Boks TemuanPsalms 63:1--64:10
KonteksA psalm of David, written when he was in the Judean wilderness. 2
63:1 O God, you are my God! I long for you! 3
My soul thirsts 4 for you,
my flesh yearns for you,
in a dry and parched 5 land where there is no water.
63:2 Yes, 6 in the sanctuary I have seen you, 7
and witnessed 8 your power and splendor.
63:3 Because 9 experiencing 10 your loyal love is better than life itself,
my lips will praise you.
63:4 For this reason 11 I will praise you while I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands. 12
63:5 As if with choice meat 13 you satisfy my soul. 14
My mouth joyfully praises you, 15
63:6 whenever 16 I remember you on my bed,
and think about you during the nighttime hours.
63:7 For you are my deliverer; 17
under your wings 18 I rejoice.
63:8 My soul 19 pursues you; 20
your right hand upholds me.
63:9 Enemies seek to destroy my life, 21
but they will descend into the depths of the earth. 22
63:10 Each one will be handed over to the sword; 23
their corpses will be eaten by jackals. 24
63:11 But the king 25 will rejoice in God;
everyone who takes oaths in his name 26 will boast,
for the mouths of those who speak lies will be shut up. 27
For the music director; a psalm of David.
64:1 Listen to me, 29 O God, as I offer my lament!
Protect 30 my life from the enemy’s terrifying attacks. 31
64:2 Hide me from the plots of evil men,
from the crowd of evildoers. 32
64:3 They 33 sharpen their tongues like a sword;
they aim their arrow, a slanderous charge, 34
64:4 in order to shoot down the innocent 35 in secluded places.
They shoot at him suddenly and are unafraid of retaliation. 36
64:5 They encourage one another to carry out their evil deed. 37
They plan how to hide 38 snares,
and boast, 39 “Who will see them?” 40
64:6 They devise 41 unjust schemes;
they disguise 42 a well-conceived plot. 43
Man’s inner thoughts cannot be discovered. 44
64:7 But God will shoot 45 at them;
suddenly they will be 46 wounded by an arrow. 47
64:8 Their slander will bring about their demise. 48
All who see them will shudder, 49
64:9 and all people will fear. 50
They will proclaim 51 what God has done,
and reflect on his deeds.
64:10 The godly will rejoice in the Lord
and take shelter in him.
[63:1] 1 sn Psalm 63. The psalmist expresses his intense desire to be in God’s presence and confidently affirms that God will judge his enemies.
[63:1] 2 sn According to the psalm superscription David wrote the psalm while in the “wilderness of Judah.” Perhaps this refers to the period described in 1 Sam 23-24 or to the incident mentioned in 2 Sam 15:23.
[63:1] 3 tn Or “I will seek you.”
[63:1] 5 tn Heb “faint” or “weary.” This may picture the land as “faint” or “weary,” or it may allude to the effect this dry desert has on those who are forced to live in it.
[63:2] 6 tn The Hebrew particle כֵּן (ken) is used here to stress the following affirmation (see Josh 2:4).
[63:2] 7 tn The perfect verbal form is understood here as referring to a past experience which the psalmist desires to be repeated. Another option is to take the perfect as indicating the psalmist’s certitude that he will again stand in God’s presence in the sanctuary. In this case one can translate, “I will see you.”
[63:2] 8 tn Heb “seeing.” The preposition with the infinitive construct here indicates an accompanying circumstance.
[63:3] 11 tn This line is understood as giving the basis for the praise promised in the following line. Another option is to take the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) as asseverative/emphasizing, “Indeed, your loyal love is better” (cf. NEB, which leaves the particle untranslated).
[63:3] 12 tn The word “experiencing” is supplied in the translation for clarification. The psalmist does not speak here of divine loyal love in some abstract sense, but of loyal love revealed and experienced.
[63:4] 16 tn Or perhaps “then.”
[63:4] 17 sn I will lift up my hands. Lifting up one’s hands toward God was a gesture of prayer (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19) or respect (Ps 119:48).
[63:5] 21 tn Heb “like fat and fatness.”
[63:5] 23 tn Heb “and [with] lips of joy my mouth praises.”
[63:6] 26 tn The Hebrew term אִם (’im) is used here in the sense of “when; whenever,” as in Ps 78:34.
[63:7] 31 tn Or “[source of] help.”
[63:7] 32 tn Heb “in the shadow of your wings.”
[63:8] 36 tn Or “I.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).
[63:8] 37 tn Heb “clings after.” The expression means “to pursue with determination” (see Judg 20:45; 1 Sam 14:22; 1 Chr 10:2; Jer 42:16).
[63:9] 41 tn Heb “but they for destruction seek my life.” The pronoun “they” must refer here to the psalmist’s enemies, referred to at this point for the first time in the psalm.
[63:9] 42 sn The depths of the earth refers here to the underworld dwelling place of the dead (see Ezek 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24). See L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 167.
[63:10] 46 tn Heb “they will deliver him over to the sword.” The third masculine plural subject must be indefinite (see GKC 460 §144.f) and the singular pronominal suffix either representative or distributive (emphasizing that each one will be so treated). Active verbs with indefinite subjects may be translated as passives with the object (in the Hebrew text) as subject (in the translation).
[63:10] 47 tn Heb “they will be [the] portion of jackals”; traditionally, “of foxes.”
[63:11] 51 sn The psalmist probably refers to himself in the third person here.
[63:11] 52 tn Heb “who swears [an oath] by him.”
[63:11] 53 tn The Niphal of this verb occurs only here and in Gen 8:2, where it is used of God “stopping” or “damming up” the great deep as he brought the flood to an end.
[64:1] 56 sn Psalm 64. The psalmist asks God to protect him from his dangerous enemies and then confidently affirms that God will destroy his enemies and demonstrate his justice in the sight of all observers.
[64:1] 58 tn The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s request.
[64:1] 59 tn Heb “from the terror of [the] enemy.” “Terror” is used here metonymically for the enemy’s attacks that produce fear because they threaten the psalmist’s life.
[64:2] 61 tn Heb “workers of wickedness.”
[64:3] 66 tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.
[64:3] 67 tn Heb “a bitter word.”
[64:4] 71 tn The psalmist uses the singular because he is referring to himself here as representative of a larger group.
[64:4] 72 tn Heb “and are unafraid.” The words “of retaliation” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
[64:5] 76 tn Heb “they give strength to themselves, an evil matter [or “word”].”
[64:5] 77 tn Heb “they report about hiding.”
[64:5] 79 tn If this is a direct quotation (cf. NASB, NIV), the pronoun “them” refers to the snares mentioned in the previous line. If it is an indirect quotation, then the pronoun may refer to the enemies themselves (cf. NEB, which is ambiguous). Some translations retain the direct quotation but alter the pronoun to “us,” referring clearly to the enemies (cf. NRSV).
[64:6] 81 tn Heb “search out, examine,” which here means (by metonymy) “devise.”
[64:6] 82 tc The MT has תַּמְנוּ (tamnu, “we are finished”), a Qal perfect first common plural form from the verbal root תָּמַם (tamam). Some understand this as the beginning of a quotation of the enemies’ words and translate, “we have completed,” but the Hiphil would seem to be required in this case. The present translation follows many medieval Hebrew
[64:6] 83 tn Heb “a searched-out search,” which is understood as referring here to a thoroughly planned plot to destroy the psalmist.
[64:6] 84 tn Heb “and the inner part of man, and a heart [is] deep.” The point seems to be that a man’s inner thoughts are incapable of being discovered. No one is a mind reader! Consequently the psalmist is vulnerable to his enemies’ well-disguised plots.
[64:7] 86 tn The prefixed verb with vav (ו) consecutive is normally used in narrative contexts to describe completed past actions. It is possible that the conclusion to the psalm (vv. 7-10) was added to the lament after God’s judgment of the wicked in response to the psalmist’s lament (vv. 1-6). The translation assumes that these verses are anticipatory and express the psalmist’s confidence that God would eventually judge the wicked. The psalmist uses a narrative style as a rhetorical device to emphasize his certitude. See GKC 329-30 §111.w.
[64:7] 87 tn The perfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s certitude about the coming demise of the wicked.
[64:7] 88 tn The translation follows the traditional accentuation of the MT. Another option is to translate, “But God will shoot them down with an arrow, suddenly they will be wounded” (cf. NIV, NRSV).
[64:8] 91 tc The MT reads literally, “and they caused him to stumble, upon them, their tongue.” Perhaps the third plural subject of the verb is indefinite with the third singular pronominal suffix on the verb being distributive (see Ps 63:10). In this case one may translate, “each one will be made to stumble.” The preposition עַל (’al) might then be taken as adversative, “against them [is] their tongue.” Many prefer to emend the text to וַיַּכְשִׁילֵמוֹ עֲלֵי לְשׁוֹנָם (vayyakhshilemo ’aley lÿshonam, “and he caused them to stumble over their tongue”). However, if this reading is original, it is difficult to see how the present reading of the MT arose. Furthermore, the preposition is not collocated with the verb כָּשַׁל (kashal) elsewhere. It is likely that the MT is corrupt, but a satisfying emendation has not yet been proposed.
[64:8] 92 tn The Hitpolel verbal form is probably from the root נוּד (nud; see HALOT 678 s.v. נוד), which is attested elsewhere in the Hitpolel stem, not the root נָדַד (nadad, as proposed by BDB 622 s.v. I נָדַד), which does not occur elsewhere in this stem.
[64:9] 96 tc Many medieval Hebrew
[64:9] 97 tn Heb “the work of God,” referring to the judgment described in v. 7.
[64:10] 101 tn Heb “upright in heart.”
[64:10] 102 tn That is, about the
