[20:8] 1 tn Or “stumble and fall down.”
[20:8] 2 tn The grammatical construction (conjunction + pronominal subject) highlights the contrast between God’s victorious people and the defeated enemies mentioned in the previous line. The perfect verbal forms either generalize or, more likely, state rhetorically the people’s confidence as they face the approaching battle. They describe the demise of the enemy as being as good as done.
[20:8] 3 tn Or “rise up and remain upright.” On the meaning of the Hitpolel of עוּד (’ud), see HALOT 795 s.v. I עוד. The verbal forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) either generalize or, more likely, state rhetorically the people’s confidence as they face the approaching battle.
[145:14] 4 tc Psalm 145 is an acrostic psalm, with each successive verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. However, in the traditional Hebrew (Masoretic) text of Psalm 145 there is no verse beginning with the letter nun. One would expect such a verse to appear as the fourteenth verse, between the mem (מ) and samek (ס) verses. Several ancient witnesses, including one medieval Hebrew manuscript, the Qumran scroll from cave 11, the LXX, and the Syriac, supply the missing nun (נ) verse, which reads as follows: “The Lord is reliable in all his words, and faithful in all his deeds.” One might paraphrase this as follows: “The Lord’s words are always reliable; his actions are always faithful.” Scholars are divided as to the originality of this verse. L. C. Allen argues for its inclusion on the basis of structural considerations (Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 294-95), but there is no apparent explanation for why, if original, it would have been accidentally omitted. The psalm may be a partial acrostic, as in Pss 25 and 34 (see M. Dahood, Psalms [AB], 3:335). The glaring omission of the nun line would have invited a later redactor to add such a line.
[145:14] 5 tn Perhaps “discouraged” (see Ps 57:6).
[36:12] 6 tn Heb “there the workers of wickedness have fallen.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here for dramatic effect, as the psalmist envisions the evildoers lying fallen at a spot that is vivid in his imagination (BDB 1027 s.v.).
[36:12] 7 tn The psalmist uses perfect verbal forms in v. 12 to describe the demise of the wicked as if it has already taken place.
