Psalm 41:5-13 Praise for God’s Grace

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 22 July 2018

Omitting Greyed-out text should reduce delivery time to about 42 minutes.

Introduction

One of the first contemporary Christian music concerts I ever went to was by Pat Terry and his band back in the 1970’s when they performed at my home church. My parents bought their LP, and I figured out how to play every song from that album on my own guitar, and that’s pretty much how I was inspired to perform songs on my guitar. After decades of obscurity in which he wrote and produced songs for a lot of popular recording artists, he came out with an album in 2010. One of the songs on that album is entitled, “If Jesus Was Like Me.” It goes,

If Jesus was like me, He’d seem like an alright guy – ‘till the first time He healed someone or turned some water into wine. Then He’d talk too much and ack way too proud. And they’d say, “There goes that Jesus again, running off His mouth.” How sad would that be – if Jesus was like me.

If Jesus was like me, He’d be all merciful and meek – ‘till the first time you made like Judas and kissed Him on the cheek. Then He’d act all hurt and point out all your sins, and when you asked would He forgive you, He’d say, “Well, that all depends.” How hopeless would we all be if Jesus was like me.

If Jesus was like me, He’d mean well, but He might not follow through when you needed Him to. If Jesus was like me, love might be the one thing He’d try but couldn’t do.

If Jesus was like me, He’d be your closest friend – ‘till the first time they nailed Him to a cross for all your sins. Then He’d pull the shades, take your number off His phone and let you pound all night on heaven’s gate while He pretends He isn’t home. How lost would we all be… if Jesus was like me.

I can’t help but get emotional at those lyrics, by one of my favorite Christian music artists, Pat Terry, because they are so true! They finger struggles in my own heart, but what’s powerful about it is to realize that God’s love and friendship are so pure that He doesn’t struggle with these sins. Our sinful attitudes are a foil to reveal the wonder of Jesus’ love. David does a similar thing in Psalm 41. It is a psalm which contrasts the wonder of God’s love with the treachery of man. God is not just a little better than the best man you can imagine; God is in a totally different class. The psalm starts and ends with praise to God for His mercy and grace, but the center of the psalm is filled with the pain of sinful mankind. The contrast helps us see all the more clearly the wonder of God’s grace so that we can praise Him.

The first 4 verses, although they contain a blessing, are also “a plea for mercy in view of the merciless treatment the psalmist has been receiving from his foes and friends alike… David is weak due to his illness [perhaps the same illness referred to in Psalm 38], and he wants people to show mercy to him and to those like him, which his enemies were not doing. At the same time, he is turning to God for mercy, and his chief claim on God’s mercy is that he has been merciful himself.” ~James M. Boice

In the last sermon on the beginning of Psalm 41, we looked at the seven rewards for acting with insightfulness toward the needy and at God’s provision for restoring us from our spiritually-improverished condition by forgiving us for failing to do His will.

Now, in v.5, where we’re coming in today, the focus shifts to the enemies. One thing I have noticed in good stories and movies is that you have to have a bad-guy, and the worse that bad-guy is, the more you yearn for justice, and the more you are drawn into the story, wanting the good guy to win. For instance, my family loves the movie, The Patriot, although it is too disturbing for me to watch again. I think one of the reasons it is so powerful is because the movie shows a British army commander acting with such over-the-top cruelty towards families in colonial America in situation after situation, that the viewer becomes willing to justify anything that the American colonists do to fight back. The bad-guys in David’s day were really bad too:

v.5 My enemies speak evil against me, “How long until he dies and his name perishes?”

· These enemies want David dead. They are impatient about it. “How long are we going to have to wait until he’s dead?”

· There’s no passage in the Bible history books that pinpoints when this is for sure, but it’s easy to imagine this happening late in David’s life when his sons started jockeying for position as the next king.

· If this is one of David’s sons, like Absalom, it is a further insult for a son to want people to forget the name of his father^{^[1]}. “Forget my dad’s reputation; destroy the history books; just remember me as the greatest king!”

· St. Augustine noted: “This was spoken also when our Lord Himself walked in the flesh here on earth.…When [the Pharisees] saw the people go after Him, they said, ‘When He shall die, then shall His Name perish;’ … nor shall He seduce any, being dead… When glorified then was our Lord Jesus Christ… still spake His enemies, ‘When He shall die, then shall His Name perish.’ For hence stirred up the devil persecutions in the Church to destroy the Name of Christ... hear their fanatics saying, ‘A time shall come when Christians shall be none, and those idols must be worshipped as before they were worshipped…’” 1,700 years later, the New Atheists are still vainly hoping for the day when Christianity will be eradicated!

· Those apart from God’s grace are really warped. V.6 adds more despicableness to the bad guy:

v.6 And when he comes in to spy, he speaks vanity. As for his heart, it col-lects iniquity to himself. He goes out; he speaks to the outside.

· In the Hebrew text of v.6, the first verb phrase is “he comes in to look” and the last verb phrase is “he goes out to the outside and tells.” What this implies to me is that this enemy is a spy who has allegiance to a nation outside of Judah. He is coming in to David’s court using empty deception, and then he is going back out of the country (lachutz is used in the early books of the Old Testament to refer to “outside”) and reporting what he discovered in order to find a way to overthrow King David and bring a foreign power in. That’s what it sounds like to me, although I know there is a variety of other possible interpretations. (For instance, Matthew Henry suggested, “They went by a modern maxim, Fortiter calumniari, aliquid adhaerebit - Fling an abundance of calumny [or mud], and some will be sure to stick.”)

· It also says emphatically that his speech is shava/falsehood/vanity/emptiness/lies. This is diametrically opposed to Godly speech. God said:

· Exodus 23:1 "You shall not circulate shava-a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.” (NKJ)

· Deuteronomy 5:20 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (NKJV)

· Psalm 12:2 associates shava with flattery: “It is vanity that they speak – each one to his neighbor. [It's with] lips of flattery – with [one] heart and then [another] heart – they speak.” (NAW)

· And Psalm 31:6 associates shava with idolatry: “You hate those who keep shava idols, but as for me, it is in Yahweh that I have trusted.” (NAW)

· In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul listed “whispering and backbiting” among the traits of the ungodly who are given over to a depraved mind^{^[2]} and exhorted believers: “in all things show… yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine show… integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech...” (Titus 2:7-8, NKJV)

· Saying things that aren’t true – even in jest, passing along information you don’t know about, talking about idolatry, flattery, or harsh condemnation of others is evil.

· Then the third thing that describes the bad-guy in v.6 is that “his heart collects iniquity.” The picture that brings before my mind is that of a person who loves rebellion against God and wants to try out every way there is to disobey God, collecting everything bad and bragging about his collection of experiences.

· This is the heart of rebellion against God, and it is a dreadful condition. But if you think that’s bad, it gets even worse in v.7. Three more things emerge to paint the bad guys as bad:

v.7 All those who have hatred toward me whisper together against me; they think up evil against me.

· They hate the good guy; they have made themselves enemies of David. And if David is in covenant with God, then these guys are enemies of God too, which is why David is pointing this out to God as he makes his case for the appropriateness of God’s intervention to save.

· Next, they “whisper together” against David. They’re up to no good, and they know they have something to hide, so they’re whispering. And as David sees them whispering among themselves, it’s clear that they are leaving him out of communication, trying to make an outsider of him.

· And what is it that they’re talking about? They’re plotting evil against David.

· “How could we turn the people against David?”

· “What kind of rumor could we circulate that would damage David’s reputation?”

· “How could we set him up so that something really frustrating happens to him?”

· “What weaknesses in David’s leadership could we exploit to take advantage of him?”

· You probably know people like that who are always thinking of pranks or ways to tear somebody down.

v.8 “Something leading to death is being discharged into him. Now that he has lain down, he is never going to get up again!”

· Davar belial – דְּבַר-בְּלִיַּעַל

· Interpreted by the KJV and NIV as a “vile disease,”

· by the Douay-Rheims as “an unjust word,”

· by the NASB more literally as a “wicked thing,”

· and by Matthew Henry as “coming from Satan” (who is called Belial in 2 Cor. 6:15).

· The only other place this phrase occurs is inPsalm 101:3 “I will set no davar-belial before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away... (Ps. 101:3 NKJ)

· The word “belial” by itself refers generally to capital crimes in the Pentateuch and History books:

· In Deuteronomy 13:13, it refers to worshipping false gods,

· In Deuteronomy 15:9 it refers to being stingy toward the poor

· In Judges 19:22 it refers to homosexuality

· In 1 Samuel 1:16 it refers to drunkenness

· In 2 Samuel 16:7 it refers to murder

· In 2 Samuel 20:1 it refers to treason

· In 1 Kings 21:13 it refers to bearing false witness to get an innocent man killed.

· For this reason, the phrase connected in my head with the phrase in 1 John 5:16 about “a sin leading to death,” so I interpreted this verse along the lines of a judgmental enemy saying that David had sinned a sin worthy of death and therefore David should just be written off.

· The verb יָצוּק that appears here is curious,

· because it normally used to indicate “pouring” oil onto a person’s head or onto an animal sacrifice or to indicate “pouring” molten metal into a cast.

· However, there are a few instances of this word in the poetic books of Job and the Psalms which seem to require translating it instead as “jelling and becoming firm” or “clumping together,” so some English translations apply that here while others apply the more basic meaning of poured out.

· Since it is passive, I get the picture that these enemies are spreading the rumor that David has done something so wicked that God is pouring out his wrath against David in the form of some dreadful disease that is going to end David’s life.

· Perhaps they’re saying, “It’s just a matter of days before he’ll be dead. Every time he lies down to go to sleep, we should be prepared that he’ll die in his sleep. David’s life is effectively over; he’s not going to do anything anymore as a king, so it’s time to consider us in power now.”

· They’re so greedy for power that they’re jumping the gun. They are acting like bad guys do, and that’s par for the course apart from the grace of God.

v.9 Even my peaceful ally – who I confided in, who ate my food – he has en-larged [his] footprint over me.

· The wording of this verse is somewhat obscure:

· The subject is literally “the man of my peace” (ish shalomi), but this is not the same blessed “man of peace” from Psalm 37:37; this is a bad-guy who seems to have been an ally who shared in David’s political counsels and ate meals with him; he was a friend who had turned traitor.

· The Hebrew phrase for this treachery is literally “enlarged the heel over/against me.” That phrase doesn’t occur anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible, so we try to grab the meaning from the way individual words in the phrase are used elsewhere in the Bible.

· The first time in the Bible we see this Hebrew word for “heel” (‘aqev) is in Genesis 3:15, when God says to Satan, “…He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” (NKJ)

· God so works throughout history that many of the same things that happened to Christ also happen God’s people.

· In this case, I think we see David saying, “Ouch, I got bruised by the enemy, but I trust that when the right time comes, my savior is gonna bust his head wide open!”

· And then the same process happened to Christ.

§ That’s why Jesus said in John 13:18 that Judas’ betrayal was a fulfillment of scripture: Jesus was betrayed by someone close to him just like David was.

§ Jesus also fulfilled Genesis 3:15; He got busted up pretty bad when He was crucified, but in doing so, He completely undid Satan.

· Most English translations render the phrase as he “lifted up his heel against me,” which sounds kind-of odd at first, but the heel is what you see when you’re behind^{^[3]} someone else in a race. This friend took advantage of David to get ahead of him, and now all David sees is his heels. Some Bible commentators (Henry, Delitzsch) suggested that the wording even implies that he gave a good, hard kick at David as he passed him.

· The verb higdiyl (from gdl) can be translated more literally “made big/enlarged,” and the word for “heel” is also used in the sense of “footprint” agreeing with the English use of the word “footprint” – both literally, as in “the places you’ve walked on” and figuratively, as in “the things you have control over.” I decided to translate it more in this figurative sense that this was a trusted subordinate who usurped and tried to take control over David.

· As Psalm 55:12-14 puts it (using the same verb higdiyl) it’s one thing when your enemy does something cruel to you – you’re kinda on your guard for that, but when it’s a friend who betrays you, the grief goes a lot deeper. “For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; Then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, My companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, And walked to the house of God in the throng.”

· Jewish tradition (Targums, Cohen) states that this was speaking of Ahithophel, David’s right-hand man who defected and tried to set up Absalom as king before David had chosen a successor and before David had died.

· We’ve probably all had experiences where somebody whom we thought was a friend instead betrayed us. If you haven’t yet had that experience, just give it a few years and you will. I thought about sharing one from my life, but the wound is still too raw more than a decade later.

· Suffice it to say, David is the victim of a really bad person, and without God’s grace, that’s all we can expect.

· That’s why verses 10-13 are such good news. V.10 states the pivot point upon which everything changes:

v.10 So it’s [up to] You, Yahweh: be gracious to me and get me up, then I will render payback to them.

· Remember that this is a psalm of David, and David was a king, so he was the government executive in charge of punishing crime. He got hit so hard by this crisis that he hadn’t been able to do his job, but he’s telling God that if God will intervene and get him back on his feet, he, in turn, will return to his job of executing justice in the land^{^[4]}.

· Are there jobs that God has given you to do, but you’ve been hit so hard by sickness or by a broken relationship or some other disappointment that you aren’t fulfilling your calling anymore? You’re down on the mat, wondering if you will ever be able to get back up again?

· David shows us the way forward. First he recognizes that if anything good is going to happen, it’s going to have to be God that does it. Admitting that you are powerless to make the world be the way it ought to be is the first step. Committing your way to the Lord Jesus Christ goes with that first step. “I need something good to happen, and I can’t make it happen; please intervene, Lord!”

· Another lesson we can learn from David’s example is to own up to the fact that we don’t deserve for anything better to happen to us.

· No matter how much better we are than the next guy, we all “fall short of the glory of God,” and God has justly decreed that “the wages of our sin is death.” That’s what we deserve. If anything good is going to happen to us, it is going to have to be a gracious gift from God because all we justly deserve is for God to hate us because we have acted so offensively toward Him.

· Reminds me of another song on that Pat Terry album, “Oh the gift of mercy, it’s more than I deserve. If I ever get to heaven, it’ll be mercy, not justice, that is served.”

· That’s why David prays, “Have mercy on me/be gracious to me,” in other words, “please give me kindnesses that I don’t deserve!”

· Matthew Henry: “The best saints, even those that have been merciful to the poor, have not made God their debtor, but must throw themselves on his mercy. When we are under the rod we must thus recommend ourselves to the tender mercy of our God: Lord, heal my soul. [v.4] Sin is the sickness of the soul; pardoning mercy heals it”

· Jesus taught us to pray, “Let thy will be done” – He has things He wants us to do like “be fruitful and multiply and take dominion over the earth” and “make disciples” in all the world. When we have been devastated by the ravages of our sin - or of someone else’s sin, we play right into God’s will when we pray for Him to get us back on our feet so we can do what He has called us to do again.

v.11 By this I know that you delight in me, that my enemy will never give a battle-cry against me.

· We know that God delights in His people, for instance, Psalm 18:19 “…He will rescue me because He delights in me.” (NAW)

· But David lays out an objective way to know whether or not God has answered this prayer. He says, “I’ll know it if I don’t hear a battle-cry from my enemy.”

· The Hebrew wording here does not appear to be specific as to whether he means he won’t even hear his enemy issue a call to arms against David or whether he assumes there will be a fight but he just won’t hear his enemy crow in triumph over him. Sometimes the word rua’ is used in the context of a victory shout, and sometimes it’s used in the context of getting people to start fighting, but either way, he’ll know God is taking care of him if his enemy doesn’t beat him^{^[5]}.

· Praying a prayer that has an objective way of knowing whether or not God answered it is Biblical.

· So many of us are afraid to pray for much of anything specific: “Lord bless this day. Help it to be a good one, and help us to glorify You. Amen.” I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong to pray prayers like that, but it’s going to be kind-of hard to know whether those prayers were answered or not because just about anything could happen and you could say, “Well, I guess some good things happened that day and I guess God’s blessings were there,” and just about anything could be construed as glorifying God.

· It can be taken too far, of course. I think it was Ken Davis who said that he was riding on a public bus and a man sat down in the seat next to him and asked him out of the blue, “What must I do to be saved?” Ken said he prayed, “God if you want me to witness to this man, please turn the bus driver into an armadillo.”

· But seriously, consider how you can ask God for specific results without putting Him in a box.

v.12 And, [as far as] I’m [concerned], You held on to me in my integrity and you stationed me before your face for ever.

· David seems to be saying that He won’t take any credit for surviving this crisis. He is going to give all the credit to God for “supporting/upholding/holding on” to him and “causing him to stand” again. “Lord, You did it!”

· “But wait,” you may say, “David says he contributes to this status too by maintaining his own ‘integrity,’ doesn’t he? Maybe David had to earn God’s favor after all!”

· Well, let’s look at that Hebrew word tōm/integrity/perfection in context:

· Some of you may remember the first time we encountered the word in Psalm 7:8 “…Judge me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness, according to my perfection over me.” (NAW)

§ What does “my perfection over me” mean? If it’s mine, it’s not positioned over me, it’s inside of me, right? What’s he talking about “over me”?

§ Well, elsewhere, David admits that “there is no one who is righteous, not even one,” indeed “righteousness” and “integrity/perfection” are character traits that only God intrinsically possesses, so how can David claim these character traits as his?

§ I think that the phrase “over me” in Psalm 7:8 provides the explanation. This “righteousness” and “integrity” is not intrinsic to David, it comes from outside of him – from the Most High God, the “Lord who is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6), covering over his unrighteousness and lack of integrity like the blood of the perfect sacrifices covered over the guilt of the ancient Israelites. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them… For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:19-21, NKJV)

§ I believe that when David said, “my integrity” he was speaking of the imputed righteousness of Christ and the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith.

· Remember how David put it in Psalm 26:1 “Judge me, Yahweh, because, as for me, I have walked in my integrity, and it is in Yahweh that I have trusted…” (NAW) Trusting in the Lord was what David’s integrity was. It wasn’t something he offered to God to earn salvation, he was simply expecting God to save, that’s all you have to do too.

· The Apostle Paul spoke similarly in 2 Tim. 4:17-18 “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!” (NKJV)

· In stark contrast to the treachery and betrayal of worldly friends, God will extend grace to us forever.

· And lest, to our American ears, this idea of being kept in someone’s presence sounds like some kind of detention hall at school where you had to sit at a desk for an extra hour after classes were supposed to be over, just sitting there under a teacher’s watchful and disapproving eye, wishing you could be - just about anywhere else, that’s totally not what this Psalm is talking about.

· Remember, this is an earthly king talking to the heavenly King.

· To stand in a place where the king was facing you was a place of great honor. To be sure, it was a role of serving the nation and the king, but it meant that you were treated as a friend, what you had to say was taken seriously, you had a place of influence in the nation, you could ask for anything that it was in the power of that king to grant, it meant you had it made!

· That’s what David is saying when he says, literally, “you caused me to take my stand toward Your face forever.” Do you who put your trust in God understand that your status of friendship and influence with God will never end?

· No wonder David closes with a doxology…

v.13 Yahweh, the God of Israel, is blessed from this age even though the age to come. [This much] is certain and true!

· Some interpret this verse as God being the Blessed One both in eternity past and eternity future, or by saints both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and, while that would be true, I tried to write a more word-for-word and literal translation.

· The Hebrew wording reminds me very much of Jesus’ statements in the Gospels about “this age and the age to come” (Mt. 12:32, Luke 18:30)

· and of Peter’s and John’s statements in their latter epistles about there being a “first heaven and earth” that will be destroyed (Rev. 21:1) and a “new heavens and new earth” created by God (2 Pet. 3:12-13).

· In both worlds, God has been - and will be - The Blessed One, the One in power, the Center of attention, the One doing the greatest stuff, the One to whom most thanks is due, because “from Him and to Him and through Him are all things” – life, existence, food, love, salvation, everything! (Rom. 11:36) We should be diligent to bless Him for all this!

· This psalm ends in Hebrew‎אָמֵן וְאָמֵן

· so, when you end your prayer by saying, “Amen,” you’re actually speaking in tongues, because that’s a Hebrew word that combines the meanings of being epistemologically true as well as being something you can depend upon in a relationship.

· I decided to translate the meaning of the Hebrew words into the English words “certain” and “true,” but most others transliterate these Hebrew words into English letters, which is fine, as long as you know what those words from that other language mean.^{^[6]}

· The Greek tradition was to say Genoito, which meant either, “It is actually this way,” or “Let it become,” and that’s what we mean when we close our prayers, “in Jesus’ name, Amen,” = “Jesus take the authority to let these things I’ve prayed for become a reality.”

· This ends the first book of the Psalms. The next Psalm (42) is the first one that is written by someone other than David, so Psalms 1-41 are considered the first subset of the book of Psalms, and I’m planning to end this sermon series here.

Psalm 41^{^[A]}

LXX (Ps.40)	Brenton	DRB	KJV	NAW	MT
6 οἱ ἐχθροί μου εἶπαν κακά μοι Πότε ἀποθανεῖται, καὶ ἀπολεῖται τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ;	5 Mine enemies ~~have~~ sp~~oken~~ evil against me, [saying,] When shall he die, and his name perish?	6 My enemies ~~have~~ sp~~oken~~ evil[s] against me: when shall he die and his name perish?	5 Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?	5 My enemies speak evil against me, “How long until he dies and his name perishes?”	6 אוֹיְבַי יֹאמְרוּ רַע לִי מָתַי יָמוּת וְאָבַד שְׁמוֹ:
7 καὶ εἰ εἰσεπορεύετο τοῦ ἰδεῖν, μάτην ἐλάλει· ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ συνήγαγεν ἀνομίαν^{^[B]} ἑαυτῷ, ἐξεπορεύετο ἔξω καὶ ἐλάλει.	6 And if he came to see [me], his heart spoke vainly; he gathered iniquity to himself; he went forth [and] spoke [in like manner].	7 And if he came in to see [me], he spoke vain things: his heart gathered together iniquity to itself. He went out [and] spoke to the ~~same purpose~~.	6 And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity^{^[C]}: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself^{^[D]}; when he goeth abroad X X, he telleth it.	6 And when he comes in to spy, he speaks vanity. As for his heart, it collects iniquity to himself. He goes out; he speaks to the outside.	7 וְאִם-בָּא^{^[E]} לִרְאוֹת שָׁוְא יְדַבֵּר לִבּוֹ^{^[F]} יִקְבָּץ-אָוֶן לוֹ יֵצֵא לַחוּץ יְדַבֵּר:
8 ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ κατ᾿ ἐμοῦ ἐψιθύριζον πάντες οἱ ~~ἐχθροί~~ ^{^[G]}μου, κατ᾿ ἐμοῦ ἐλογίζοντο κακά μοι,	7 All my ~~enemies~~ whispered X against me; against me they devised X my hurt.	8 All my ~~enemies~~ whispered together against me: they devised evil[s] to me.	7 All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise X my hurt.	7 All those who have hatred toward me whisper together against me; they think up evil against me.	8 יַחַד עָלַי יִתְלַחֲשׁוּ כָּל-שֹׂנְאָי עָלַי יַחְשְׁבוּ רָעָה לִי:
9 λόγον παράνομον κατέθεντο ~~κατ᾿~~ ~~ἐμοῦ~~^{^[H]} Μὴ ὁ κοιμώμενος^{^[I]} οὐχὶ προσθήσει τοῦ ἀναστῆναι;	8 ~~They denounced~~ a wicked word ~~against me~~, saying, Now that he lies, shall he not rise up again?	9 ~~They determined against me~~ an unjust word: ~~shall~~ he that sleepeth rise again no more?	8 An evil [disease]^{^[J]}, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more.	8 “Something leading to death is being discharged into him. Now that he has lain down, he is never going to get up again!”	9 דְּבַר-בְּלִיַּעַל יָצוּק^{^[K]} בּוֹ וַאֲשֶׁר שָׁכַב לֹא-יוֹסִיף לָקוּם:
10 καὶ γὰρ ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς εἰρήνης μου, [ἐφ᾿] ὃν ἤλπισα^{^[L]}, ὁ ἐσθίων ἄρτους μου, ἐμεγάλυνεν ἐπ᾿ ἐμὲ πτερνισμόν^{^[M]}·	9 For even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, lifted up his heel against me.	10 For even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted X me.	9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.	9 Even my peaceful ally – who I confided in, who ate my food – he has enlarged [his] footprint over me.	10 גַּם-אִישׁ שְׁלוֹמִי^{^[N]} אֲשֶׁר-בָּטַחְתִּי בוֹ אוֹכֵל לַחְמִי הִגְדִּיל עָלַי עָקֵב:
11 σὺ δέ, κύριε, ἐλέησόν^{^[O]} με καὶ ἀνάστησόν^{^[P]} με, καὶ^{^[Q]} ἀνταποδώσω αὐτοῖς.	10 But thou, O Lord, have compassion upon me, and raise me up, and I shall requite X them.	11 But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise my up again: and I will requite them.	10 But thou, O LORD, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite X them.	10 So it’s [up to] You, Yahweh: be gracious to me and get me up, then I will render payback to them.	11 וְאַתָּה יְהוָה חָנֵּנִי וַהֲקִימֵנִי וַאֲשַׁלְּמָה לָהֶם:
12 ἐν τούτῳ ἔγνων ὅτι τεθέληκάς με, ὅτι οὐ μὴ ἐπιχαρῇ ὁ ἐχθρός μου ἐπ᾿ ἐμέ.	11 By this I know that thou hast delighted in me, because mine enemy shall not rejoice over me.	12 By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me: because my enemy shall not rejoice over me.	11 By this I know that thou favourest^{^[R]} me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.	11 By this I know that you delight in me, that my enemy will never give a battle-cry against me.	12 בְּזֹאת יָדַעְתִּי כִּי-חָפַצְתָּ בִּי כִּי לֹא-יָרִיעַ אֹיְבִי עָלָי:
13 ἐμοῦ δὲ διὰ τὴν ἀκακίαν X^{^[S]} ἀντελάβου X X, καὶ ἐβεβαίωσάς με ἐνώπιόν σου εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα^{^[T]}.	12 But X thou didst ~~help~~ X me because of mine innocence, and hast established me before thee X for ever.	13 But X thou hast upheld X me by reason of my innocence: and hast established me in thy ~~sight~~ for ever.	12 And as for me, thou upholdest X me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.	12 And, [as far as] I’m [concerned], You held on to me in my integrity and you stationed me before your face for ever.	13 וַאֲנִי בְּתֻמִּי תָּמַכְתָּ בִּי וַתַּצִּיבֵנִי לְפָנֶיךָ לְעוֹלָם:
14 Εὐλογητὸς κύριος ὁ θεὸς Ισραηλ ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. γένοιτο γένοιτο^{^[U]}. -----	13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. So be it, so be it.	14 Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel from eternity to eternity. So be it. So be it.	13 Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.	13 Yahweh, the God of Israel, is blessed from this age even through the age to come. [This much] is certain and true!	14 בָּרוּךְ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵהָעוֹלָם וְעַד הָעוֹלָם אָמֵן וְאָמֵן:

^{^[1]} “…see how they were mistaken: when he had served his generation he did die (Acts 13:36), but did his name perish? No; it lives and flourishes to this day in the sacred writings, and will to the end of time; for the memory of the just is, and shall be, blessed.” ~Matthew Henry

^{^[2]} Romans 1:29-30 “being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents” (NKJV)

^{^[3]} Cf. Genesis 49:19 "Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels.” (ESV)
Psalm 56:6 They stir up strife, they lurk; they watch my steps [lit. my heel], as they have waited for my life. (ESV)

^{^[4]} Most of the commentaries I read agreed with this interpretation, although Matthew Henry offered additional possibilities: “Raise me up that I may requite them, that I may render them good for evil” (so some), for that was David's practice, Psalm 7:4; 35:13... Or, “That, as a king, I may put them under the marks of my just displeasure, banish them the court, and forbid them my table for the future,” which would be a necessary piece of justice, for warning to others. Perhaps in this prayer is couched a prophecy of the exaltation of Christ, whom God raised up, that he might be a just avenger of all the wrongs done to him and to his people, particularly by the Jews, whose utter destruction followed not long after.”

^{^[5]} Delitzsch appropriately added that this was: “…in accordance with the Messianic promise in 2Sam. 7:16, which speaks of an unlimited future.”

^{^[6]} 1 Cor 14:27-28 “And if someone is making utterance in a language, it should be according to two or at most three – he is just one part, but one person must be interpreting. Now, if there does not happen to be an interpreter, he must remain silent in church, yet he should keep making utterance to himself and to God.” (NAW)