Mazmur 39:2

39:2 I was stone silent; ¹ 

I held back the urge to speak. ² 

My frustration grew; ³ 

Mazmur 39:9

39:9 I am silent and cannot open my mouth

because of what you have done. ⁴ 

Mazmur 51:17

51:17 The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit ⁵  –

O God, a humble and repentant heart ⁶  you will not reject. ⁷ 

Mazmur 58:7

58:7 Let them disappear ⁸  like water that flows away! ⁹ 

Let them wither like grass! ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 89:34

89:34 I will not break ¹¹  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ¹² 

Mazmur 107:12

107:12 So he used suffering to humble them; ¹³ 

they stumbled and no one helped them up.

[39:2]  ¹ tn Heb “I was mute [with] silence.”

[39:2]  ² tn Heb “I was quiet from good.” He kept quiet, resisting the urge to find emotional release and satisfaction by voicing his lament.

[39:2]  sn I held back the urge to speak. For a helpful discussion of the relationship (and tension) between silence and complaint in ancient Israelite lamentation, see E. S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I (FOTL), 166-67.

[39:2]  ³ tn Heb “and my pain was stirred up.” Emotional pain is in view here.

[39:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “because you acted.” The psalmist has in mind God’s disciplinary measures (see vv. 10-13).

[51:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “a broken spirit.”

[51:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “a broken and crushed heart.”

[51:17]  ⁷ tn Or “despise.”

[58:7]  ⁸ tn Following the imperatival forms in v. 6, the prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive expressing the psalmist’s wish. Another option is to take the form as an imperfect (indicative) and translate, “they will scatter” (see v. 9). The verb מָאַס (ma’as; which is a homonym of the more common מָאַס, “to refuse, reject”) appears only here and in Job 7:5, where it is used of a festering wound from which fluid runs or flows.

[58:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “like water, they go about for themselves.” The translation assumes that the phrase “they go about for themselves” is an implied relative clause modifying “water.” Another option is to take the clause as independent and parallel to what precedes. In this case the enemies would be the subject and the verb could be taken as jussive, “let them wander about.”

[58:7]  ¹⁰ tc The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult and the meaning uncertain. The text reads literally, “he treads his arrows (following the Qere; Kethib has “his arrow”), like they are cut off/dry up.” It is not clear if the verbal root is מָלַל (malal, “circumcise”; BDB 576 s.v. IV מָלַל) or the homonymic מָלַל (“wither”; HALOT 593-94 s.v. I מלל). Since the verb מָלַל (“to wither”) is used of vegetation, it is possible that the noun חָצִיר (khatsir, “grass,” which is visually similar to חִצָּיו, khitsayv, “his arrows”) originally appeared in the text. The translation above assumes that the text originally was כְּמוֹ חָצִיר יִתְמֹלָלוּ(kÿmo khatsir yitmolalu, “like grass let them wither”). If original, it could have been accidentally corrupted to חִצָּיר כְּמוֹ יִתְמֹלָלוּ (“his arrow(s) like they dry up”) with דָּרַךְ (darakh, “to tread”) being added later in an effort to make sense of “his arrow(s).”

[89:34]  ¹¹ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ¹² tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[107:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he subdued with suffering their heart.”