Mazmur 35:10

35:10 With all my strength I will say, ¹ 

“O Lord, who can compare to you?

You rescue ²  the oppressed from those who try to overpower them; ³ 

the oppressed and needy from those who try to rob them.” ⁴ 

Mazmur 68:10

68:10 for you live among them. ⁵ 

You sustain the oppressed with your good blessings, O God.

Mazmur 140:12

140:12 I know ⁶  that the Lord defends the cause of the oppressed

and vindicates the poor. ⁷ 

[35:10]  ¹ tn Heb “all my bones will say.”

[35:10]  ² tn Heb “[the one who] rescues.” The substantival participle in the Hebrew text characterizes God as one who typically rescues the oppressed.

[35:10]  ³ tn Heb “from [the one who is] too strong for him.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense. The typical oppressed individual and typical oppressor are in view.

[35:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “the oppressed [one] and needy [one] from [the one who] robs him.” As in the previous line, the singular forms are used in a representative sense.

[68:10]  ⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew text is unclear; it appears to read, “your animals, they live in it,” but this makes little, if any, sense in this context. Some suggest that חָיָּה (khayah) is a rare homonym here, meaning “community” (BDB 312 s.v.) or “dwelling place” (HALOT 310 s.v. III *הַיָּה). In this case one may take “your community/dwelling place” as appositional to the third feminine singular pronominal suffix at the end of v. 9, the antecedent of which is “your inheritance.” The phrase יָשְׁבוּ־בָהּ (yashvu-vah, “they live in it”) may then be understood as an asyndetic relative clause modifying “your community/dwelling place.” A literal translation of vv. 9b-10a would be, “when it [your inheritance] is tired, you sustain it, your community/dwelling place in [which] they live.”

[140:12]  ⁶ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading a first person verb form here. The Kethib reads the second person.

[140:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the just cause of the poor.”