Mazmur 55:9

55:9 Confuse them, ¹  O Lord!

Frustrate their plans! ² 

For I see violence and conflict in the city.

Mazmur 68:22

68:22 The Lord says,

“I will retrieve them ³  from Bashan,

I will bring them back from the depths of the sea,

Mazmur 86:5

86:5 Certainly ⁴  O Lord, you are kind ⁵  and forgiving,

and show great faithfulness to all who cry out to you.

Mazmur 89:50

89:50 Take note, O Lord, ⁶  of the way your servants are taunted, ⁷ 

and of how I must bear so many insults from people! ⁸ 

[55:9]  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).

[55:9]  ² tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”

[68:22]  ³ tn That is, the enemies mentioned in v. 21. Even if they retreat to distant regions, God will retrieve them and make them taste his judgment.

[86:5]  ⁴ tn Or “for.”

[86:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “good.”

[89:50]  ⁶ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss read here יְהוָה (yehvah, “the Lord”).

[89:50]  ⁷ tn Heb “remember, O Lord, the taunt against your servants.” Many medieval Hebrew mss read the singular here, “your servant” (that is, the psalmist).

[89:50]  ⁸ tn Heb “my lifting up in my arms [or “against my chest”] all of the many, peoples.” The term רַבִּים (rabbim, “many”) makes no apparent sense here. For this reason some emend the text to רִבֵי (rivey, “attacks by”), a defectively written plural construct form of רִיב (riv, “dispute; quarrel”).