Mazmur 44:2

44:2 You, by your power, ¹  defeated nations and settled our fathers on their land; ² 

you crushed ³  the people living there ⁴  and enabled our ancestors to occupy it. ⁵ 

Habakuk 3:2

3:2 Lord, I have heard the report of what you did; ⁶ 

I am awed, ⁷  Lord, by what you accomplished. ⁸ 

In our time ⁹  repeat those deeds; ¹⁰ 

in our time reveal them again. ¹¹ 

But when you cause turmoil, remember to show us mercy! ¹² 

[44:2]  ¹ tn Heb “you, your hand.”

[44:2]  ² tn Heb “dispossessed nations and planted them.” The third masculine plural pronoun “them” refers to the fathers (v. 1). See Ps 80:8, 15.

[44:2]  ³ tn The verb form in the Hebrew text is a Hiphil preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive) from רָעַע (ra’a’, “be evil; be bad”). If retained it apparently means, “you injured; harmed.” Some prefer to derive the verb from רָעַע (“break”; cf. NEB “breaking up the peoples”), in which case the form must be revocalized as Qal (since this verb is unattested in the Hiphil).

[44:2]  ⁴ tn Or “peoples.”

[44:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “and you sent them out.” The translation assumes that the third masculine plural pronoun “them” refers to the fathers (v. 1), as in the preceding parallel line. See Ps 80:11, where Israel, likened to a vine, “spreads out” its tendrils to the west and east. Another option is to take the “peoples” as the referent of the pronoun and translate, “and you sent them away,” though this does not provide as tight a parallel with the corresponding line.

[3:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “your report,” that is, “the report concerning you.”

[3:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “I fear.” Some prefer to read, “I saw, Lord, what you accomplished” (cf. NEB).

[3:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “your work.”

[3:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the midst of years.” The meaning of the phrase, which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain (cf. NIV “in our day”; NEB, NASB “in the midst of the years”).

[3:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “revive it” (i.e., “your work”).

[3:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “make known.” The implied object is “your deeds”; the pronoun “them,” referring to “deeds” in the previous line, was employed in the translation to avoid redundancy. The suffix on the form חַיֵּיהוּ (khayyehu, “revive it”) does double duty in the parallelism.

[3:2]  ¹² tn Heb “in turmoil remember [to show] compassion.”