Mazmur 37:9

37:9 Wicked men ¹  will be wiped out, ² 

but those who rely on the Lord are the ones who will possess the land. ³ 

Mazmur 37:22

37:22 Surely ⁴  those favored by the Lord ⁵  will possess the land,

but those rejected ⁶  by him will be wiped out. ⁷ 

Mazmur 141:7

141:7 As when one plows and breaks up the soil, ⁸ 

so our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

Mazmur 37:34

37:34 Rely ⁹  on the Lord! Obey his commands! ¹⁰ 

Then he will permit you ¹¹  to possess the land;

you will see the demise of evil men. ¹² 

Mazmur 52:5

52:5 Yet ¹³  God will make you a permanent heap of ruins. ¹⁴ 

He will scoop you up ¹⁵  and remove you from your home; ¹⁶ 

he will uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)

Mazmur 129:6

129:6 May they be like the grass on the rooftops

which withers before one can even pull it up, ¹⁷ 

Mazmur 26:9

26:9 Do not sweep me away ¹⁸  with sinners,

or execute me along with violent people, ¹⁹ 

Mazmur 73:19

73:19 How desolate they become in a mere moment!

Terrifying judgments make their demise complete! ²⁰ 

Mazmur 58:6

58:6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths!

Smash the jawbones of the lions, O Lord!

Mazmur 63:9

63:9 Enemies seek to destroy my life, ²¹ 

but they will descend into the depths of the earth. ²² 

Mazmur 106:26

106:26 So he made a solemn vow ²³ 

that he would make them die ²⁴  in the desert,

Mazmur 119:43

119:43 Do not completely deprive me of a truthful testimony, ²⁵ 

for I await your justice.

Mazmur 148:6

148:6 He established them so they would endure; ²⁶ 

he issued a decree that will not be revoked. ²⁷ 

Mazmur 35:3-4

35:3 Use your spear and lance ²⁸  against ²⁹  those who chase me!

Assure me with these words: ³⁰  “I am your deliverer!”

35:4 May those who seek my life be embarrassed and humiliated!

May those who plan to harm me be turned back and ashamed! ³¹ 

Mazmur 56:6

56:6 They stalk ³²  and lurk; ³³ 

they watch my every step, ³⁴ 

as ³⁵  they prepare to take my life. ³⁶ 

Mazmur 86:14

86:14 O God, arrogant men attack me; ³⁷ 

a gang ³⁸  of ruthless men, who do not respect you, seek my life. ³⁹ 

Mazmur 89:34

89:34 I will not break ⁴⁰  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ⁴¹ 

Mazmur 31:13

31:13 For I hear what so many are saying, ⁴² 

the terrifying news that comes from every direction. ⁴³ 

When they plot together against me,

they figure out how they can take my life.

Mazmur 38:12

38:12 Those who seek my life try to entrap me; ⁴⁴ 

those who want to harm me speak destructive words;

all day long they say deceitful things.

Mazmur 40:14

40:14 May those who are trying to snatch away my life

be totally embarrassed and ashamed! ⁴⁵ 

May those who want to harm me

be turned back and ashamed! ⁴⁶ 

Mazmur 54:3

54:3 For foreigners ⁴⁷  attack me; ⁴⁸ 

ruthless men, who do not respect God, seek my life. ⁴⁹  (Selah)

Mazmur 59:3

59:3 For look, they wait to ambush me; ⁵⁰ 

powerful men stalk ⁵¹  me,

but not because I have rebelled or sinned, O Lord. ⁵² 

Mazmur 70:2

70:2 May those who are trying to take my life

be embarrassed and ashamed! ⁵³ 

May those who want to harm me

be turned back and ashamed! ⁵⁴ 

[37:9]  ¹ tn Heb “for evil men.” The conjunction כִּי (ki, “for”) relates to the exhortations in v. 8; there is no reason to be frustrated, for the evildoers will be punished in due time.

[37:9]  ² tn Or “cut off, removed.”

[37:9]  ³ tn Heb “and those who wait on the Lord, they will possess the land.”

[37:22]  ⁴ tn The particle כִּי is best understood as asseverative or emphatic here.

[37:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “those blessed by him.” The pronoun “him” must refer to the Lord (see vv. 20, 23), so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “cursed.”

[37:22]  ⁷ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed” (see v. 9).

[141:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “like splitting and breaking open in the earth.” The meaning of the statement and the point of the comparison are not entirely clear. Perhaps the psalmist is suggesting that he and other godly individuals are as good as dead; their bones are scattered about like dirt that is dug up and tossed aside.

[37:34]  ⁹ tn Or “wait.”

[37:34]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “keep his way.” The Lord’s “way” refers here to the “conduct required” by the Lord. In Ps 25 the Lord’s “ways” are associated with his covenantal demands (see vv. 4, 9-10). See also Ps 119:3 (cf. vv. 1, 4), as well as Deut 8:6; 10:12; 11:22; 19:9; 26:17; 28:9; 30:16.

[37:34]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he will lift you up.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) is best taken here as a result clause following the imperatives in the preceding lines.

[37:34]  ¹² tn Heb “when evil men are cut off you will see.”

[52:5]  ¹³ tn The adverb גַּם (gam, “also; even”) is translated here in an adversative sense (“yet”). It highlights the contrastive correspondence between the evildoer’s behavior and God’s response.

[52:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “will tear you down forever.”

[52:5]  ¹⁵ tn This rare verb (חָתָה, khatah) occurs only here and in Prov 6:27; 25:22; Isa 30:14.

[52:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from [your] tent.”

[129:6]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew verb שָׁלַף (shalaf) normally means “to draw [a sword]” or “to pull.” BDB 1025 s.v. suggests the meaning “to shoot up” here, but it is more likely that the verb here means “to pluck; to pull up,” a nuance attested for this word in later Hebrew and Aramaic (see Jastrow 1587 s.v. שָׁלַף).

[26:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “do not gather up my life with.”

[26:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “or with men of bloodshed my life.” The verb is supplied; it is understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).

[73:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they come to an end, they are finished, from terrors.”

[63:9]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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.

[106:26]  ²³ tn Heb “and he lifted his hand to [or “concerning”] them.” The idiom “to lift a hand” here refers to swearing an oath. One would sometimes solemnly lift one’s hand when making such a vow (see Ezek 20:5-6, 15).

[106:26]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to cause them to fall.”

[119:43]  ²⁵ tn Heb “do not snatch from my mouth a word of truth to excess.” The psalmist wants to be able to give a reliable testimony about the Lord’s loyal love (vv. 41-42), but if God does not intervene, the psalmist will be deprived of doing so, for the evidence of such love (i.e., deliverance) will be lacking.

[148:6]  ²⁶ tn Or “forever and ever.”

[148:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and it will not pass away.”

[35:3]  ²⁸ tn Or “javelin.” On the meaning of this word, which occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, see M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:210-11.

[35:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “draw out spear and lance to meet.”

[35:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “say to me,” or “say to my soul.”

[35:4]  ³¹ tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist is calling judgment down on his enemies. See also the distinct jussive form in v. 6.

[56:6]  ³² tn The verb is from the root גּוּר (gur), which means “to challenge, attack” in Isa 54:15 and “to stalk” (with hostile intent) in Ps 59:3.

[56:6]  ³³ tn Or “hide.”

[56:6]  ³⁴ tn Heb “my heels.”

[56:6]  ³⁵ tn Heb “according to,” in the sense of “inasmuch as; since,” or “when; while.”

[56:6]  ³⁶ tn Heb “they wait [for] my life.”

[86:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “rise up against me.”

[86:14]  ³⁸ tn Or “assembly.”

[86:14]  ³⁹ tn Heb “seek my life and do not set you before them.” See Ps 54:3.

[89:34]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[31:13]  ⁴² tn Heb “the report of many.”

[31:13]  ⁴³ tn Heb “the terror from all around.”

[38:12]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “lay snares.”

[40:14]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “may they be embarrassed and ashamed together, the ones seeking my life to snatch it away.”

[40:14]  ⁴⁶ tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse (“may those…be…embarrassed and ashamed…may those…be turned back and ashamed”) are understood as jussives. The psalmist is calling judgment down on his enemies.

[40:14]  sn See Ps 35:4 for a similar prayer.

[54:3]  ⁴⁷ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss read זֵדִים (zedim, “proud ones”) rather than זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”). (No matter which reading one chooses as original, dalet-resh confusion accounts for the existence of the variant.) The term זֵדִים (“proud ones”) occurs in parallelism with עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Ps 86:14 and Isa 13:11. However, זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”) is parallel to עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Isa 25:5; 29:5; Ezek 28:7; 31:12.

[54:3]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “rise against me.”

[54:3]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “and ruthless ones seek my life, they do not set God in front of them.”

[59:3]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “my life.”

[59:3]  ⁵¹ tn The Hebrew verb is from the root גּוּר (gur), which means “to challenge, attack” in Isa 54:15 and “to stalk” (with hostile intent) in Ps 56:8.

[59:3]  ⁵² sn The point is that the psalmist’s enemies have no justifiable reason for attacking him. He has neither rebelled or sinned against the Lord.

[70:2]  ⁵³ tn Heb “may they be embarrassed and ashamed, the ones seeking my life.” Ps 40:14 has “together” after “ashamed,” and “to snatch it away” after “my life.”

[70:2]  ⁵⁴ tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist is calling judgment down on his enemies.

[70:2]  sn See Ps 35:4 for a similar prayer.