Psalms 27:2

When evil men attack me ¹  to devour my flesh, ²  when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ³  they stumble and fall. ⁴ 

Job 19:22; Job 31:31; Ps 3:7; Ps 14:4; Ps 18:4; Ps 18:38-42; Ps 22:16; Ps 53:4; Ps 62:3,4; Ps 118:12; Isa 8:15; Joh 18:3-6

¹ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

² sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

³ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

⁴ tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”