Mazmur 59:13
Konteks59:13 Angrily wipe them out! Wipe them out so they vanish!
Let them know that God rules
in Jacob and to the ends of the earth! (Selah)
Mazmur 69:22-28
Konteks69:22 May their dining table become a trap before them!
May it be a snare for that group of friends! 1
69:23 May their eyes be blinded! 2
Make them shake violently! 3
69:24 Pour out your judgment 4 on them!
May your raging anger 5 overtake them!
69:25 May their camp become desolate,
their tents uninhabited! 6
69:26 For they harass 7 the one whom you discipline; 8
they spread the news about the suffering of those whom you punish. 9
69:27 Hold them accountable for all their sins! 10
Do not vindicate them! 11
69:28 May their names be deleted from the scroll of the living! 12
Do not let their names be listed with the godly! 13
Mazmur 109:6-20
Konteks109:6 14 Appoint an evil man to testify against him! 15
May an accuser stand 16 at his right side!
109:7 When he is judged, he will be found 17 guilty! 18
Then his prayer will be regarded as sinful.
May another take his job! 20
109:9 May his children 21 be fatherless,
and his wife a widow!
109:10 May his children 22 roam around begging,
asking for handouts as they leave their ruined home! 23
109:11 May the creditor seize 24 all he owns!
May strangers loot his property! 25
109:12 May no one show him kindness! 26
May no one have compassion 27 on his fatherless children!
109:13 May his descendants 28 be cut off! 29
May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives! 30
109:14 May his ancestors’ 31 sins be remembered by the Lord!
May his mother’s sin not be forgotten! 32
109:15 May the Lord be constantly aware of them, 33
and cut off the memory of his children 34 from the earth!
109:16 For he never bothered to show kindness; 35
he harassed the oppressed and needy,
and killed the disheartened. 36
109:17 He loved to curse 37 others, so those curses have come upon him. 38
He had no desire to bless anyone, so he has experienced no blessings. 39
109:18 He made cursing a way of life, 40
so curses poured into his stomach like water
and seeped into his bones like oil. 41
109:19 May a curse attach itself to him, like a garment one puts on, 42
or a belt 43 one wears continually!
[69:22] 1 tc Heb “and to the friends for a snare.” The plural of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is used in Ps 55:20 of one’s “friends.” If the reading of the MT is retained here, the term depicts the psalmist’s enemies as a close-knit group of friends who are bound together by their hatred for the psalmist. Some prefer to revocalize the text as וּלְשִׁלּוּמִים (ulÿshillumim, “and for retribution”). In this case the noun stands parallel to פַּח (pakh, “trap”) and מוֹקֵשׁ (moqesh, “snare”), and one might translate, “may their dining table become a trap before them, [a means of] retribution and a snare” (cf. NIV).
[69:23] 2 tn Heb “may their eyes be darkened from seeing.”
[69:23] 3 tn Heb “make their hips shake continually.”
[69:24] 4 tn Heb “anger.” “Anger” here refers metonymically to divine judgment, which is the practical effect of God’s anger.
[69:24] 5 tn Heb “the rage of your anger.” The phrase “rage of your anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971), 17-81.
[69:25] 6 tn Heb “in their tents may there not be one who dwells.”
[69:25] sn In Acts 1:20 Peter applies the language of this verse to Judas’ experience. By changing the pronouns from plural to singular, he is able to apply the ancient curse, pronounced against the psalmist’s enemies, to Judas in particular.
[69:26] 7 tn Or “persecute”; Heb “chase.”
[69:26] 8 tn Heb “for you, the one whom you strike, they chase.”
[69:26] 9 tn Heb “they announce the pain of your wounded ones” (i.e., “the ones whom you wounded,” as the parallel line makes clear).
[69:26] sn The psalmist is innocent of the false charges made by his enemies (v. 4), but he is also aware of his sinfulness (v. 5) and admits that he experiences divine discipline (v. 26) despite his devotion to God (v. 9). Here he laments that his enemies take advantage of such divine discipline by harassing and slandering him. They “kick him while he’s down,” as the expression goes.
[69:27] 10 tn Heb “place sin upon their sin.”
[69:27] 11 tn Heb “let them not come into your vindication.”
[69:28] 12 tn Heb “let them be wiped out of the scroll of the living.”
[69:28] sn The phrase the scroll of the living occurs only here in the OT. It pictures a scroll or census list containing the names of the citizens of a community. When an individual died, that person’s name was removed from the list. So this curse is a very vivid way of asking that the enemies die.
[69:28] 13 tn Heb “and with the godly let them not be written.”
[69:28] sn Do not let their names be listed with the godly. This curse pictures a scroll in which God records the names of his loyal followers. The psalmist makes the point that his enemies have no right to be included in this list of the godly.
[109:6] 14 sn In vv. 6-19 the psalmist calls on God to judge his enemies severely. Some attribute this curse-list to the psalmist’s enemies rather than the psalmist. In this case one should paraphrase v. 6: “They say about me, ‘Appoint an evil man, etc.’” Those supporting this line of interpretation point out that vv. 2-5 and 20 refer to the enemies’ attack on the psalmist being a verbal one. Furthermore in vv. 1-5, 20 the psalmist speaks of his enemies in the plural, while vv. 6-19 refer to an individual. This use of the singular in vv. 6-19 could be readily explained if this is the psalmist’s enemies’ curse on him. However, it is much more natural to understand vv. 6-19 as the psalmist’s prayer against his enemies. There is no introductory quotation formula in v. 6 to indicate that the psalmist is quoting anyone, and the statement “may the
[109:6] 15 tn Heb “appoint against him an evil [man].”
[109:6] 16 tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive here (note the imperative in the preceding line).
[109:7] 17 tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as a jussive, but the use of the imperfect form in the following line suggests that v. 7 anticipates the outcome of the accusation envisioned in v. 6.
[109:7] 18 tn Heb “he will go out [as] a criminal” (that is, guilty).
[109:8] 19 tn The prefixed verbal forms (except those with vav [ו] consecutive) in vv. 8-20 are taken as jussives of prayer. Note the distinct jussive forms used in vv. 12-13, 15, 19.
[109:8] 20 tn The Hebrew noun פְּקֻדָּה (pÿquddah) can mean “charge” or “office,” though BDB 824 s.v. suggests that here it refers to his possessions.
[109:10] 23 tn Heb “and roaming, may his children roam and beg, and seek from their ruins.” Some, following the LXX, emend the term וְדָרְשׁוּ (vÿdoreshu, “and seek”) to יְגֹרְשׁוּ (yÿgoreshu; a Pual jussive, “may they be driven away” [see Job 30:5; cf. NIV, NRSV]), but דָּרַשׁ (darash) nicely parallels שִׁאֵלוּ (shi’elu, “and beg”) in the preceding line.
[109:11] 24 tn Heb “lay snares for” (see Ps 38:12).
[109:11] 25 tn Heb “the product of his labor.”
[109:12] 26 tn Heb “may there not be for him one who extends loyal love.”
[109:12] 27 tn Perhaps this refers to being generous (see Ps 37:21).
[109:13] 28 tn Or “offspring.”
[109:13] 29 sn On the expression cut off see Ps 37:28.
[109:13] 30 tn Heb “in another generation may their name be wiped out.”
[109:14] 31 tn Or “fathers’ sins.”
[109:14] 32 tn Heb “not be wiped out.”
[109:14] sn According to ancient Israelite theology and its doctrine of corporate solidarity and responsibility, children could be and often were punished for the sins of their parents. For a discussion of this issue see J. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup). (Kaminsky, however, does not deal with Ps 109.)
[109:15] 33 tn Heb “may they [that is, the sins mentioned in v. 14] be before the
[109:15] 34 tn Heb “their memory.” The plural pronominal suffix probably refers back to the children mentioned in v. 13, and for clarity this has been specified in the translation.
[109:16] 35 tn Heb “he did not remember to do loyal love.”
[109:16] 36 tn Heb “and he chased an oppressed and needy man, and one timid of heart to put [him] to death.”
[109:17] 37 sn A curse in OT times consists of a formal appeal to God to bring judgment down upon another. Curses were sometimes justified (such as the one spoken by the psalmist here in vv. 6-19), but when they were not, the one pronouncing the curse was in danger of bringing the anticipated judgment down upon himself.
[109:17] 38 tn Heb “and he loved a curse and it came [upon] him.” A reference to the evil man experiencing a curse seems premature here, for the psalmist is asking God to bring judgment on his enemies. For this reason some (cf. NIV, NRSV) prefer to repoint the vav (ו) on “it came” as conjunctive and translate the verb as a jussive of prayer (“may it come upon him!”). The prefixed form with vav consecutive in the next line is emended in the same way and translated, “may it be far from him.” However, the psalmist may be indicating that the evil man’s lifestyle has already begun to yield its destructive fruit.
[109:17] 39 tn Heb “and he did not delight in a blessing and it is far from him.”
[109:18] 40 tn Heb “he put on a curse as [if it were] his garment.”
[109:18] 41 tn Heb “and it came like water into his inner being, and like oil into his bones.” This may refer to this individual’s appetite for cursing. For him cursing was as refreshing as drinking water or massaging oneself with oil. Another option is that the destructive effects of a curse are in view. In this case a destructive curse invades his very being, like water or oil. Some who interpret the verse this way prefer to repoint the vav (ו) on “it came” to a conjunctive vav and interpret the prefixed verb as a jussive, “may it come!”
[109:19] 42 tn Heb “may it be for him like a garment one puts on.”
[109:19] 43 tn The Hebrew noun מֵזַח (mezakh, “belt; waistband”) occurs only here in the OT. The form apparently occurs in Isa 23:10 as well, but an emendation is necessary there.
[109:20] 44 tn Heb “[may] this [be] the repayment to my accusers from the
[109:20] 46 tn The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being; soul”) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).
