Discovery BoxPsalms 94:5-11 
Context94:5 O Lord, they crush your people;
they oppress the nation that belongs to you. 1
94:6 They kill the widow and the one residing outside his native land,
and they murder the fatherless. 2
94:7 Then they say, “The Lord does not see this;
the God of Jacob does not take notice of it.” 3
94:8 Take notice of this, 4 you ignorant people! 5
You fools, when will you ever understand?
94:9 Does the one who makes the human ear not hear?
Does the one who forms the human eye not see? 6
94:10 Does the one who disciplines the nations not punish?
He is the one who imparts knowledge to human beings!
94:11 The Lord knows that
peoples’ thoughts are morally bankrupt. 7
1 tn Or “your inheritance.”
2 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).
3 tn Heb “does not understand.”
4 tn Heb “understand.” The verb used in v. 7 is repeated here for rhetorical effect. The people referred to here claim God is ignorant of their actions, but the psalmist corrects their faulty viewpoint.
5 tn Heb “[you] brutish among the people.”
6 tn Heb “The one who plants an ear, does he not hear? The one who forms an eye, does he not see?”
7 tn Heb “the
