Category Archive: Bible – OT – Psalms
Lift Your Eyes to the Hills
Is there an allusion to Psalm 121 in Matthew 17?
Matthew has just told us about Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain. Up on the mountain, Jesus is shining “as white as light” and a “bright cloud” overshadows them, which ought to make us wonder if that light was visible to those down below. But when Jesus and his three mighty men come down the mountain into the dark world below, they find a demon-possessed boy. That’s what Mark tells us. But Matthew tells us that the boy was moonstruck. I’m not entirely sure what that means and I’m not persuaded that it can simply be identified with epilepsy, though it seems similar. But what’s important here is that the word implies a striking by the moon.
Now consider Psalm 121, which begins:
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From whence comes my help?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
In Matthew’s Gospel, who is on the hills? Jesus is, where he shines with glory. He is the one from whom help comes for those down below, and they ought to be expecting it, though as the story shows they are not. Interestingly, the man who comes to Jesus for help calls him “Lord.”
The psalm goes on:
The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
Here we have, it seems, exactly what the boy was suffering from: he was struck by the moon. But his father calls upon the Lord, who was on the hills, and his son is rescued.
Psalm 64
I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
A psalm
By David.
Hear, God, my voice in my meditation;
From the terror of my enemy guard my life.
Hide me from the counsel of evildoers,
From the tumult of the troublemakers,
Who have sharpened like the sword their tongue,
Have aimed their arrow, a bitter word,
To shoot in hiding places at the blameless;
Suddenly they shoot and they do not fear.
They strengthen themselves with an evil word;
They report hiding snares;
They have asked who will see them.
They search out iniquities: “We have perfected a searched-out plan.”
And the inward part of man and the heart is deep.
And God has shot them, with an arrow, suddenly;
There are their wounds,
And they make their tongue stumble against them.
They will shake — all who look upon them.
And all men will fear and declare the work of God,
And his act they will understand.
The righteous will rejoice in Yahweh and take refuge in him,
And they will boast, all the upright in heart.
A multitude of comments about the translation of this psalm:
(1) In line 1, the word translated “meditation” can include anything that occupies one’s attention, and so Holliday suggests such things as “thought, consideration, (object of) concern.” It can refer to a complaint, as it probably does here, but it may be broader than that. Hirsch suggests that the phrase here means “When I give expression to … my inner agitation.”
(2) In line 2, the word translated “terror” can also refer to “trembling.” Here, “the trembling of my enemy” is the trembling brought on by the presence of the enemy.
(3) In line 3, the word translated “counsel” here has the sense of “secret counsel” (Hirsch; cf. Amos 3:7) can also refer to a circle of confidants (Gen 49:6) and can be used in a good sense (Ps. 25:14; 55:15: “sweet counsel”).
(4) In line 5, Hirsch and some others have “whet” instead of “sharpened,” which is fine, but I am preparing these psalms for reading out loud in church. Read out loud, “whet” in connection with “tongue” will probably be heard as “wet.”
(5) In line 7, “hiding places” uses the same root as “Hide” in line 3. Many translations have “in secret places” or just “in secret.” NASB has “from concealment,” which probably captures the idea. It’s not the blameless man who is in hiding, but the attacker. As for “blameless,” the word tam includes the sense of integrity, wholeness, maturity, completion.
(6) In line 8, “strengthen for themselves an evil word” is a bit awkward. The verb can be used for strengthening in the sense of encouragement (2 Sam 11:25), and perhaps the meaning is that they encourage themselves with an evil word (plot, plan). But it seems more likely that it is the word which is being strengthened, the bitter word being shot like an arrow.
(7) In line 10, “they report hiding snares” may mean that they talk about all the snares they’ve hidden, boasting about what they’re doing (Alexander). But Hirsch may be right in taking this phrase to mean that as they tell or report (about whatever), they are laying snares.
(8) In line 11, in the phrase “Who will see them,” is the pronoun “them” a reference to the snares (line 10) or to the people themselves (Alexander)? The latter is how some of the early versions took it, changing the question to “Who will see us?”
(9) With regard to line 12: Okay, you try translating this. Literally: “They search out iniquities. We have perfected/completed a searched-out searching-out.” Alter emends the verb (from “we have completed” to “we have hidden”), but if we go with “completed,” Alter’s reading is something like this: “We have completed the utmost search.” But Hirsch thinks it means something like “Let them investigate inquities. We will be gone when a search is made.” But that seems like a stretch to me.
(10) Line 15 is pretty tough, and this is an attempt at a rendition. It seems to say “They are, their wounds/blows.” Hirsch has something closer to “their blows came to be.” NASB margin: “Their wounds happened.”
(11) Line 16 is extremely tough. The verb is third person plural, with a third person singular suffix: “They make him totter/stumble.” But many translations render this line as if the subject is God (“He makes them stumble”) or as if it is passive (“They are made to stumble”). Hirsch in his commentary says that the subject is most likely the blows/wounds from the previous verse and the object is the tongue (which can be masculine or feminine, BDB), but in his translation, he appears to take the subject as the enemies: “They made their own tongue a stumbling block unto themselves.” I’m not persuaded that the verb can have that sense. Perhaps the AV is closest: “They will make their own tongue to fall upon themselves,” or, better, “against themselves.”
(12) Line 17 contains a verb that is often taken to be from ndd (“to flee”), so that it reads “All will flee….” But it’s possible that whatever the root is, possibly nud, it refers to the sort of thing we find in Jeremiah 18:16 (“shake the head,” but there “the head” is explicitly mentioned) or Jeremiah 31:18 (“bemoan”). Hirsch suggests that it refers to inner agitation, to being deeply moved in some way, but nud itself has the sense of shaking and so that’s what I’ve used … for now.
The psalm seems to me to be structured as a chiasm (and thanks to Jeff Moss for his contributions as we talked about this today):
A. Hear, God, my voice in my meditation;
From the terror of my enemy guard my life.
B. Hide me from the counsel of evildoers,
From the tumult of the troublemakers,
C. Who have sharpened like the sword their tongue,
Have aimed their arrow, a bitter word,
D. To shoot in hiding places at the blameless;
Suddenly they shoot and they do not fear.
E. They strengthen themselves with an evil word;
They report hiding snares;
F. They have asked who will see them.
E’. They search out iniquities: “We have perfected a searched-out plan.”
And the inward part of man and the heart is deep.
D’. And God has shot them, with an arrow, suddenly;
There are their wounds,
C’. And they make their tongue stumble against them.
They will shake — all who look upon them.
B’. And all men will fear and declare the work of God,
And his act they will understand.
A’. The righteous will rejoice in Yahweh and take refuge in him,
And they will boast, all the upright in heart.
The A sections both deal with the voice of the righteous and with Yahweh’s protection.
The B sections contrast the counsel of the evildoers which leads to tumult and trouble with God’s work and God’s act.
The C sections deal with the tongue.
The D sections have arrows being shot.
The E sections are the words of the evildoers and their confidence.
The turning point, F, then is their question “Who will see us?”
Psalm Singing
In his lecture entitled “Introduction to Worship,” available here, James Jordan points out that one way to tell what Satan hates is to see what things that God wants in worship are missing or abused. What does Satan hate? One thing he hates is Psalm singing. Says Jordan,
The other thing the devil does not want is congregations singing the Psalms because the Psalms are full of holy war stuff. If you start singing the psalms, you start getting iron in your bones.
You know that Psalm 68, “Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered,” was the marching song of the French Reformation. They would sing it as they went into battle. The Huguenots in France would sing it all the time. Of course, they didn’t have air conditioning then, so the windows were open and all the Catholics heard it, and it made all the Catholics so afraid that eventually the king outlawed singing Psalm 68 in public. So they’d go around whistling. And they had to outlaw whistling that melody.
Now, people are not afraid when they hear us sing “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” They are not worried about you.
This move away from Psalm singing, it seems to me, has taken more than one form:
(1) Many churches do not sing the Psalms at all. They may sing hymns or gospel songs or praise songs, but they don’t sing the Psalms. In some of these churches, the Psalms are read; they may even be read responsively. That’s better than nothing, but it’s also rather strange, isn’t it? The Psalms were written to be sung. David didn’t simply read them. The Levites at David’s tabernacle didn’t simply read them out loud. They sang them. If you went to a performance of Handel’s Messiah, you’d be pretty disappointed if the performers read the text instead of singing. But in many churches, the Psalms are not sung and, in most services, are not read. And what that means is that the Psalms do not shape the piety, worship, expectations, language, biblical understanding, and so forth of the Christians in these churches.
(2) In some churches, a few Psalms are sung. If you look in a hymnal (e.g., the Trinity Hymnal produced by the OPC and PCA), you won’t find all the Psalms. You’ll find only some of them.
(3) There are songs that incorporate only a line or two of a psalm. Take the well-known praise song “As the Deer.” If you look at the first two lines, you’ll see that they are drawn from Psalm 42:1. But immediately the song leaves Psalm 42 behind. There are alternate stanzas that incorporate more of the psalm, but I certainly didn’t learn them and I doubt that a lot of Christians have. This is not Psalm singing.
(4) Most of the Psalms that are sung in churches — and I’m talking about churches that are committed to Psalm singing — are metrical Psalms. That is, someone has taken the Psalm and paraphrased it, arranging the words to fit a rhyme and rhythm scheme. Doing so necessarily requires you to depart from a strict word-for-word translation of the Psalm. For instance, “God” doesn’t rhyme with “sword,” so perhaps you change “God” to “Lord” to make the rhyme work. The length of each line of a metrical psalm has to be a certain number of syllables with the accent falling in a certain place (“Da-DA da-DA da-DA da-DA”), so what do you do with a long line in the Psalm? You abbreviate it to make it fit. At times, you rearrange words, producing something like what Jordan calls “Psalms by Yoda” (e.g., “You’ve raised like ox my horn”).
Do these changes really matter? Yes. I’m not opposed to singing Psalm paraphrases, and I particularly love the Genevan psalms. They’re still, to my mind, the greatest versions of the Psalms produced. But nevertheless they depart from a strict translation of what God actually said, and I think it is important that we learn to sing God’s Words and not our paraphrases of them.
Metrical Psalm singing, good as it can be, is not full Psalm singing. A metrical Psalm is to a Psalm what a sermon is to a passage of Scripture. It’s a paraphrase, a poetic rendition, an explanation. But what about singing a good translation of the Psalm itself? Who would want to settle for a sermon instead of a Scripture reading? Who would settle for a poetic paraphrase instead of a Scripture reading?
But to sing a good translation, word for word, would require either a through-composed Psalm (and they’re somewhat hard to learn, given that there’s no repetition in them) or — horrors! — chanting. And immediately the objections start: “We can’t chant!” Why not? “Chanting is Roman Catholic!” No more than saying the creed or a host of other things we do in church. “Chanting would be too hard.” But aren’t a lot of worthwhile things hard at first? The question is: Do we really want to sing the Psalms or not?
(5) When churches do sing the Psalms, they sometimes do so in ways that rob them of their power.
* C. S. Lewis said that a lot of hymns in his day were “fifth-rate poetry set to sixth-rate music,” and that’s true of some metrical psalm versions, too. Sometimes the music doesn’t fit the words. Check out, for instance, the version of Psalm 88 in the blue Christian Reformed Church Psalter Hymnal, where the darkest Psalm in the Bible is set to light, bouncy music.
* When people think of “chant,” they often think of Gregorian chant. There are forms of Gregorian chant that can be quite powerful (e.g., the ones included in the Cantus Christi), but those aren’t what springs immediately to mind. Instead, when you say the word “chant,” people think of a choir singing Gre-e-e-go-o-o-o-o-o-o-r-r-i-i-a-a-n cha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-n-n-nt, with every syllable stretched out over a series of notes, rising and falling in a soothing way. That’s great for ambiance, with one candle lit, when you’re having dinner with your wife. But it isn’t warlike and it isn’t something the congregation can sing.
* The Anglican tradition includes a lot of Psalm chanting, but if you get a CD of it, chances are pretty good that it will be sung by a boys’ choir. Now there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of young boys singing in their high-pitched prepubescent voices. But the effect is more sweet than warlike, and such CDs don’t give you a good idea of what chant could be like.
* I mentioned above that I love the Genevan psalms. Sung at a good pace, they’re lively, dancelike, and at the same time warlike. You can imagine pounding your spear on the ground as you sing them. But sung slowly, in a dirgelike fashion, few people can stand them for more than a stanza or two. Ho hum.
And if you buy a CD of Genevan psalms, chances are that’s what you’ll get, perhaps because a choral performance, especially with people singing parts, needs to be slower to bring out the complexity of the music. For that reason, Bach’s motet “Jesu, meine freude” is going to be sung more slowly than the hymn “Jesus, Priceless Treasure.”
The other thing you’ll find on a CD of Genevan psalms (or, worse, in the liturgy!) may be an organist doing improvisation for a while between each stanza. Don’t get me wrong. That kind of stuff is fine — for a concert. My acquaintance Harm Hoeve is a great Dutch organist and he does fantastic improvisations on the Genevan psalms. But it kills congregational singing and it makes it unlikely that the congregation will want to sing more than a couple of stanzas.
So when you listen to CDs of this sort of music, you have to use your imagination. Imagine what the Genevan psalms would sound like if they were kicked up a gear or two and sung by a bunch of David-like soldiers. Imagine that those Anglican chants were being belted out by a bunch of tribal warriors : “Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered.”
Having said all of that, I must also say this: In criticizing these traditions, I’m not saying, “My church does this rightly, but yours doesn’t.” Rather, my aim is to point out something that the whole church, my congregation included, needs to work on. I don’t know of very many churches at all that sing all 150 Psalms, let alone in a good literal translation, let alone in a lively and martial way. What can we do to bring about a change?
Psalm 63
A reminder: I’ve prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
A psalm.
By David,
When he was in the wilderness of Judah.God, my Mighty One you are.
Early I will seek you.
For you thirsts my soul,
For you longs my flesh
In a dry land,
Weary without water.Thus in the holy place I have perceived you,
To see your strength and your glory.
Because better is your loyalty than life,
My lips will praise you.Thus I will bless you in my life;
In your name I will lift up my palms.
When with fat and grease my soul is satisfied,
With joyous lips my mouth will praise.When I remember you upon my bed,
In the night-watches I will meditate upon you,
Because you are a help to me,
And in the shadow of your wings I will shout joyously.
My soul clings after you;
On me your right hand holds fast.And they, to ruin, are seeking my soul;
They will go into the depths of the earth.
They would give him over to the power of the sword;
The prey of jackals they will be.
But the king will rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by him will boast,
Because the mouth of the speakers of falsehood will be shut.
A few comments on the translation of this psalm:
(1) In line 2, there isn’t a separate word for “early” and another for “seek.” Rather, the word for seeking is related to the word for early dawn, so the word has the sense of seeking at early dawn, just before daybreak, which indicates extremely urgent, eager seeking. “Dawn-seeking” isn’t really a word in English, though it’s tempting to use it here.
(2) In line 13, “fat and grease” is my attempt to translate two words that really both mean “fat.” To us “grease” sounds a bit bad, not like something that satisfies our heart, but think of good greasy fries or the greasy drippings in the bottom of the roast pan.
(3) In line 19, “clings after” sounds awkward. “Clings” is the same word that’s used in Genesis 2 for the man clinging to his wife. But David is not saying just that his soul is clinging to God but also that, while clinging to God, he is also following after him.
(4) Line 23 is tough to translate. The verb seems to mean “pour out.” Here it’s a man being poured out, and literally that’s “upon the hand of the sword,” but “hand” often is used for power. My translation here is the best paraphrase I can come up with.
Psalm 62
A reminder: I’ve prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
On Jeduthun.
A psalm.
By David.Only toward God is my soul silent.
From him is my salvation.
Only he is my rock and my salvation,
My refuge; I will not be greatly shaken.How long will you attack a man?
Will you murder,
Like a leaning wall,
A pulled-down fence?Only from his elevation they plot to lure him down;
They take pleasure in a lie;
With their mouth they bless,
But in their inward part they belittle. Selah.Only before God be silent, my soul,
Because from him comes my hope.
Only he is my rock and my salvation,
My refuge; I will not be shaken.
With God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength, my hiding-place is in God.Trust in him at every time, people!
Pour out before him your hearts!
God is a hiding-place for us. Selah.Only vapor are the sons of Adam,
A lie, the sons of man.
In the scales they go up,
They themselves together, from a vapor.Do not trust in oppression,
And in robbery do not become vapor.
When wealth flourishes,
Do not set your heart on it.One thing God has spoken;
These two things I have heard:
That strength belongs to God.
And to you, Lord, belongs loyalty,
Because you yourself render to a man according to his deed.
A few comments about the translation of this rather difficult psalm:
(1) All through this psalm, the word translated “only” might perhaps be rendered “surely.” But “only” makes sense and seems to be the basic meaning of the word. So the psalm says that only when he looks toward God is his soul silent (lines 1, 13), that He alone is rock and salvation (lines 3, 15), that the only thing the wicked want is to bring him down (line 9), that the sons of Adam are only vapor (line 22).
(2) In line 5, the verb may be “attack” or “strike terror into,” depending on what root the word comes from.
(3) In line 11: “Their mouth” is actually singular: “his mouth.” I’m not sure what to do with that.
(4) In lines 22-23, “sons of Adam” and “sons of a man” can sometimes refer to men of low degree and of high degree (as in the NKJV).
(5) In lines 24-25, the idea seems to be that if all of these men were together on one side of the scales, a mere vapor on the other side would outweigh them. The side with the vapor on it would go down, and the side with all the wicked on it would go up. They aren’t just vapor; in fact, they are lighter than vapor.
(6) In line 26, the word translated “oppression” may mean extortion. It often seems to have something to do with thievery.
Why Aren’t the Wicked Overthrown?
Another reason the church needs to return to singing the Psalms:
God’s readiness to hear and willingness to grant His people’s prayers are continually proclaimed throughout Scripture (Ps. 9:10; 10:17-18; 18:3; 34:15-17; 37:4-5; 50:14-15; 145:18-19). God has given us numerous examples of imprecatory prayers, showing repeatedly that one aspect of a godly man’s attitude is hatred for God’s enemies and fervent prayer for their downfall and destruction (Ps. 5:10; 10:15; 35:1-8, 22-26; 59:12-13; 68:1-4; 69:22-28; 83; 94; 109; 137:8-9; 139:19-24; 140:6-11). Why then do we not see the overthrow of the wicked in our own time? An important part of the answer is the unwillingness of the modern Church to pray Biblically; and God has assured us: You do not have because you do not ask (James 4:2). —David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 250.
Going Unpunished?
Augustine on Psalm 10, in which the wicked prosper in their sins and believe they are going unpunished:
Nobody should congratulate the person who prospers in his own way, whose sins go unavenged and who has someone to praise him. This is the Lord’s anger, an anger all the greater. The sinner has provoked the Lord, and deserved to suffer precisely this absence of any lashes of reproach (Expositions of the Psalms, pp. 152-153).
Later, he adds:
People consider physical blindness, which means the withdrawal of daylight, a great evil. Just imagine, then, how great the punishment people suffer who, while their sins are a roaring success, are led to the point where God is no longer in their field of vision…. (p. 153).
So when we see the wicked prosper, it’s right to cry out to God to avenge and to punish them for their sins. That’s what Psalm 10 itself does. But at the same time, Augustine wants us to recognize that God’s rebukes are a mercy and the lack of those “lashes of reproach” is itself God’s wrath, as he gives men over to their sins, leading to greater punishment down the road.
Psalm 61
A reminder: I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
On string music.
By David.Hear, O God, my cry;
Attend to my prayer.
From the end of the earth to you I call, when my heart is weak.
To the rock too high for me, lead me.For you have been a refuge for me,
A strong tower in the face of the enemy.
I will sojourn in your tent for ages;
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Selah.For you yourself, O God, heard my vows;
You gave the heritage of those who fear your name.Days to the days of the king you will add;
His years will be like generation and generation.
He will sit forever before God;
Loyalty and trustworthiness you appoint;
They will preserve him.So I will psalm to your name for everlasting,
To perform my vows day by day.
Some comments about this psalm:
(1) Line 4 is often translated “the rock higher than I.” But what is in view is not that the rock is taller than David is. Rather, the idea is that David cannot climb up into this refuge himself but asks God to lead him up to the rock that is too high for him to reach.
(2) In line 12, “generation and generation” means something like “generation after generation,” a long succession of generations.
(3) “Sit” in line 13 means “sit enthroned.” The idea isn’t just that David is sitting around. Rather, he is sitting as the king on his throne.
(4) The verb in line 14 could be a jussive: “Appoint loyalty and trustworthiness!”
Psalm 60
A reminder: I’ve prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
On the lily of the testimony.
A michtam.
By David.
For teaching.
When he fought Aram Naharaim and Aram Zobah and Joab turned and struck Edom in the Valley of Salt,
Twelve thousand men.God, you have rejected us.
You have breached us.
You were angry.
Restore to us!You made the earth shake.
You split it.
Heal its cracks, because it totters!
You made your people see a hard thing;
You made us drink wine of staggering.And you gave to your fearers a banner for lifting
Because of truth. Selah.In order that your beloved ones may be delivered,
Save with your right hand and answer us!God has spoken in his holiness.
I will exult.
I will divide Shechem,
And the Valley of Succoth I will measure.
To me belongs Gilead
And to me belongs Manasseh.
And Ephraim is the strength of my head,
Judah my scepter.
Moab is my washbasin;
At Edom I will throw my shoe.
Over me, Philistia, shout aloud!Who will bring me into the fortified city?
Who led me as far as Edom?
Is it not you, God, who rejected us,
And who, God, did not go forth with our hosts?Give us help from oppression;
And vain is the salvation of man.
In God we will gain power;
And he himself will trample our oppressors.
Some comments about the translation of this psalm:
(1) In line 2, “breached us” has to do breaking down a wall, making a breach in a wall, so that the enemy can attack. David is likely saying that God has broken down Israel’s defenses. This expression may mean “You broke out upon us.”
(2) Line 4 (“Restore to us!”) sounds a bit strange. It’s not “Restore us!” as if we were the ones who needed to be restored. The phrase is “to us” or “for us,” and probably refers to the things that God took away from Israel (e.g., safety, peace, victory in battle, and especially his presence, protection, and help).
(3) Hirsch suggests that line 9 should be translated “You have made us drink bewilderment like wine.” He points out that the word for wine is not in the construct state, and therefore it is not “wine of staggering.” The staggering indicates confusion or bewilderment. It would then be “You made us drink wine, namely, staggering/bewilderment/confusion.”
(4) In line 10, the word translated “raising” here is related to the word for a banner. This phrase could be rendered “banner for bannering,” that is, for doing what you do with a banner, raising it up so people can see it and soldiers can rally to it. Any suggestions for a better translation that gets this play on words across?
(5) In line 17, “measure” refers to measuring out a land prior to dividing it up. Hirsch gets the point across by using the word “apportion.”
(6) In line 21, the word for “scepter”is the same one used in Genesis 49:10. The term can also refer to a ruler or leader. Because it is related to the word for statutes, some translate it “lawgiver.” But because all the other imagery in this passage is thing imagery, I’ve opted for “scepter.”
(7) Line 24 is a bit puzzling. It may be ironic (“I have conquered these others; now, Philistia, let’s see you manage to shout in triumph over me”) or it may be a summons to Philistia to rejoice and acclaim David’s sovereignty, to rejoice over having David as king.
(8) In line 25, the word translated “fortified” may mean “besieged.” Both are true here: David is besieging the city, which in turn is fortified.
(9) In line 31, the phrase translated “gain power” is used in the Bible for getting the upper hand and winning a military victory (Num. 24:18; 1 Sam. 14:48). The phrase could mean “gain wealth” or even “do valiantly” (since the word translated “power” here is the same as the word translated “valor” in the phrase “a mighty man of valor”), but I’ve opted for “gain power” to get the idea of winning the battle across.
Psalm 59
A reminder: I have prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
Do not destroy.
By David.
A michtam, when Saul sent,
And they watched the house to kill him.Deliver me from my enemies, my God,
From those rising up against me lift me up.
Deliver me from workers of trouble,
And from men of bloodshed save me,For look! They lie in wait for my soul;
Strong ones assemble against me.
Not for my rebellion and not for my sin, Yahweh;
Without my liability, they run and set themselves.Awake to meet me and see!
And you, Yahweh, God of hosts, the God of Israel,
Wake up to visit all the nations.
Do not be gracious to all trouble-making traitors. Selah.They return at evening;
They howl like a dog;
And they go around the city.
Look, they gush forth with their mouth;
Swords are on their lips,
Because who hears?But you, Yahweh, will laugh at them;
You will mock at all nations.
Because of his strength, I wait on you,
Because God is my high place.
My God — his loyalty will meet me;
God will make me look on my foes.Do not kill them, lest my people forget!
Make them wander by your power and bring them down,
Our shield, O Lord!The sin of their mouth is the word of their lips.
And they will be taken in their pride.
And for the cursing and the lie they tell.Consume in anger! Consume! And they will be no more.
And let them know that God is ruling in Jacob
To the ends of the earth. Selah.And they return at evening;
They howl like a dog;
And they go around the city.
They themselves wander to eat;
If they are not satisfied, they stay the night.But I myself will sing of your strength,
And I will shout at dawn your loyalty,
Because you have been a high place for me
And a refuge in the day of my oppression.
My strength, to you I will psalm,
Because God is my high place,
My loyal God!
A few comments about the translation of this psalm:
(1) In line 2, “lift me up” has to do with putting David in a high and inaccessible place. It implies a prayer for protection. The same idea is seen throughout when God is referred to as a “high place.”
(2) In line 8, “run” and “set themselves” are military terms, describing an army that runs forward to scale a wall. David’s enemies are attacking him, even though he has not rebelled or sinned or incurred liability.
(3) In line 12, I’ve used “troublesome traitors” to translate a phrase that refers first to these people as faithless, people who don’t keep their commitments, and then as people “of trouble,” that is, people who cause trouble and harm.
(4) In line 24, to “look on one’s foes” means to see them defeated.
(5) In line 27, “Our shield, O Lord!” is a reference to God, who is both the shield of Israel and David’s master and king.
Psalm 58
A reminder: I’ve prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
Do not destroy.
By David.
Michtam.Do you, mighty ones, really speak righteousness?
Do you judge uprightly, sons of Adam?
No, in heart you practice injustices;
On the earth, the violence of your hands you weigh out.Estranged are the wicked from the womb;
They go astray from the belly, the ones speaking lies.
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent,
Like a deaf cobra that stops up his ear,
Who will not listen to the voice of a whisperer,
Of one charming charms, a most wise one.God, break their teeth in their mouth;
The fangs of the young lions smash, Yahweh!
Let them vanish like waters which go away of themselves;
Let him ready his arrows as if they are circumcised.
Like a snail that melts, let him go;
Like a woman’s miscarriage, they have not beheld the sun.Before your pots feel a thorn,
Whether raw or cooked, he will storm him away.The righteous will rejoice because he beholds vengeance;
His feet he will bathe in the blood of the wicked.
And man will say, “Surely there is fruit for the righteous!
Surely there is a God who judges on the earth.”
Wow, this is a tough psalm to translate! A few comments:
(1) The opening lines of this psalm are particularly difficult to translate. The word I’ve translated “mighty ones” (elem) may be an condensed form of the regular word for “gods” (elim) which would refer here to rulers who are called “gods” because they rule for and represent God (see Ps. 82:1, where the rulers are identified as elohim, the term usually used for God). They are the “mighty ones,” the “powers that be.”
But it’s possible that this word means “silence,” and either refers to these judges as “silent ones” (NKJV: “you silent ones”) or asks if they are silent when they ought to speak righteousness (Alexander: “Are you really silent when you should speak righteousness?”). If we take the word to mean “silence” or even “muteness,” which is a possibility, it’s harder to know what to make of the flow of the verse.
(2) The next line may be translated as it is above, or it may be that “sons of Adam” are the people being judged: “Do you judge sons of Adam uprightly?”
(3) In line 13, “go away of themselves” is actually “go for themselves.” This line may refer to the waters, which simply flow away and vanish. But it is possible that this phrase is another wish of the psalmists and refers to the wicked: “Let them go their way,” that is, the direction their behavior is taking them.
(4) Line 14 is complex. It is actually “Let him tread his arrows,” which compresses together a whole series of actions: treading on the bow to bend it so you can fit the arrow to it in order to shoot. “As if they are circumcised”: the points of the arrows are cut off so they do no damage. Some translations have “cut off” here, which gets the sense but this word normally does mean “circumcised.” It is possible, though, that this is a different verb that is spelled the same so that the prayer is that God will wither the enemy’s arrows so they do no harm, though that image (withered arrows?) is harder to understand.
(5) The word translated “snail” in line 15 is somewhat doubtful. “Snail” or “slug” is the traditional translation, but this is the only place the word appears. It is possible that the word refers to a miscarried fetus, as in the parallel line that follows. Kidner says that this word may mean “miscarriage” and that this meaning is “attested in the Talmud.”
It’s possible that both lines 15 and 16 should be translated with “let them be” supplied in the front: “Let them be like a snail that melts as it goes, a woman’s miscarriage that does not behold the sun.” As well, I wonder why the word translated “woman” is in construct form here (esheth instead of ishah).
(6) Before line 17 makes sense to us, we have to understand that the thorn here is the fuel for the fire. The cooking pots “feel a thorn” when they start to get hot from the fire of thorns under them.
(7) The next expression is really strange. It looks as if it says, “Like living, like burning-anger,” and the word for “burning anger” is used elsewhere only for God’s anger.
But “living” is used for raw meat elsewhere in the Bible, and it is possible that “heat” here is an idiom for cooked meat, so the expression means “whether raw or cooked.” The image appears to mean that, before the cook is even done his work, God will blow him (or possibly “it,” that is, the thorn under the pot?) away with his storm.
(8) The participle in the last line (“who judge”) appears to be plural, which is a little strange if it refers to God. I don’t buy the idea that this is an expression in the mouth of pagans (“There are gods who judge on the earth!”). It might refer to human rulers, who are called gods (Ps. 82:1), in which case it would be a declaration that, in contrast to the wicked judges, God has executed judgment through human judges who are truly “gods judging on the earth,” because they are carrying out God’s judgment faithfully. That’s possible. It’s also possible that this is one way participles sometimes appear in connection with Elohim, God. I’m open to more suggestions, though.
Psalm 57
A reminder: I’ve prepared these psalms for our liturgy, trying to be as accurate in my translation as possible. The alternation between plain text and bold is for responsive reading. I invite feedback on the translation!
For the director.
Do not destroy.
By David.
Michtam,
When he fled from before Saul in the cave.Be gracious to me, God! Be gracious to me,
Because in you my soul sought refuge,
And in the shadow of your wings I will seek refuge
Until calamities have passed by.I cry to God Most High,
To the Mighty One who avenges for me.
He will send from heaven and save me.
The one who pants reviles. Selah.
God will send his loyalty and his trustworthiness.My soul is in the midst of lions;
I will lie down among burning ones, sons of Adam.
Their teeth are spears and arrows,
And their tongue is a sharp sword.Be exalted over the heavens, God,
Over all the earth your glory!A net they have prepared for my footsteps;
My soul bows down.
They dug before me a pit.
They fell into the midst of it. Selah.Steadfast is my heart, God! Steadfast is my heart!
I will sing and I will psalm!Awake, my glory!
Awake, lute and harp!
I will awake the dawn.I will thank you among the nations, Lord;
I will psalm to you among the peoples,
Because great unto the heavens is your loyalty,
And unto the clouds your trustworthiness.Be exalted over the heavens, God,
Over all the earth your glory.
Some comments about this psalm:
(1) In line 8, the “one who pants” is the person who is pursuing David, panting after him, seeking to devour him. See also Psalm 56:2 where this same term is used.
(2) In line 11, the “burning ones” may be people who are burning with anger, raging people, who are also, of course, the lions of line 10.
(3) In line 21, I have used the word “psalm” because the word here is the root verb of the noun “psalm” and refers not only to singing but also to the playing of instruments. David is declaring that he will sing and play psalms in praise to God. The same thing is true in line 26.