Mazmur 37:10

37:10 Evil men will soon disappear; ¹ 

you will stare at the spot where they once were, but they will be gone. ² 

Mazmur 37:12-13

37:12 Evil men plot against the godly ³ 

and viciously attack them. ⁴ 

37:13 The Lord laughs in disgust ⁵  at them,

for he knows that their day is coming. ⁶ 

Mazmur 37:20

37:20 But ⁷  evil men will die;

the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated ⁸  –

they will go up in smoke. ⁹ 

[37:10]  ¹ tn Heb “and yet, a little, there will be no wicked [one].”

[37:10]  ² 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.

[37:12]  ³ tn Or “innocent.” The singular is used here in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and the typical godly individual are in view.

[37:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “and gnashes at him with his teeth” (see Ps 35:16). The language may picture the evil men as wild animals. The active participles in v. 12 are used for purposes of dramatic description.

[37:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “laughs.” As the next line indicates, this refers to derisive laughter (see 2:4). The Hebrew imperfect verbal form describes the action from the perspective of an eye-witness who is watching the divine response as it unfolds before his eyes.

[37:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “for he sees that his day is coming.” As the following context makes clear (vv. 15, 17, 19-20), “his day” refers to the time when God will destroy evildoers.

[37:20]  ⁷ tn Or “for,” but Hebrew כי in this case would have to extend all the way back to v. 17a. Another option is to understand the particle as asseverative, “surely” (see v. 22).

[37:20]  ⁸ tc The meaning of the MT (כִּיקַר כָּרִים [kiqar karim], “like what is precious among the pastures/rams”) is uncertain. One possibility is to take the noun כָּרִים as “pastures” and interpret “what is precious” as referring to flowers that blossom but then quickly disappear (see v. 2 and BDB 430 s.v. יָקָר 3). If כָּרִים is taken as “rams,” then “what is precious” might refer to the choicest portions of rams. The present translation follows a reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpPs37), כיקוד כורם (“like the burning of an oven”). The next line, which pictures the Lord’s enemies being consumed in smoke, supports this reading, which assumes confusion of the Hebrew letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) at the end of the first word in the sequence.

[37:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “they perish in smoke, they perish.” In addition to repeating the verb for emphasis, the psalmist uses the perfect form of the verb to picture the enemies’ demise as if it had already taken place. In this way he draws attention to the certitude of their judgment.