
and they murder the fatherless. 33
Psalms 104:28
Context104:28 You give food to them and they receive it;
you open your hand and they are filled with food. 34
Psalms 107:4
Context107:4 They wandered through the wilderness on a desert road;
they found no city in which to live.
Psalms 118:11
Context118:11 They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me.
Indeed, in the name of the Lord I pushed them away.
1 tn Heb “sank down.”
2 sn The hostility of the nations against God’s people is their downfall, for it prompts God to intervene and destroy them. See also Ps 7:15-16.
3 tn Heb “his righteousness.” Here the noun צִדָקָה (tsidaqah) refers to the Lord’s saving deeds whereby he vindicates the oppressed.
4 tn Heb “to a people [to be] born that he has acted.” The words “they will tell” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
5 tn Heb “there the workers of wickedness have fallen.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here for dramatic effect, as the psalmist envisions the evildoers lying fallen at a spot that is vivid in his imagination (BDB 1027 s.v.).
6 tn The psalmist uses perfect verbal forms in v. 12 to describe the demise of the wicked as if it has already taken place.
7 tn Heb “and yet, a little, there will be no wicked [one].”
8 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.
9 tn Heb “in a time of trouble.”
10 tn Heb “in days of famine they will be satisfied.”
11 tn Heb “and he passes by and, look, he is not [there].” The subject of the verb “passes by” is probably indefinite, referring to any passerby. Some prefer to change the form to first person, “and I passed by” (cf. NEB; note the first person verbal forms in preceding verse and in the following line).
12 tn Heb “look, they gush forth with their mouth, swords [are] in their lips.”
13 tn The words “for they say” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The following question (“Who hears?”) is spoken by the psalmist’s enemies, who are confident that no one else can hear their threats against the psalmist. They are aggressive because they feel the psalmist is vulnerable and has no one to help him.
14 tn Heb “search out, examine,” which here means (by metonymy) “devise.”
15 tc The MT has תַּמְנוּ (tamnu, “we are finished”), a Qal perfect first common plural form from the verbal root תָּמַם (tamam). Some understand this as the beginning of a quotation of the enemies’ words and translate, “we have completed,” but the Hiphil would seem to be required in this case. The present translation follows many medieval Hebrew
16 tn Heb “a searched-out search,” which is understood as referring here to a thoroughly planned plot to destroy the psalmist.
17 tn Heb “and the inner part of man, and a heart [is] deep.” The point seems to be that a man’s inner thoughts are incapable of being discovered. No one is a mind reader! Consequently the psalmist is vulnerable to his enemies’ well-disguised plots.
18 tn According to BDB 912 s.v. II רֹאשׁ the term can mean “a bitter and poisonous plant.”
19 sn John 19:28-30 appears to understand Jesus’ experience on the cross as a fulfillment of this passage (or Ps 22:15). See the study note on the word “thirsty” in John 19:28.
20 tn Or “persecute”; Heb “chase.”
21 tn Heb “for you, the one whom you strike, they chase.”
22 tn Heb “they announce the pain of your wounded ones” (i.e., “the ones whom you wounded,” as the parallel line makes clear).
sn The psalmist is innocent of the false charges made by his enemies (v. 4), but he is also aware of his sinfulness (v. 5) and admits that he experiences divine discipline (v. 26) despite his devotion to God (v. 9). Here he laments that his enemies take advantage of such divine discipline by harassing and slandering him. They “kick him while he’s down,” as the expression goes.
23 tn Heb “in the trouble of man they are not, and with mankind they are not afflicted.”
24 tn Heb “to the ground they desecrate the dwelling place of your name.”
25 tn Heb “they turned back.”
26 tn Or “acted treacherously like.”
27 tn Heb “they turned aside like a deceitful bow.”
28 tn Heb “Return to our neighbors sevenfold into their lap.” The number seven is used rhetorically to express the thorough nature of the action. For other rhetorical/figurative uses of the Hebrew phrase שִׁבְעָתַיִם (shiv’atayim, “seven times”) see Gen 4:15, 24; Ps 12:6; Prov 6:31; Isa 30:26.
29 tn Heb “their reproach with which they reproached you, O Lord.”
30 sn Having addressed the defendants, God now speaks to those who are observing the trial, referring to the gods in the third person.
31 tn Heb “walk.” The Hitpael stem indicates iterative action, picturing these ignorant “judges” as stumbling around in the darkness.
32 sn These gods, though responsible for justice, neglect their duty. Their self-imposed ignorance (which the psalmist compares to stumbling around in the dark) results in widespread injustice, which threatens the social order of the world (the meaning of the phrase all the foundations of the earth crumble).
33 tn The Hebrew noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9). Because they were so vulnerable and were frequently exploited, fatherless children are often mentioned as epitomizing the oppressed (see Pss 10:14; 68:5; 82:3; 146:9; as well as Job 6:27; 22:9; 24:3, 9; 29:12; 31:17, 21).
34 tn Heb “they are satisfied [with] good.”
