Mazmur 21:9

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ¹  when you appear; ² 

the Lord angrily devours them; ³ 

the fire consumes them.

Mazmur 31:1

Psalm 31 ⁴ 

For the music director; a psalm of David.

31:1 In you, O Lord, I have taken shelter!

Never let me be humiliated!

Vindicate me by rescuing me! ⁵ 

Mazmur 58:9

58:9 Before the kindling is even placed under your pots, ⁶ 

he ⁷  will sweep it away along with both the raw and cooked meat. ⁸ 

Mazmur 59:11

59:11 Do not strike them dead suddenly,

because then my people might forget the lesson. ⁹ 

Use your power to make them homeless vagabonds and then bring them down,

O Lord who shields us! ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 65:5

65:5 You answer our prayers by performing awesome acts of deliverance,

O God, our savior. ¹¹ 

All the ends of the earth trust in you, ¹² 

as well as those living across the wide seas. ¹³ 

Mazmur 66:3

66:3 Say to God:

“How awesome are your deeds!

Because of your great power your enemies cower in fear ¹⁴  before you.

[21:9]  ¹ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ² tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ³ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[31:1]  ⁴ sn Psalm 31. The psalmist confidently asks the Lord to protect him. Enemies threaten him and even his friends have abandoned him, but he looks to the Lord for vindication. In vv. 19-24, which were apparently written after the Lord answered the prayer of vv. 1-18, the psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him.

[31:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “in your vindication rescue me.”

[58:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “before your pots perceive thorns.”

[58:9]  ⁷ tn Apparently God (v. 6) is the subject of the verb here.

[58:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “like living, like burning anger he will sweep it away.” The meaning of the text is unclear. The translation assumes that within the cooking metaphor (see the previous line) חַי (khay, “living”) refers here to raw meat (as in 1 Sam 2:15, where it modifies בָּשָׂר, basar, “flesh”) and that חָרוּן (kharun; which always refers to God’s “burning anger” elsewhere) here refers to food that is cooked. The pronominal suffix on the verb “sweep away” apparently refers back to the “thorns” of the preceding line. The image depicts swift and sudden judgment. Before the fire has been adequately kindled and all the meat cooked, the winds of judgment will sweep away everything in their path.

[59:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “do not kill them, lest my people forget.”

[59:11]  sn My people might forget the lesson. Swift, sudden destruction might be quickly forgotten. The psalmist wants God’s judgment to be prolonged so that it might be a continual reminder of divine justice.

[59:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “make them roam around by your strength and bring them down, O our shield, the Lord.”

[65:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[with] awesome acts in deliverance you answer us, O God of our salvation.”

[65:5]  ¹² tn Heb “a source of confidence [for] all the ends of the earth.”

[65:5]  sn All the ends of the earth trust in you. This idealistic portrayal of universal worship is typical hymnic hyperbole, though it does anticipate eschatological reality.

[65:5]  ¹³ tc Heb “and [the] distant sea.” The plural adjective is problematic after the singular form “sea.” One could emend יָם (yam, “sea”) to יָמִים (yamim, “seas”), or emend the plural form רְחֹקִים (rÿkhoqim, “far”) to the singular רָחֹק (rakhoq). In this case the final mem (ם) could be treated as dittographic; note the mem on the beginning of the first word in v. 6.

[66:3]  ¹⁴ tn See Deut 33:29; Ps 81:15 for other uses of the verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) in the sense “cower in fear.” In Ps 18:44 the verb seems to carry the nuance “be weak, powerless” (see also Ps 109:24).