Mazmur 71:24

71:24 All day long my tongue will also tell about your justice,

for those who want to harm me ¹  will be embarrassed and ashamed. ² 

Mazmur 97:7

97:7 All who worship idols are ashamed,

those who boast about worthless idols.

All the gods bow down before him. ³ 

[71:24]  ¹ tn Heb “those who seek my harm.”

[71:24]  ² tn Heb “will have become embarrassed and ashamed.” The perfect verbal forms function here as future perfects, indicating future actions which will precede chronologically the action expressed by the main verb in the preceding line.

[97:7]  ³ tn The translation assumes that the prefixed verbal form in the first line is an imperfect (“are ashamed”) and that the ambiguous form in the third line is a perfect (“bow down”) because the psalmist appears to be describing the effect of the Lord’s mighty theophany on those who witness it (see vv. 5, 8). Another option is to take the prefixed form in the first line as a jussive (“let all who worship idols be ashamed”) and the ambiguous form in the third line as an imperative (“All you gods, bow down before him!”; cf. NIV).