Mazmur 76:4-5

76:4 You shine brightly and reveal your majesty,

as you descend from the hills where you killed your prey. ¹ 

76:5 The bravehearted ²  were plundered; ³ 

they “fell asleep.” ⁴ 

All the warriors were helpless. ⁵ 

[76:4]  ¹ tn Heb “radiant [are] you, majestic from the hills of prey.” God is depicted as a victorious king and as a lion that has killed its victims.

[76:5]  ² tn Heb “strong of heart.” In Isa 46:12, the only other text where this phrase appears, it refers to those who are stubborn, but here it seems to describe brave warriors (see the next line).

[76:5]  ³ tn The verb is a rare Aramaized form of the Hitpolel (see GKC 149 §54.a, n. 2); the root is שָׁלַל (shalal, “to plunder”).

[76:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “they slept [in] their sleep.” “Sleep” here refers to the “sleep” of death. A number of modern translations take the phrase to refer to something less than death, however: NASB “cast into a deep sleep”; NEB “fall senseless”; NIV “lie still”; NRSV “lay stunned.”

[76:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and all the men of strength did not find their hands.”