Mazmur 55:8-10

55:8 I will hurry off to a place that is safe

from the strong wind ¹  and the gale.”

55:9 Confuse them, ²  O Lord!

Frustrate their plans! ³ 

For I see violence and conflict in the city.

55:10 Day and night they walk around on its walls, ⁴ 

while wickedness and destruction ⁵  are within it.

[55:8]  ¹ tn Heb “[the] wind [that] sweeps away.” The verb סָעָה (sa’ah, “sweep away”) occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 120).

[55:9]  ² tn Traditionally בַּלַּע (bala’) has been taken to mean “swallow” in the sense of “devour” or “destroy” (cf. KJV), but this may be a homonym meaning “confuse” (see BDB 118 s.v. בַּלַּע; HALOT 135 s.v. III *בֶּלַע). “Their tongue” is the understood object of the verb (see the next line).

[55:9]  ³ tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”

[55:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “day and night they surround it, upon its walls.” Personified “violence and conflict” are the likely subjects. They are compared to watchmen on the city’s walls.

[55:10]  ⁵ sn Wickedness and destruction. These terms are also closely associated in Ps 7:14.