Psalms 55:9

Confuse them, ¹  O Lord! Frustrate their plans! ²  For I see violence and conflict in the city.

Ge 11:7-9; 2Sa 15:31; 2Sa 17:1-14; Jer 6:7; Jer 23:14; Mt 23:37,38; Joh 7:45-53; Ac 23:6-10

¹ tn Traditionally בַּלַּע (bala’) has been taken to mean “swallow” in the sense of “devour” or “destroy” (cf. KJV), but this may be a homonym meaning “confuse” (see BDB 118 s.v. בַּלַּע; HALOT 135 s.v. III *בֶּלַע). “Their tongue” is the understood object of the verb (see the next line).

² tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”