Psalm 36:1-7 “Mercy Greater Than Iniquity”

Translation & Sermon By Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 08 Apr 2018

INTRO: The enemy is me

Some people are really frustrating to work with. There was this one guy in my experience who was aloof and unfriendly – I tried occasionally to strike up a conversation with him and it always fell flat. When he did speak to me, it was usually critical, accusing me in front of my authorities of doing things the wrong way, questioning my motives, and making insinuations that I was unqualified. He edged me out of a position of leadership I was wanting, talked about me behind my back, and generally made my life more difficult in the ministry. My frustration reached a boiling point with him one day, and so I let him have it; I started listing all these mean things he was doing to me and calling him out for it.

I’ll never forget what happened next. I don’t remember his exact words, but he meekly said something like, “Can you see that this is also the way you have been treating me all along?” I remember the blood just drained from my face as it dawned on me that my righteous indignation against him was actually hypocrisy. I had avoided talking to him, I had been talking about him behind his back; I had been harshly critical of him; I had questioned his motives, and I thought he was unqualified. I suspect that I even edged him out of a ministry position he had wanted too – although it was not intentional on my part... Could I accept that maybe it wasn’t intentional on his part either?

At that moment, I had to lay down my hatred of this guy and flee for refuge to Jesus for mercy.

In Psalm 35, we meditated on the problem of evil outside us – Satan and other human adversaries, and while most scholars consider that theme to continue through Psalm 36, it is my opinion that, although David starts out that way (talking about how bad the wicked are), he turns the corner in the middle of this psalm and says, “Wait a minute; I am that wicked man. Help, Lord I need mercy!” It is my hope that you too will look in the mirror of God’s word, see your own sin, and find God’s love greater than your sin.

v.1 A declaration of transgression [addressed] to a wicked man inside my heart: there is no dread of God in front of his eyes.

Hebrew literally says ,“having-been-declared transgression for-the-wicked in-proximity-of my heart.”

The KJV interpreted it that when a person sins, you know he doesn’t fear God. This requires omitting a preposition in Hebrew, so it’s not grammatically accurate, but it does present a true statement.
The NIV interpreted it that God had given David an oracle in his heart to speak about the wicked. This requires changing the word order around in Hebrew in a way that would not be grammatically accurate, but it does express the truth that this is God’s word and that this psalm is going to be about sinners.
The NASB changed the pronoun describing the heart from “my” to “his” and came up with the interpretation that it is sin personified[1] whispering lies into the sinner’s heart. Again not grammatically accurate, but Does Satan do that? Yes he does.
I would like to suggest that pronoun is unexpectedly “my heart” instead of “his heart” in Hebrew because the problem of evil is not just in the heart of bad guys, to my chagrin, it’s in “my heart” too, and I think David is intentionally blurring who he’s talking about because he wants us to say how bad sinners are and then say, “Wait, I’m describing myself too. I am bad too. I am in desperate need of God’s righteousness extended mercifully to me too!”

Psalm 1 introduced the “wicked” man who “will not stand in the judgment or… in the assembly of the righteous.” Psalm 14:1 also introduced the “fool” who “said in his heart that there is no God,” but in 14:5, “They were dreadfully terrified there; God was in [the] home of a righteous man.” (NAW) However, during seasons when God’s wrath is not apparent, the wicked have no dread or terror of God’s coming judgment.
In the first 4 verses we have five synonyms for wrongdoing:

1. Transgression/sinfulness (פֶּשַׁע) – this word has to do with rebellion and trespassing over a boundary line. God drew a line and said “Don’t cross over it,” and a man says, “I don’t care what God said, I’m going to cross over that line because I want what’s on the other side.”

2. Wicked/ungodly (רָשָׁע) – This is someone who breaks the law. They are doing what is wrong legally or morally, and they are guilty.

3. Iniquity/wickedness/sin/evil/mischief (אָוֶן) – vs. 2,3,&4 – This word has to do with being morally bent, perverse, depraved, and carrying a load of guilt which has to be paid for.

4. Deception (מִרְמָה) – v.3 – This word has to do with the harm done to other people by tricking them through fraud, guile, and treachery.

5. Evil/wrong (רָע) – v.4 – This word has to do with the harm done to other people through injuring them, oppressing them, or doing bad things that cause suffering.

Notice the self-orientation of the wicked “his eyes… his eyes… his mouth… he finds…. he thinks/plots… he despises…” Wickedness is about being oriented essentially around what you perceive with your senses and what you think with your mind.

Contrast that with the previous instance of leneged: Psalm 26:3 “Because Your lovingkindness is in front of my eyes, I have therefore conducted myself in Your truth.” The Biblical worldview is to be oriented essentially around God and what He has communicated to us.
Cf. Psalm 16:8 “I have kept Yahweh dead-level in front of me always, because I will never be overthrown from my right hand.” (NAW)

v.2 Because it smoothed things over for him in his eyes to find his own [kind] of iniquity to hate.

The masculine singular subject could “he” or it could be “transgression” that is doing the flattering.
Cf. same verb in Psalm 5:8 “Yahweh, guide me in your righteousness because of my opponents; level your way in front of me. 9. Because in [every] mouth there is nothing that will stand; their innards are empty-desires, an open grave their larynx; they flatter [with] their tongue.” (NAW)
As for the second half of the verse, it could be saying

that he knows he is doing bad things, but uses flattery as a way of avoiding feelings of accountability for his sin,
or that this flattery has so blinded his eyes that he can’t even recognize that he is sinning, and people hate him for it
or that his pride and hypocrisy are so great that he thinks he is great at finding and hating sin when he really isn’t,
or, it is also interpreted by some that God allows the wicked man to be flattered so that God can expose the wicked man’s sin and express His hatred over it,
I interpreted it that he flatters himself by drawing his own line between right and wrong such that the things he does are right in his own eyes and the things other people do are wrong in his eyes, and he can justify himself and hate others for transgressing his personally-invented ideas of right and wrong.

This week there will be a meeting at a church downtown led by a pastor who openly practices lesbianism, in which “poverty, racism, militarism, and ecological devastation” will be denounced as evil, but if you were to go to that meeting and denounce homosexuality or socialism or grudge-holding as evil, they would probably get indignant at you because they are not looking to God’s word to draw the line between good and evil; they’re making it up as they go, and it is just human nature to treat lightly the evils you are prone to doing but hate the evils that bother you that other people do. Humanists like to find “their own kind of iniquity to hate.”
And Humanists in rebellion to God like to think that they aren’t really doing anything sinful, like the merchants of the prophet Hosea’s day who “love to cheat; they use dishonest scales. Ephraim boasts, ‘I am very rich! I have become wealthy! In all that I have done to gain my wealth, no one can accuse me of any offense that is actually sinful.’” (Hosea 12:7-9, NET) And then God says, “I can see well enough that what you’re doing is sinful, and I’m going to punish you for it too!”
The only other place in the whole Hebrew Bible that the words “iniquity” and “hatred” show up in the same verse is in the second of the Ten Commandments, where God says that committing “iniquity” is a form of “hating” God.

v.3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deception; he has quit trying to be wise towards effecting good. 4 Iniquity is what he thinks up on his bed; He positions himself in every way that is not good; evil is not what he despises.

Proverbs 10:19 says, “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise.” (NKJV) which highlights the same connection Psalm 36 does between ceasing to be wise and spouting off wicked, deceitful words.
Even when he is at rest, when his mind is freewheeling, the person in rebellion against God will find that thoughts naturally turn toward thinking up ways to do evil.

Perhaps this is a veiled reference to David’s son Amnon (2 Sam. 13:5), who literally came up with an evil scheme on his bed against his half-sister, but it is true of anyone who is a slave to sin.
Micah 2:1 “Woe to those who devise iniquity, And work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it, Because it is in the power of their hand.” (NKJV) – but not for long, because, just as Micah prophecied, God holds people accountable for their iniquity, and in Micah’s case with Samaria and Jerusalem, God had both cities destroyed.

The “every” which is missing in the MT and the modern English versions from the second half of v.4 is in all the ancient versions as well as in the Dead Sea Scroll of this psalm, but whether the wicked take their stand “upon” a road that is not good or whether the wicked take their stand in “every” road that is not good, that’s what they do. This could be an allusion to Balaam (Numbers 22:22) who “positioned himself on the road” to curse Israel against God’s will and who was later slaughtered along with the Midianites when God mobilized Israel against them (Num. 31).
Verse 4 ends literally, “evil is not what he despises,” implying that “good” is what he despises.

Leviticus 26, the list of covenantal curses, is the first place in the OT that this verb מאס (despises) appears, and it describes those who “despise/reject/abhor” God’s statutes and judgments and therefore fall under God’s covenantal curses.
Psalm 15:4 uses the same verb to give the converse concerning the one who will be able to present himself before the Lord in His tabernacle: “A נמאס [who has pulled down on himself God’s covenant curses] is considered dishonorable in his eyes, but the ones who respect Yahweh he considers honorable.”

In his commentary on this psalm, James Montgomery Boice noted “Progression into increasing abandonment to evil is marked by the verbs… First, he ‘flatters’ himself… Having displaced God, the wicked person becomes the center of his or her own universe and is therefore self-deceived… Having lost the necessary reference point for determining what is good or evil, the wicked person is unable to ‘detect or hate’ sin… Since he or she is unable to detect or hate sin, the wicked person is also unable to speak truth, be wise, or do good… Without any restraining influence from what is good, the wicked person becomes so abandoned to evil that he or she plots it by night as well as by day and becomes thoroughly committed to an evil course… In the end the wicked person cannot reject what is wrong, even when it is apparent to everyone that it is wrong.”
Alexander Pope put this downward spiral into poetry in the 18^th century:
“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
Now the perspective suddenly switches from the dark recesses of David’s heart and the twisted thoughts of sinful humans to a sudden vision of the transcendent glory of God. It’s a night-and-day transition:

v.5 Yahweh, Your lovingkindness is in the heavens; Your faithfulness is up to the clouds. 6 Your righteousness is like mountains of God; Your judgments are the great deep. Yahweh, You cause to save man and beast!

In contrast to the five words for sin in verses 1-4, David now lists five words that describe God’s mercy:

1. Your Lovingkindness (חַסְדֶּךָ) –

The Scriptures repeatedly connect the heavenliness of God with His custom of making and keeping loving covenants with humans (1 Kings 8:23; 2 Chron. 6:14; Nehemiah 1:5).
Here in v.5, it says that God’s lovingkindness is there in heaven with Him, but it doesn’t stay there. Ps. 57:3 says that God sends His mercy down to us from heaven “He shall send from heaven and save me... God shall send forth His mercy and His truth[faithfulness].” (NKJV)
As God makes covenants over and over again with us, promising mercy, forgiving sin, showing love, providing for needs, and instructing us in His ways, this lovingkindness falling down from heaven builds a pile of mercy so vast that it stacks all the way back up to heaven, as it says in Psalm 89:2, “Lovingkindness shall be built up forever…” and in Psalm 57:10 “Your mercy reaches unto [עַד] the heavens, And Your truth/faithfulness unto the clouds.”
This chesed-mercy/lovingkindness, at its heart, is about forgiveness of sin, as it says in Psalm 103:10-12 “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (NKJV) God’s covenant mercy toward us – His lovingkindness – is about solving those five sin-related issues in vs. 1-4 of this Psalm!

2. Your Faithfulness (אֱמוּנָתְךָ) – often translated “truth.”

This word has to do with steadiness, steadfastness, fidelity, and trustworthiness.
It occurs frequently in tandem with chesed-lovingkindness to describe how God can be depended upon to keep His promises and covenants, so we can count on His every word being true.
“[T]his has to do with God’s verbal revelation, for only a God who has spoken promises to mankind can be thought of as faithful.” ~James M. Boice
“He never fails, nor forgets, nor falters, nor forfeits His word… To every word of threat or promise, prophecy or covenant, the Lord has exactly adhered, for he is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent.” ~Charles H. Spurgeon
Like His lovingkindness, God’s faithfulness is with Him in heaven, but He has poured it out upon the earth so that it rises as high as the clouds (which reminds me of how Jesus rose up into the clouds in a literal fulfilment of this Psalm).

3. v.6 – Your Righteousness (צִדְקָתְךָ) has to do with properly observing the laws, keeping perfect justice, and being able to prove in court that you are right and that you did not wrong anyone. This righteousness is compared to “the mountains of God” – to render the Hebrew literally, a phrase which occurs nowhere else in the Bible.

whether har-ēl is a synonym for heaven, such as the har Elohim of Ezekiel 28:14, or the har gebah ma’od of Ezek. 40:2, and Rev. 21:10, which were symbols of heaven,
or whether “the mountains of God” is describing together all of the singular places in the Bible that were called the “mountain of God,” such as Sinai and Horeb, where God met with people on earth (Exodus 3:1; 4:27; 18:5; 24:13; 1 Kings 19:8),
or whether this is just a generic term for a “mighty mountain,” (since אֵל is sometimes used as an adjective to describe anything that is mighty, not just the one Almighty God[2].)
any way you interpret it, we’re talking about something really high up, describing once again a glory belonging to God in heaven which He has poured out to earth in abundant measure – especially in the righteousness of His Son Jesus.

4. Your Justice/Judgments (מִשְׁפָּטֶךָ) – This word includes God’s laws, God’s methods of deciding whether or not those laws have been broken, and God’s sentences for punishment and restitution for breaking His laws.

God has revealed Himself as a God who binds Himself and His creation to certain standards of behavior, and He holds all accountable – with perfect fairness – for any breach of those standards.
The wisdom of God to create such a perfect system of law (Prov.8) and His genius in coming up with a just way to save creation after its fall into sin is so unfathomable, it is compared in Psalm 36 to the great depths of the earth that are beyond the ability of even modern man to explore. (cf. Rom. 11:33)
As God said to Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding… Have you entered the springs of the sea? Or have you walked in search of the depths?” (Job 38:4&16, NKJV)
The obvious answer is “No” we can only mine so deep, we can only drill so far, Nobody has ever actually dug a hole to China. And we can only dive so low into the sea. I was talking with a scuba diver a couple of weeks ago, and he was explaining how it takes practically all the air in a scuba tank simply to get 100 feet down (if I’m remembering the numbers correctly) into the water, and then you just have to turn around and come back up; no one has ever climbed into the cracks at the bottom of the deepest sea trenches that are well over 10,000 feet deep!
But, “Whatever the LORD pleases He does, In heaven and in earth, In the seas and in all deep places.” (Psalm 135:6, NKJV)
The tahom-deep is also mentioned several times in the Bible to describe the depths of the Red Sea (Ex. 15:5-8, Ps. 106:9) which God opened up for the deliverance of the Israelites (and their animals) and then plunged back underwater to preserve the nation of Israel from being killed by the Egyptian army. This, together with the phrase “man and beast” which is also repeatedly used in the accounts of God’s miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt (Ex. 12 & 13, Psalm 135:8) may constitute an allusion to that event.

5. Your Preservation/salvation (תוֹשִׁיעַ) – This word has to do with making people free from bondage, preserving a remnant, delivering them safe from enemies, rescuing sinners from damnation, and gaining victory for those who were lost.

As I review these five terms, it strikes me that they are all used in the New Testament to describe Jesus: love, righteousness, truth, wisdom, and salvation (Y’shua means “He saves”)!
Also notice how God’s five solutions mentioned in this Psalm parallel exactly the five Human conditions listed in this Psalm.

Human sin	God's solution
transgression	lovingkindness
wicked	justice
iniquity	righteousness
deception	faithfulness
evil	salvation

When I saw this for the first time, I literally crowed for joy!

No wonder David bursts out in v.7 “How precious Your lovingkindness!”
And if you’ll notice, verse 7 is at the physical center of this Psalm. Like most Hebrew poetry, Psalm 36 builds up to its main point in the center and then has an anticlimax that’s just as long with statements that step back out from the climax paralleling the statements that stepped into the climax. This chiasm points to the main point: “How precious is your merciful kindness!” (NASB)

7 God, how precious Your lovingkindness is! So the children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

The Hebrew word יָּקָר is translated “excellent/priceless/precious.”

Two-thirds of the time this word occurs in the O.T. it is describing precious stones like onyx and sapphire – as well as other valuables such as gold.
What makes such things valuable? It’s their scarcity.

Rocks are never going to be valuable, why? Because there will always be lots of rocks you can pick up off the ground for free!
But diamonds, on the other hand are always going to be valuable. Why? Because they are rare. Diamonds can only be acquired after a lot of people have done a lot of work mining deep into the earth and processing tons of the stuff they dug out of the earth.

God’s mercy is free, but that doesn’t mean it is not precious. God’s mercy came at the costly price of the suffering and death of His Son Jesus; it is only because of God’s generosity and love that it comes to us for free.

Sin whispers to our hearts that we can treat God’s mercy like common rocks – that we can sin all we want because forgiveness is so cheap.
David corrects that foolish notion by affirming the truly priceless nature of God’s merciful love.

It is the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation – and we have no control over it.
It is not a commodity we can take for granted, as though it can be deferred and accepted later based on our will; no the eternity of blessing vs. a cursed eternity all hinges on God’s free will choosing whether or not He wants to show mercy.
A relationship like that cannot be bought or sold. Any honest prostitute can tell you that money can’t buy love. Mercy cannot be monetized.

So a thing so valuable as God’s lovingkindness should be treated as precious, special, a treasure to be carefully preserved and reverently appreciated rather than treated as common and taken for granted.

So we “trust/take refuge” in this precious love. We’ve seen this verbחסה many times before in the Psalms, most recently in:

Psalm 31:1 “It is in You, Yahweh, that I have taken refuge; I will not ever be ashamed. Deliver me in Your righteousness! … 19 How great is Your goodness, which You have hidden away for those who respect You, [which] You worked out for the ones who take refuge in You before the children of mankind!” (NAW)
Psalm 34:8 “How good Yahweh is! Y’all taste and see! Oh the blessings of the champion who takes refuge in Him! … 22 Yahweh is redeeming the life of His servants, so all those who take refuge in Him will not bear guilt.” (NAW)

How would the shadow of God’s wings provide a refuge from guilt? In David’s time, the only wings associated with God were the wings of the cherubim[3] statues that were built onto the top of the Ark of the Covenant. They were built with their wings stretched out (Ex. 37:9). And what were they stretched out over? What was in the shadow of those wings? The mercy seat! - the place where terrestrial blood touched the divine presence and made atonement to pay for guilt and to bring forgiveness to sinners.

This is the only way to experience absolution from guilt. This is the only way to be made right, not the human way of drawing your own lines around right and wrong and justifying yourself, but God’s way of accepting the law of God as God made it, confessing that you have broken His law, and receiving forgiveness for your guilt on the basis of the blood of Jesus (typified by the blood of animals on the Old Testament mercy seat) now applied on the cross of Calvary to satisfy divine justice – trusting Jesus to be your righteousness in place of your iniquity.
“What distinguishes the righteous from the wicked are not the good deeds of the godly (though they inevitably express their right relationship to God by good deeds), but rather that they, in distinction from the wicked, have taken refuge under the shadow of God’s wings.” ~James M. Boice
“The ignorant wicked know so little about Yahweh that they trust only in self-power and the illusion of self-control. The psalmist – and those who hear – have confidence to let themselves go into the loving , faithful, righteous, and just arms of God, who is concerned with the welfare of humans but preserves ‘both man and beast.’” ~Gerald Wilson, The NIV Application Commentary
Jesus is the “mercy seat” now, under whose wings we take refuge from the guilt of sin – Jesus who said that He longed to gather His children under His wings as a hen does its chicks (Mat. 23:37).
You may have walked the aisle or raised your hand and gotten baptized in the past, but God’s call is for you to live a lifestyle of trust in Him and taking refuge from your sin in Christ, minute by minute, day by day.
No wonder we join together with the Psalmist to call Jesus “precious” - “Jesus, priceless treasure[4],” “Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, Oh for grace to trust Him more!”

Psalm 36[A]

Septuagint (Psalm 35)	Brenton’s translation of LXX	Douay-Rheims Vulgate	King James Authorized Version	Nathan A Wilson’s Version	Masoretic Text
1 ~~Εἰς~~ τὸ ~~τέλος~~· τῷ δούλῳ κυρίου τῷ Δαυιδ. 2 Φησὶν ὁ παράνομος τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν ἐν ~~ἑαυτῷ~~, ~~[B]~~οὐκ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτοῦ·	1 ~~For the end~~, by David the servant of the Lord. The transgressor, that he may sin, says within ~~himself~~, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.	1 ~~Unto the end~~, for the servant of God, David himself. 2) The unjust hath said within ~~himself~~, that he would sin: there is no fear of God before his eyes.	1 *To the chief Musician, A Psalm* of David the servant of the LORD.** The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.	1 For the concertmaster, for a servant of Yahweh. By David. A declaration of transgression [addressed] to a wicked man inside my heart: there is no dread of God in front of his eyes[C].	א לַמְנַצֵּחַ לְעֶבֶד יְהוָה לְדָוִד. ב נְאֻם[D] פֶּשַׁע לָרָשָׁע בְּקֶרֶב לִבִּי אֵין פַּחַד אֱלֹהִים לְנֶגֶד עֵינָיו.
3 ὅτι ἐδόλωσεν ἐνώπιον[E] αὐτοῦ τοῦ εὑρεῖν τὴν ἀνομίαν αὐτοῦ [καὶ] μισῆσαι.	2 For he has dealt craftily before him, to discover his iniquity ~~and~~ hate [it].	3) For in his sight he hath done deceitfully, that his iniquity may be found unto hatred.	2 For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful.	2 Because it smoothed things over for him in his eyes to find his own [kind] of iniquity to hate.	ג כִּי הֶחֱלִיק[F] אֵלָיו בְּעֵינָיו לִמְצֹא עֲו‍ֹנוֹ לִשְׂנֹא.[G]
4 τὰ ῥήματα τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ ἀνομία καὶ δόλος, ~~οὐκ~~~~[H]~~ ~~ἐβουλήθη~~ συνιέναι τοῦ ἀγαθῦναι·	3 The words of his mouth are transgression and deceit: he is ~~not inclined~~ to understand [how] to do good.	4) The words of his mouth are iniquity and guile: he ~~would not~~ understand that he might do well.	3 The words of his mouth are iniquity[I] and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.	3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deception; he has quit trying to be wise towards effecting good.	ד דִּבְרֵי פִיו אָוֶן וּמִרְמָה חָדַל לְהַשְׂכִּיל לְהֵיטִיב.[J]
5 ἀνομίαν διελογίσατο ἐπὶ τῆς κοίτης αὐτοῦ, παρέστη πάσῃ ὁδῷ οὐκ ἀγαθῇ, [τῇ δὲ] κακίᾳ οὐ προσώχθισεν[K].	4 He devises iniquity on his bed; he gives himself to every ~~evil~~ way; [and] does not abhor evil.	5) He hath devised iniquity on his bed, he hath set himself on every way that is not good: [but] evil he hath not hated.	4 He deviseth mischief[L] upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.	4 Iniquity is what he thinks up on his bed; He positions himself in every way that is not good; evil is not what he despises.	ה אָוֶן יַחְשֹׁב עַל מִשְׁכָּבוֹ יִתְיַצֵּב [M]עַל דֶּרֶךְ לֹא טוֹב רָע לֹא יִמְאָס[N].
6 κύριε, ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ τὸ ἔλεός σου, [καὶ] ἡ ἀλήθειά σου ἕως τῶν νεφελῶν[O]·	5 O Lord, thy mercy is in the heaven; [and] thy truth [reaches] to the clouds.	6) O Lord, thy mercy is in heaven, [and] thy truth [reacheth] even to the clouds.	5 Thy mercy[P], O LORD, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.	5 Yahweh, Your lovingkindness is in the heavens; Your faithfulness is up to the clouds.	ו יְהוָה [Q]בְּהַשָּׁמַיִם חַסְדֶּךָ אֱמוּנָתְךָ עַד שְׁחָקִים.
7 ἡ δικαιοσύνη σου ὡσεὶ ὄρη θεοῦ[R], τὰ κρίματά σου ἄβυσσος πολλή ἀνθρώπ~~ους~~ καὶ κτήνη σώσεις, κύριε.	6 Thy righteousness is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are [as] a great deep: O Lord, thou wilt preserve men and beasts.	7) Thy justice is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. Men and beasts thou wilt preserve, O Lord:	6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest[S] man and beast.	6 Your righteousness is like mountains of God; Your judgments are the great deep. Yahweh, You cause to save man and beast!	ז צִדְקָתְךָ כְּהַרְרֵי אֵל מִשְׁפָּטֶךָ[T] תְּהוֹם רַבָּה אָדָם וּבְהֵמָה [U]תוֹשִׁיעַ יְהוָה.
8 ὡς ἐπλήθυνας[V] τὸ ἔλεός σου, ὁ θεός· [οἱ][W] δὲ υἱοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐν σκέπῃ τῶν πτερύγων σου ἐλπιοῦσιν.	7 How hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God! so the children of men shall trust in the shelter of thy wings.	8 O how hast thou multiplied thy mercy, O God! But the children of men shall put their trust under the covert of thy wings.	7 How excellent[X] is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.	7 God, how precious Your lovingkindness is! So the children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.	ח מַה יָּקָר חַסְדְּךָ אֱלֹהִים וּבְנֵי אָדָם בְּצֵל כְּנָפֶיךָ יֶחֱסָיוּן.[Y]

[1] However, as Delitzsch noted, “the genitive after נְאֻם … always denotes the speaker, not the thing spoken… [With] this inspiration of iniquity as the contents of his heart… the fear of God has no place therein, and to him God has no existence… David's language, whenever he describes the corruption of sin with deep-seated indignation, is wont to envelope itself in such clouds, which, to our difficult comprehension, look like corruptions of the text.”

[2] e.g. Ps 65:9 “river of God”, Ps. 80:10 “cedars of God,” Jonah 3:3 “a city great unto God”

[3] Of the half-dozen commentaries I read, only one mentioned this connection, and that in a footnote quoting “Bishop Hare.”

[4] See the hymn by Johann Franck and the hymn by Louisa Stead & William Kirkpatrick.

[A] My original chart includes the NASB and NIV, but their copyright restrictions have forced me to remove them from the publicly-available edition of this chart. I have included the ESV in footnotes when it employs a word not already used by the KJV, NASB, or NIV. (NAW is my translation.) When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use of italics (or greyed-out text), I put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different from all the other translations, I underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original text, I use ~~strikeout~~. And when a version omits a word which is in the Hebrew text, I insert an X. (I also place an X at the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English translation is singular.) I occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between the various editions and versions when there are more than two different translations of a given word. Hebrew text that is colored purple matches the Dead Sea Scrolls, and variants between the DSS and the MT are noted in endnotes with the following exceptions: When a holem or qametz-hatuf or qibbutz pointing in the MT is represented in the DSS by a vav (or vice versa), or when a hireq pointing in the MT is represented in the DSS by a yod (the corresponding consonantal representation of the same vowel) – or vice versa, or when the tetragrammaton is spelled with paleo-Hebrew letters, I did not record it a variant. The three known Dead Sea Scrolls containing Psalm 36 are 4Q83 (vs. 1-8, which, I might add, seems to be an error-ridden copy), & 11Q8 (which only preserves one letter from vs. 12).

[B] Aquilla’s 2st century AD Greek translation from Hebrew to Greek corrects the LXX “self” to the MT reading “my heart,” and supplies synonyms for the LXX words describing the transgressor φησι περι ασυνθεσιας του ασεβους ενδοθεν η καρδια μου…

[C] Psalm 1 introduced the “wicked” man. Psalm 14:1 also introduced the “fool” who said in his heart that there is no God, but in 14:5 was “dreadfully terrified” by God’s presence. Contrast that with the previous instance of leneged in Psalm 26:3 (and 16:8).

[D] Qal passive participle ms construct

[E] Like the LXX, Symmachus’ late 2^nd century AD translation into Greek from Hebrew (ότι εξολισθαινειν τα περι αυτου δοκει…) does not use the word “eyes” like the MT does.

[F] Hiphil Perfect 3ms, occurs nowhere else followed by אל as here. The masculine singular subject could “he” or it could be “transgression” that is doing the flattering. Cf. same verb in Psalm 5:8

[G] The last two root words in this verse are found together in one verse only here and in Exodus 20:5 & Deuteronomy 5:9.

[H] Aquila (επαυσατο) & Symmachus (απειχετο) read like the MT with a positive instead of a negated verb like the LXX has (“not willed”).

[I] NASB=wickedness, NIV=wicked, ESV=trouble

[J] The double Hiphil infinitive construct raises the question as to whether this is intended to be a list of two activities he has ceased or whether one or both are reasons behind his quitting. I interpreted the first as the object of what he ceased and the second as the reason. The only other verse in the Bible containing חדל & שכל or טיב is Proverbs 10:19.

[K] Synonyms for this word are found in three 2^nd Century AD Greek translations: Aquila=απορριψει, Symmachus=αποδοκιμασει, Theodotian=απωσατο, all three of which follow the MT without a definite article or a conjunction before the last phrase of this verse.

[L] NASB=wickedness, NIV=evil, ESV=trouble

[M] DSS4Q83 reads instead יתיעץ כול. The “all” which is missing in the MT and the modern English versions is in all the ancient versions – there seems to be no disagreement on that point among the LXX and 2^nd century Greek translations and the Vulgate, so I consider the MT defective here, although it is not a theologically significant variant whether the wicked take their stand “upon” a road that is not good or whether the wicked take their stand in “every” road that is not good. As for the verb, the MT is based upon יצב, which BDB defines in the Hithpael as: to station oneself, take one’s stand, stand, present oneself, stand with someone, and is used in Psalm 2:2, and the DSS verb is based on יעץ, which BDB defines in the Hithpael as “conspire” and is used in Psalm 83:3. Although both present Biblical ideas, the DSS verb stands alone against all other known manuscripts and versions, so I’m going to use the MT verb. The only other single verse in the Hebrew Bible where yatsav and either derek or tov occur is in the account of Balaam in Numbers 22:22.

[N] Leviticus 26 is the first place in the OT that this verb מאס appears, and it describes those who “despise/reject/abhor” God’s statutes and judgments and therefore fall under God’s covenantal curses. Psalm 15:4 uses the same verb to give the converse.

[O] Αquila=ροπων (moment?), Symm.=αιθερων (air)

[P] NASB=lovingkindness, NIV=love, ESV=steadfast love

[Q] DSS4Q83 reads with a mem prefix (“from”) instead of a beth prefix (“in”). The LXX (εν) sides with the MT.

[R] Aq=ισχυρου – a tradition followed by the KJV & NIV.

[S] ESV=save

[T] LXX, Cairo Geniza, and other mss read plural with a yod inserted before the last letter. The DSS is obliterated at this point.

[U] DSS4Q83 has an additional word here בה (“in her”), which could be a copy error of starting to rewrite the previous word, or it could be added commentary that “by means of God’s righteousness He will save” (“righteousness” is feminine singular, whereas “justice” is masculine) or “a man or beast in it [the great deep - feminine singular] He will save.” Either interpretation would be consistent with the rest of scripture, so I think there is no harm done, even though I think it is not original to the psalm since it is not in any other ancient manuscript or version that I know of.

[V] Aq., Sym., and E. all read τι τιμιον… “How precious/valuable/honorable…” agreeing with the MT.

[W] Sym. corrects to the MT reading without a definite article, but it makes no difference in meaning because “children of men” is so indefinite.

[X] NASB=precious, NIV=priceless

[Y] Qal Imperfect 3mp