Mazmur 31:11

31:11 Because of all my enemies, people disdain me; ¹ 

my neighbors are appalled by my suffering ²  –

those who know me are horrified by my condition; ³ 

those who see me in the street run away from me.

Mazmur 31:22

31:22 I jumped to conclusions and said, ⁴ 

“I am cut off from your presence!” ⁵ 

But you heard my plea for mercy when I cried out to you for help.

Mazmur 39:1

Psalm 39 ⁶ 

For the music director, Jeduthun; a psalm of David.

39:1 I decided, ⁷  “I will watch what I say

and make sure I do not sin with my tongue. ⁸ 

I will put a muzzle over my mouth

while in the presence of an evil man.” ⁹ 

[31:11]  ¹ tn Heb “because of all my enemies I am a reproach.”

[31:11]  ² tc Heb “and to my neighbors, exceedingly.” If the MT is retained, then these words probably go with what precedes. However the syntactical awkwardness of the text suggests it is textually corrupt. P. C. Craigie (Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 258) suggests that the initial mem (מ) on מְאֹד (me’od, “exceedingly”) be understood as an enclitic mem (ם) which was originally suffixed to the preceding form and then later misinterpreted. The resulting form אֵד (’ed) can then be taken as a defectively written form of אֵיד (’ed, “calamity”). If one follows this emendation, then the text reads literally, “and to my neighbors [I am one who experiences] calamity.” The noun פַחַד (fakhad, “[object of] horror”) occurs in the next line; אֵיד and פַחַד appear in parallelism elsewhere (see Prov 1:26-27).

[31:11]  ³ tn Heb “and [an object of ] horror to those known by me.”

[31:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “and I, I said in my haste.”

[31:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “from before your eyes.”

[39:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 39. The psalmist laments his frailty and mortality as he begs the Lord to take pity on him and remove his disciplinary hand.

[39:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “I said.”

[39:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will watch my ways, from sinning with my tongue.”

[39:1]  ⁹ sn The psalmist wanted to voice a lament to the Lord (see vv. 4-6), but he hesitated to do so in the presence of evil men, for such words might be sinful if they gave the wicked an occasion to insult God. See C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms (ICC), 1:345.