Psalms 18:29

Indeed, ¹  with your help ²  I can charge against ³  an army; ⁴  by my God’s power ⁵  I can jump over a wall. ⁶ 

With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.

For by You I can run upon a troop; And by my God I can leap over a wall.

In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall.

I smash the bands of marauders, I vault the highest fences.

By your help I have made a way through the wall which was shutting me in; by the help of my God I have gone over a wall.

By you I can crush a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.

For by You I can run against a troop, By my God I can leap over a wall.

Indeed, ¹  with your help ²  I can charge against ³  an army; ⁴  by my God’s power ⁵  I can jump over a wall. ⁶ 

¹ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.

² tn Heb “by you.”

³ tn Heb “I will run.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 29 indicate the subject’s potential or capacity to perform an action. Though one might expect a preposition to follow the verb here, this need not be the case with the verb רוּץ (ruts; see 1 Sam 17:22). Some emend the Qal to a Hiphil form of the verb and translate, “I put to flight [Heb “cause to run”] an army.”

⁴ tn More specifically, the noun גְּדוּד (gÿdud) refers to a raiding party or to a contingent of troops.

sn I can charge against an army. The picture of a divinely empowered warrior charging against an army in almost superhuman fashion appears elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 228.

⁵ tn Heb “and by my God.”

⁶ sn I can jump over a wall. The psalmist uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.