Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 29 Nov 2020
Omitting greyed-out text should bring delivery down to 45 minutes.
Half a year ago, I preached on the first eight verses of Psalm 44. I opened that sermon with the following introduction: “Today, as we face the threats of being decimated by a killer virus and impoverished by an economic collapse, the watershed question is, will we look for salvation from human leaders – from the government, or will we look to God to deliver us from these threats? This is the thought-provoking question raised by the priestly sons of Korah in Psalm 44… Psalm 44 opens up with a review of Israel’s independence movement back around 1500 B.C. and states that God initiates and secures the salvation of His people.
Half a year ago, I wanted to leave it at that. I did not want to face the problems of the rest of Psalm 44 and deal with the question of What is a believer to do when things in his nation are going badly? I was not ready to enter into a lament-Psalm. Now I am.
Half a year later, the threat of the virus has not gone away, and the dehumanizing effects of prolonged public health restrictions, together with political and economic havoc, is ripping our nation apart at the seams: riots have left metropolitan areas in ruins. And the prospect for the future is terrifying under the leadership of radical Marxists. Unlike our Pilgrim forbearers, there seems to be no place left to escape; every country in the world seems to be suffering under pestilence, war, and corruption. So now, I think we’re ready to hear the rest of Psalm 44!
“8 It is in God that we have boasted all the day, and it is Your name forever that we will praise! Selah 9 However, you have put off and caused us embarrassment, and you {God} have not deployed with our armies. 10 You caused us to retreat from the oppressor, such that those those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves. 11 You’ve been dishing us up like lamb meat, and widely scattering us among the nations. 12 You’ve been selling your people without value, not even making a profit with their sale-price. 13 You’ve been setting us up to be a stigma for our neighbors – a taunt and a joke for those around us. 14 You’ve been setting us up to be a worst-case-scenario among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. 15 All the time my humiliation is before me, and my blush has covered my face, 16 because of the voice of the fault-finder and reviler, because of the presence of an enemy and an avenger. 17 All this came on us, yet we had not forgotten you, and we had not been treacherous with your covenant, 18 {and} our heart has not turned back. Yet you extended our steps away from your path1 19 so that you have crushed us in a place of jackals, and you’ve been covering us over with the shadow of death. 20 If we ignored the name of our God and reached out our hands to a foreign god, 21 wouldn’t God find out about this? Indeed, He knows the secrets of a heart! 22 Indeed, it’s on account of you that we’ve gotten slaughtered all the time! We’ve been reckoned as a butcher’s sheep. 23 Please stir yourself up! Why should you be dormant, Master? Please become active; stop putting off indefinitely! 24 Why is it your face that you are hiding? You are ignoring our debasement and our distress! 25 Indeed, our soul has declined down to the dust; our belly has stuck to the ground. 26 {Yahweh}, please rise up to be a helper for us, and redeem us on account of your loving-kindness!” (NAW)
In the first 6 verses, the Psalmist pours out a list of nine complaints with 2nd person verbs, all accusing God of injustice:
You have cast away
You have embarrassed us
You have not been there with us when we went to war
You caused us to retreat from the oppressor
You’ve been dishing us up like lamb meat
You’re widely scattering us among the nations.
You’ve been selling your people – selling them short
You’re just setting us up to be a reproach to our neighbors
and v.14 You’ve been setting us up to be a laughingstock among the nations
Something’s going on here, because in the past, in v.7 he said, “You delivered us from our oppressors, and those who hated us You put to shame.” (NAW) Now, God’s not doing that.
It’s like a football game where the receiver catches a pass and starts running with the ball into enemy territory, and a blocker on his team comes up and starts running alongside him, promising to tackle any opponents that get near and clear them out, so the ballcarrier can get more yardage – or maybe even a goal, but then the blocker fades back and doesn’t run any interference after all, and the poor receiver gets sacked hard and fumbles the ball. He sits up – kinda wobbly – from the dogpile and says, “Where did my teammate go? That was fourth down; we lost the ball!”
What were these oppressors doing? I suspect this psalm is set around the time of the Babylonian exile2.
There are a lot of vocabulary words in this psalm which aren’t in any of the psalms before this, but which are in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Verses 9-12 indicate that this is a time when the Jews have lost a war and have been butchered, then scattered among the nations as exiles and slaves.
Isaiah 42 uses the same verb for “plunder” in v.22 “This is a people plundered and looted; all of them are trapped in holes, and hidden in prison houses. They have become plunder, and there is no deliverer, loot and there is no one saying, "Put [that] back!" ... 24 Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to plunderers? Was it not Yahweh, against whom we sinned, and were not willing to walk in His ways and did not give heed to His law? 25 So He poured upon him [that is, upon the nation of Israel] the fury of His anger and the force of battle...” (NAW) Ultimately it was God’s decision to let His people get sacked.
The Psalmist says it is as though God had put His people on the menu and was recruiting gentiles to devour them.
The Hebrew verb for “scatter” in v.11 is an intensive (Piel) form that is usually used to escalate the intensity of the standard (Qal) form. The standard (Qal) form of this word means “scatter,” so I tried to add intensity to match the Piel form by translating it “scatter widely.” This intensive “wide scattering among the nations” is also part of the covenant curse of Leviticus 26, where God says, “23 If… y'all keep walking defiantly in relation to me, 24 then I – yes I – will walk defiantly in relation to y'all, and I – even I – will strike y'all sevenfold because of y'all's sins, 25 and I will cause a sword to come upon y'all avenging the vengeance of the covenant, and though y'all may be gathered into your cities even then I will send a plague into the midst of y'all, and y'all will be given into the hand of the enemy… 32 And I myself will cause the land to be desolate, and y'all's enemies who settle in it will wreak desolation upon it. 33 And it is y'all that I will widely scatter into the nations, and I will unsheathe a sword behind y'all, and y'all's land will become desolate, and y'all's cities will become wasteland.” (NAW)
It’s the reverse of the blessings of entering the Promised Land, and our Psalmist here, by quoting from Leviticus 26, is recognizing that his nation experiencing what God promised as a curse for breaking His covenant.3
The only other place in the Bible besides verse 12 of this Psalm, where a people group is spoken of as being sold is in Esther 7:4 "For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated.” (NKJV, cf. Amos 1:6)
The feels he’s being treated like a worthless commodity – bought and sold – but not even at a value that gives the seller any profit. I’m reminded of a book that I ordered from an online bookseller last week – I believe it we Lou Priolo’s new one on Conflict Resolution, but as I opened the package, I noticed that the bookseller had sent me a second book along with the book I ordered. On the second book was a label that said something to the effect of, “Hey, we value your business so much, we decided to give you an extra book as a gift.” I was initially impressed at the generosity of the bookseller – until I removed the label and saw the cover of the extra book. The book cover said something like, “Free conference copy, not for sale.” In other words, this was a book that some wannabe author had printed up vanity copies for and distributed for free at a conference, a conference-goer had subsequently dumped it, and it had landed on the shelf of this used bookseller, who he knew he’d never be able to sell it; it was worthless, so he gave it to me as a “gift”! Have you ever felt like a worthless piece of merchandise that’s just sitting on the shelf while God has other more-important things to do?
We who follow Christ should not be surprised to encounter similar dismaying circumstances.
This Psalm is for us; it was ordained by God to be one of the songs of His New Testament church, which 1 Thess. 3:3 says is “destined” for undeserved suffering.
Augustine wrote: “this Psalm is sung to the sons of His Passion... because that at the time when the Church was suffering under the persecutions of the Gentiles… the Apostle Paul” in Romans 8 quoted from this psalm to describe his experience.
The stigma in v.13 with the neighbors reminds me of a neighborhood I lived in where the house at the entrance to the subdivision had fallen into disrepair. Most everybody else in the neighborhood were self-respecting folks who kept their houses nice, so after a while, at block parties, you’d hear neighbors talking about how snavely the house at the entrance was and how irresponsible the owners were and how it was dragging down the value of all the other houses in the neighborhood. But how embarrassing to be that homeowner and unable to do anything about it.
Thus, in v.14, the Psalmist accuses God of setting his people up to be a byword – a worst-case-scenario, the subject of jokes.
The same “peoples” that, in v.2, the Psalmist said had been run out of the promised land to make room for God’s people are now saying, like the Philistines did in 1 Samuel, “You’d better fight like men; you don’t want to be losers and end up like the Jews are now!”
Later, the army of Assyria surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and the Prophet Isaiah recorded the taunts and blasphemies they shouted against God and His people.4
Later still under the Roman empire, Cicero wrote that that the Jews were “a nation hated by the gods... since they had been wasted by so many misfortunes5.”
Early church father Augustine wrote, “[I]n the present day, there are not wanting enemies of Christ... against whom whensoever we defend Christ, they say unto us, ‘May you die like He did!’”
What a humiliating state, to be the one everybody uses as an example of the-lowest-you-can-go. People just shake their heads and say, “What a mess!”
And this is so opposite the will of God for His people. In the covenant blessings in Deuteronomy 28, the picture is of God’s people carefully obeying Him and keeping His covenant and being blessed by God with so much wealth and prosperity and victory that everyone in the world would respect them and want to get in on the blessings of this God.6
All these statements seem to line up with the conditions of the Jews during the time of the exile. The experience was bitter, and you can sense the bitterness coming out in these nine complaints in verses 9-14, but notice that despite the questions and hard feelings, the Psalmist still sees God as being in control of all this, so it is God to whom he brings his complaint.7 He lays the responsibility of every one of these things at God’s feet: “You did this, O God.”
In verses 15 and following, the Psalmist turns from his accusations against God to a focus on himself and his pitiful condition:
Some of the words in v.16 sound like an admission that the Psalmist has done something wrong (for he is blushing with shame and there is an avenger yelling out his faults and seeking to punish him for wrongdoing), yet in vs.17-18, he defends his innocence before God – in fact, he defends the innocence of his whole nation:
“We didn’t forget you,
we didn’t play false with your covenant.”
So he maintains that this humiliation and reproach and covenantal curse is unjust. Now, we know from the history and prophecy books of the Bible8 that there was rampant idolatry during the time of the kings, so it wasn’t unjust when God overthrew Israel and Judah. But we also know there faithful people like Daniel and Beniah and the Rechabites caught in the midst of God’s judgment of the nation they were a part of. True Christians in America today are in a similar situation.
Psalm 40:14 says that “...Those who delight in evil [against] me will be turned back and will be embarrassed… will experience shame and will blush...” (NAW) So if we delight in the Lord, why are we being turned back?
The translation of verse 18 is a bit tricky because the Hebrew verb “turned back” has an odd spelling which has left some folks interpreting it as using a third person subject (“our steps declined/deviated strayed”) and others interpreting it using a second-person subject (“you turned our steps away”). I lean toward the latter, and you can chase down my notes to see why, but it’s not a big difference.9
Also, if you are reading a King James Version, you may be intrigued to see the word “dragon” in v.19. The Douay-Reims and Brenton English translations of the ancient Greek and Latin render it “affliction,” and the modern translations render it “jackals.” How did such different translations come about?
The Hebrew word “tannim” has a literal root meaning of being “narrow,” which is where the Greek and Latin versions got the idea of translating it “affliction” – being in narrow straits, and that certainly works meaningfully with the idea of this passage,
but this Hebrew word “tannim” can also be used to indicate an animal that is literally long and slender – like a snake, or figuratively “lean” like a coyote, and the same Hebrew root seems to be used in descriptions of certain water-loving reptiles as well as desert creatures that live in dens like hyenas. The distinction in spelling between the water animal and the land animal in Hebrew is slight, but I think the spelling here is more consistent with the land animal, so I translated it jackal, but there’s a variety of opinions among commentators, and you’re welcome to chase that down further in my notes.10
The point is that to be in “a haunt/place/den/habitation of tannim” is to be in a desolate area, far from civilization. It’s a biblical phrase used over and over by the prophets11 to describe God’s judgment against a city or nation such that there are no people left and their cities turn into wilderness, and wild desert animals live in their crumbling ruins.
Yet “it is a humbled and crushed heart that the LORD will not despise,” affirms David in Psalm 51:1712 when we come begging for God’s forgiveness and mercy.
Jeremiah 13:16 describes the Babylonian exile of the Jews as the “shadow of death,” a banishment by God from the promised land for not giving glory to God.13
It’s kind-of like they see God as trying to go ahead and put the lid on their coffin and proclaim them dead so God can write them off and move on with somebody else.
Yet, we know from the traditional Advent passages in Isaiah that there is hope even for those in the shadow of death, for “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of the shadow of death, a light has shone upon them.” (Isa. 9:2, NAW)
Verses 20-21 introduce another interesting angle to the Psalmist’s argument. He basically says, “Look, God, I know that You notice it when people worship idols and that you punish idolatry, so there’s no way I would have done that, knowing how seriously you take idolatry!
If God can see into the very secrets that I lock up in my heart of hearts, He’s going to see every time I reach out to possessions or reach out to experiences or reach out to relationships with other people to fill my heart instead of Him, and He’s going to get upset.
Jeremiah 23:27 is the only other place in the Bible which speaks of “forgetting” God’s name: 24 “‘Can anyone hide himself in secret places, So I shall not see him?’ says the LORD; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth? … 25 I have heard what the prophets have said... 26 who prophesy lies, Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, 27 who try to make My people forget My name by [using] their dreams... [even] as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.’” (NKJV)
But when people in the Bible “remember” God, they pray to Him.
“Spreading out hands” is an attitude of prayer in the Old Testament (Ex. 9:29, I Ki. 8:22, Ezra 9:5, Isa. 1:15), and in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting” (1Tim. 2:8, NKJV); it’s a physical symbol of reaching out to get something from God as we pray.
We know God holds accountable in judgment those who reach out to something or somebody besides Him to be our help and security. But even those who are faithful to pray in Jesus’ name every time they have a need, don’t always get what they want.
In v.22, the Psalmist seems to come to the conclusion of his argument with the word “Yea/yet/but/Indeed.” The bottom line is that God is ultimately the one responsible for the fact that the Psalmist and his people have taken such a beating and have been conquered and slaughtered like sheep at a butcher’s shop.
If God is all-powerful and if God is good, and if God is in control of all things, then why does anything bad happen? People get stuck thinking that, since bad things happen, God must either not be good or not be powerful.
Last month, ISIS-linked terrorists beheaded and dismembered more than 50 people over three days in a mass killing at a soccer field in Mozambique after burning down homes and kidnapping and raping women and children.
Islamic extremists in northern Uganda killed a well-known Christian pastor and radio preacher, beating and strangling him to death for saying Allah is not God.
I could go on for hours relating modern-day atrocities like these against Christians.
Do these things mean that Christianity is false – that there is no good God who will bring justice in this world?
How do we deal with a God who would create a world like this, call us to worship Him, then allow us to be slaughtered?
Some people respond by ditching faith. They would have ended this Psalm by saying, “I renounce God and everything to do with Him. I am turning instead to more reliable sources of justice and help. My family, or my employer, or Uncle Sam or the United Nations will help me when God won’t.”
But our Psalmist models for us the way to deal with a God who lets His people get crushed, and that is to refuse to stop acknowledging that God is God and to refuse to stop begging God to save.
This Psalm doesn’t end with an answer to prayer; it merely is the prayer made in the middle of a troubled time. He makes his case before God and leaves it with God, trusting that the judge of all the world will do what’s right in the time that is right.
“‘Is the God who allows the righteous to suffer worthy of continued loyalty and worship?’ The final chapters of the book [of Job] answer that question with a resounding ‘Yes!’ … ‘Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him… (Job 13:15) … How we choose to respond to undeserved pain is a ‘kingdom moment,’ a moment to reflect values that are not of this world but come only by the power and strength of God.” ~ G. Wilson
“I don’t know better than God does, but I do know this much to ask. There is no one who loves me more – no one who is more powerful to save, so He’s the one I’m going to direct my prayer to, even when nothing else makes sense to me.”
The apostle Paul responded in the same way:
In 1 Corinthians 4:8, he shared that “we continue to be hungry and thirsty, and we are poorly-dressed... we are reviled... we are persecuted... we are slandered...” (vs. 11-13, NAW)
But then he told his readers in Romans 8 to keep trusting God: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written [In Psalm44:22]: ‘FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (vs. 35-39, NKJV)
Jesus Himself warned that it would be this way:
John 16:2 “… the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.” (NKJV)
It was also shown to the Apostle John that anti-Christian empires would kill Christians: “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH... drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus… 18:8 "Therefore her plagues will come in one day-- death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.” (Rev. 17:5-6, 18:8, NKJV)
In v.23, the Psalmist comes to the conclusion of the case he is making with God by calling God to bring an end to this season of withdrawal from His people to re-engage in action on their behalf, even as He had done on behalf of their forefathers in their escape from slavery in Egypt, mentioned at the beginning of the psalm. There are three commands in this verse, calling God to action:
עוּרָה Awake/ArouseYourself/Please stir yourself up – and there is a paragogic he at the end of this verb which I believe is a form of respectful address to his master. He is being respectful – saying “please” as it were – yet bold in his prayer.
הָקִיצָה Arise/Awake/Rouse yourself/Please become active
and whereas in v.9 he had brought up the complaint that God had “put off” זָנַחְתָּ His people, now he says אַל תִּזְנַח Stop putting off/don’t reject us any longer.
Now, we know that our God doesn’t actually go to sleep. Psalm 121 says, “He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper... The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and even forevermore.” (NKJV)
That’s why I tried to avoid words in my translation of this verse that would imply God literally sleeping, but, dormant inaction on the part of God no longer seems appropriate to this believer so he prays like David did in:
Psalm 7:6 “Arise, Yahweh, in Your anger! Be lifted up by [the] excesses of my adversaries, and stir up for me [the] judgment You decreed.” (NAW)
and Psalm 35:23 “Please mobilize justice for me, my God and my Master, and activate Yourself for arguing my [case]!” (NAW)
This is a Biblical way to pray when you are overwhelmed and confused by evil all around you and it seems like God is not doing what He promised to do. Ask Him politely to activate His interest in you and intervene.
On the one hand, He is still the Master, and it is God’s call whether or not to act. In His perfect understanding of justice and goodness, He knows better than we do when suffering is necessary.
God is not an impersonal force that does things with fateful indifference to us; He is a person, and therefore He has reasons why He does what He does, and that’s why the Psalmist models asking “Why” questions of God in prayer: “Why be dormant? … Why hide your face?”
Perhaps it is His will to really slam an evil person with crushing judgment, so He delays punishing the person so that their evil compounds to the point that he can really make an example of them with horrific judgment, as seems to have been the case with the Canaanites in Joshua’s time, and the case with the Roman persecutors of the martyrs under the altar in the book of Revelation.
Or perhaps God wants to set up a really spectacular conversion to glorify Himself, so He allows a man to commit repeated injustices against Christians before saving him – like the Apostle Paul, or like John Newton, so that he can testify to the world how truly “amazing” God’s “grace” is to “save a wretch” like them.
At the same time, God’s word reveals to us that suffering is part of the maturity He desires in His people – so much so that He entered into suffering on this earth personally on a Roman cross as part of the perfection of his own self (Heb. 2:10). Thus, suffering for faith in Jesus is part of entering into fellowship with Jesus (Phil. 3:10).
God also brings pain into our lives to discipline us (Heb. 12:5-11), training us to stop doing what is wrong, and training us to lift our eyes up to Him and seek His saving grace rather than depend upon ourselves (or upon some other false god).
On the other hand, God’s word reveals to us that it is also His will to act on this earth in concert with His people, so maybe all He’s looking for is someone to recognize what is His will and come alongside Him and say, “Let your will be done!”
That’s what Jesus taught us to pray, not because God needs our permission to do what He wants, but because unity with His will delights Him.
The number of times in the Bible where a person prayed and God acted (and the number of answered prayers we have experienced in our own lives) proves that, at least sometimes, God uses our prayers to pull the trigger on His action.
So it’s always worth a shot to make a case with God in prayer that believe it would be consistent with His character to intervene now. That’s the sort of prayer we see here in Psalm 44.
In v.24, the Psalmist says if feels like God has forgotten him, even though he hadn’t forgotten God. In v.25, the Psalmist says he’s been face-down on the ground in misery14 for so long, his belly is stuck there in the mud. Then in v.26, we see three reasons to pray for help in trouble:
We can pray for God to “help” and “redeem” because He has already promised that that’s what He does!
Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.” Rom. 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.” Heb. 13:6 “So we may boldly say: ‘THE LORD IS MY HELPER; I WILL NOT FEAR.’” (NKJV)
Psalm 34:22 “The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.” Psalm 49:15 “God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave…” Psalm 130:8 “He shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities” Gal. 3:13 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law” (NKJV)
Cash in on His promises!
We can call upon God to rise up and swing into action because men after God’s own heart have prayed this same thing, and we can follow their example:
Psalm 3:7 “Rise up, Yahweh, Save me, my God, hit all my enemies upon the cheek; shatter the teeth of the wicked” (NAW)
Psalm 7:6 “Rise up, Yahweh, in Your anger! Be lifted up by [the] excesses of my adversaries, and stir up for me [the] judgment You decreed.” (NAW, Cf, 9:20, 10:12)
Psalm 17:13 “Please arise, Yahweh; please get in front of his face; bend him; please deliver my soul from the wicked man [with] Your sword” (NAW)
Psalm 35:1-2 “Yahweh, contend against those who are contending against me; fight those who are fighting me… rise up with my help!” (NAW) And we should imitate David’s example.
“It is a true test of our piety, when, being plunged into the lowest depths of disasters, we lift up our eyes, our hopes, and our prayers to God alone… it becomes us, after the example of the fathers, patiently to submit to the afflictions by which it is necessary to seal the confession of our faith...” ~J. Calvin
We can also follow the examples of modern men of God, by reading their books, like:
If God is So Good, Why Do I Hurt So Bad?, by David Biebell, or
The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis, or
How Long, O Lord?, by D. A. Carson.
Yet more important than the examples of saints, is the basis upon which we make our requests, and that is lovingkindness of God Himself.
God doesn’t really deliver us from trouble simply because we are so pitiful or simply because we ask Him to, although these angles have their place in in this Psalm (and in our prayers). The bottom line is that God is merciful/kind/steadfastly-loving toward those with whom He has a covenant relationship, and so the ultimate reason why He will act to help and redeem us from sin - and its worst consequences - is His own lovingkindness.
There is no way that we can obligate God to pick us up and save us in our distress. We have all participated in the rebellion against God ever since Satan talked Eve into joining the rebellion back in the Garden of Eden - and Adam decided to approve of it. Our own commissions of lies and covetings and profanations of the Lord’s Day and dishonorings of our authorities, and our failures to love God and man with all our heart, leave us to deserve nothing but punishment from God. All we can do in the end is to appeal for God to help us on the basis of His mercy, as the last verse in this psalm does. Thankfully, mercy is a compelling reason for God, because we have no other basis to appeal to God.
The ultimacy of God’s lovingkindness is why it is the last word in Psalm 44. What a comfort in the midst of trouble that God will have the last word, and it is lovingkindness.
Psalm 13:1 “How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me indefinitely? How long will You hide your face from me? 2 How long will I [have to] put advice into my soul, will there be sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy rise above me? 3 Look this way; answer me, Yahweh my God, cause there to be light toward my eyes, otherwise I will sleep the [sleep of] death. 4 Otherwise my enemy will say, "I have bested him!" My adversaries will rejoice that I am overthrown. 5 But as for me, it is in Your lovingkindness that I have trusted. My heart will rejoice in Your salvation. 6 I will sing to Yahweh because He has conducted business satisfactorily by me.” (NAW)
LXX (Ps.43) |
Brenton (LXX) |
DRB (Vulgate) |
KJV |
NAW |
Masoretic Txt |
1 Εἰς
τὸ |
1 For the end, a Psalm [for] instruction, for the sons of Core. O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, the work which thou wroughtest in their days, in the days of old. |
1 Unto the end, for the sons of Core, [to] give understanding. 2) We have heard, O God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us, The work thou hast wrought in their days, [and] in the days of old. |
1
To the
chief Musician for
the
sons of Korah, Maschil.
We have
heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what
work thou
didst
in their
days, in the |
1 For the concertmaster, a thought-provoking one by the sons of Korah: O God, we’ve heard with our own ears; our fathers recounted for us the accomplishment You accomplished in their days - in the early days. |
1
לַמְנַצֵּחַ,
לִבְנֵי
קֹרַח,
מַשְׂכִּיל.
|
3
X ἡ χείρ σου
ἔθνη
|
2 Thine hand utterly destroyed the heathen, and thou didst plant them: thou didst afflict the nations, and cast them out. |
3) Thy hand destroyed the Gentiles, and thou plantedst them: thou didst afflict the peopleX and cast them out. |
2 How thou didst drive out the heathen [with] thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the peopleX, and cast them outF. |
2 It was You – Your hand – that disinherited nations. Instead You planted them. You caused calamity to the peoples but them you released. |
3 אַתָּה יָדְךָ גּוֹיִם הוֹרַשְׁתָּ וַתִּטָּעֵםG, תָּרַע לְאֻמִּים וַתְּשַׁלְּחֵם. |
4 οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳH αὐτῶν ἐκληρονόμησαν γῆν, καὶ ὁ βραχίων αὐτῶν οὐκ ἔσωσεν αὐτούς, ἀλλ᾿ ἡ δεξιά σου καὶ ὁ βραχίων σου καὶ ὁ φωτισμὸς τοῦ προσώπου σου, ὅτι εὐδόκησας ἐν αὐτοῖς. |
3 For they inherited not the land by their own sword, and their own arm did not deliver them; but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou wert well pleased in them. |
4) For they got not the possession of the land by their own sword: neither did their own arm save them. But thy right hand and thy arm, and the light of thy countenance: because thou wast pleased with them. |
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favourI unto them. |
3 So it was not by their own sword that they inherited the land, and their arm-strength is not what brought deliverance to them, for it was Your right hand and Your arm-strength and the light of Your face by which you favored them. |
4 כִּי לֹא בְחַרְבָּם יָרְשׁוּ אָרֶץ, וּזְרוֹעָם לֹא הוֹשִׁיעָה לָּמוֹ, כִּי יְמִינְךָ וּזְרוֹעֲךָJ וְאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ כִּי רְצִיתָם. |
5 σὺ εἶ αὐτὸς ὁ βασιλεύς μου [καὶ] ὁ θεός [μουK ὁ] ἐντελλόμενοςL [τὰς] σωτηρίας Ιακωβ· |
4 Thou art indeed my King and my God, who commandest deliverances for Jacob. |
5) Thou art thyself my king and my God, who commandest the saving of Jacob. |
4 Thou art my King, O God: command deliverancesMN for Jacob. |
4 You are the same one who is my King, O God. Command the deliverances of Jacob. |
5 אַתָּה הוּא מַלְכִּי אֱלֹהִים, צַוֵּהO יְשׁוּעוֹת יַעֲקֹב. |
6 ἐν σοὶ τοὺς ἐχθροὺςP ἡμῶν κερατιοῦμεν [καὶ] ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί σου ἐξουθενώσομενQ τοὺς ἐπανιστανομέ νους ἡμῖν. |
5 In thee will we push down our enemies, and in thy name will we bring to nought them that rise up against us. |
6) Through thee we will push down our enemies [with the horn]: and through thy name we will despise them that rise up against us. |
5 Through thee will we push down our enemiesR: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us. |
5 With You we will ram through our oppressors; in Your name we will step on those who rise up against us. |
|
7 οὐ γὰρ ἐπὶ τῷ τόξῳ μου ἐλπιῶ, καὶ ἡ ῥομφαία μου οὐ σώσει με· |
6 For I will not trust in my bow, and my sword shall not save me. |
7) For I will not trust in my bow: neither shall my sword save me. |
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. |
6 For it is not in my bow that I will trust, and my sword isn’t going to deliver me, |
7 כִּי לֹא בְקַשְׁתִּי אֶבְטָח, וְחַרְבִּי לֹא תוֹשִׁיעֵנִי. |
8 ἔσωσας γὰρU ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῶν θλιβόντων ἡμᾶς καὶ τοὺς μισοῦντας ἡμᾶς κατῄσχυνας. |
7 For thou hast saved us from them that afflicted us, and hast put to shame them that hated us. |
8)
|
7
|
7 for You delivered us from our oppressors, and those who hated us You put to shame. |
8 כִּי הוֹשַׁעְתָּנוּ מִצָּרֵינוּ, Vוּמְשַׂנְאֵינוּ הֱבִישׁוֹתָ. |
9
ἐν τῷ θεῷ ἐπαινεσθη |
8 In God will we make our boast all the day, and to thy name will we give thanks for ever. Pause. |
9) In God shall we glory all the day long: and in thy name we will give praise for ever. |
8 In God we boast all the dayX [long], and praise thy name for ever. Selah. |
8 It is in God that we have boasted all the day, and it is Your name forever that we will praise! Selah |
9 בֵּאלֹהִים הִלַּלְנוּ כָל הַיּוֹם, וְשִׁמְךָ לְעוֹלָם נוֹדֶה, סֶלָה. |
10 νυνὶ δὲ ἀπώσω καὶ κατῄσχυνας ἡμᾶς καὶ οὐκ ἐξελεύσῃY ἐν ταῖς δυνάμεσιν ἡμῶν· |
9 But now thou hast cast off, and put us to shame; and thou wilt not go forth with our hosts. |
10) But now thou hast cast us off, and put us to shame: and thou , O God, wilt not go out with our armies. |
9 But thou hast cast off, and put us to shameZ; and goest not forth with our armies. |
9 However, you have put off and caused us embarrassment, and you {God} have not deployed with our armies. |
10אַףAA זָנַחְתָּ וַתַּכְלִימֵנוּ וְלֹא תֵצֵא בְּצִבְאוֹתֵינוּ. |
11
ἀπέστρεψας
ἡμᾶς εἰς τὰ
ὀπίσω παρὰ τ |
10
Thou hast turned us back before our enem |
11)
Thou hast made us turn our back to our
enem |
10 Thou makest us to turn backAC from the enemyAD: and they which hate us spoilAE for themselves. |
10 You caused us to retreat from the oppressor, such that those those who hate us have taken plunder for themselves. |
11תְּשִׁיבֵנוּ אָחוֹר מִנִּי צָר וּמְשַׂנְאֵינוּ שָׁסוּ לָמוֹAF. |
12 ἔδωκας ἡμᾶς ὡς πρόβατα βρώσεως καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν διέσπειρας ἡμᾶς· |
11 Thou madest us as sheep [for] meat; and thou scatteredst us among the nations. |
12) Thou hast given us up like sheep [to be] eaten: thou hast scattered us among the nations. |
11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed [for] meatAG; and hast scattered us among the heathenAH. |
11 You’ve been dishing us up like lamb meat, and widely scattering us among the nations. |
12תִּתְּנֵנוּ כְּצֹאן מַאֲכָל וּבַגּוֹיִם זֵרִיתָנוּ. |
13 ἀπέδου τὸν λαόν σου ἄνευ τιμῆς, καὶ οὐκ ἦν πλῆθος ἐν τοῖς ἀλλάγμασιν αὐτῶνAI. |
12 Thou hast sold thy people without price, and there was no profit by their exchange. |
13) Thou hast sold thy people for no price: and there was no reckoning in the exchange of them. |
12 Thou sellest thy people for nought XAJ, and dost not increaseAK thy wealth by their priceAL. |
12 You’ve been selling your people without value, not even making a profit with their sale-price. |
13תִּמְכֹּר עַמְּךָ בְלֹא הוֹן וְלֹא רִבִּיתָ בִּמְחִירֵיהֶם. |
14 ἔθου ἡμᾶς ὄνειδος τοῖς γείτοσιν ἡμῶν, μυκτηρισμὸν καὶ καταγέλωτα τοῖς κύκλῳ ἡμῶν· |
13 Thou hast made us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision them that are round about us. |
14) Thou hast made us a reproach to our neighbours, a scoff and derision to them that are round about us. |
13 Thou makest us a reproachAM to our neighbours, a scornAN and a derision to them that are round about us. |
13 You’ve been setting us up to be a stigma for our neighbors – a taunt and a joke for those around us. |
14תְּשִׂימֵנוּAO חֶרְפָּה לִשְׁכֵנֵינוּ לַעַג וָקֶלֶס לִסְבִיבוֹתֵינוּ. |
15 ἔθου ἡμᾶς εἰς παραβολὴν ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, κίνησιν κεφαλῆς ἐν τοῖς λαοῖςAP. |
14 Thou hast made us a proverb among the Gentiles, a shaking of the head among the nations. |
15) Thou hast made us a byword among the Gentiles: a shaking of the head among the peopleX. |
14 Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the headAQ among the peopleXAR. |
14 You’ve been setting us up to be a worst-case-scenario among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. |
15תְּשִׂימֵנוּ מָשָׁל בַּגּוֹיִם מְנוֹד רֹאשׁ בַּלְאֻמִּים. |
16 ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν ἡ ἐντροπή μου κατεναντίον μού ἐστιν, καὶ ἡ αἰσχύνη τοῦ προσώπου μου ἐκάλυψέν με |
15 All the day my shame is before me, and the confusion of my face has covered me, |
16) All the day [long] my shame is before me: and the confusion of my face hath covered me, |
15
My confusionAS
is
|
15 All the time my humiliation is before me, and my blush has covered my face, |
16כָּל הַיּוֹם כְּלִמָּתִי נֶגְדִּי וּבֹשֶׁת פָּנַי כִּסָּתְנִי. |
17 ἀπὸ φωνῆς ὀνειδίζοντος καὶ παραλαλοῦντος, ἀπὸ προσώπου ἐχθροῦ καὶ ἐκδιώκοντος. |
16 because of the voice of the slanderer and reviler; because of the enemy and avenger. |
17) At the voice of him that reproacheth and detracteth me: at the face of the enemy and persecutor. |
16
For the voice of him that reproachethAV
and blasphemethAW;
by |
16 because of the voice of the fault-finder and reviler, because of the presence of an enemy and an avenger. |
17 מִקּוֹל מְחָרֵף וּמְגַדֵּף מִפְּנֵי אוֹיֵב וּמִתְנַקֵּם. |
18 ταῦτα πάντα ἦλθεν ἐφ᾿ ἡμᾶς, καὶ οὐκ ἐπελαθόμεθά σου καὶ οὐκ ἠδικήσαμενAY ἐν διαθήκῃ σου, |
17
All th |
18)
All th |
17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely inAZ thy covenant. |
17 All this came on us, yet we had not forgotten you, and we had not been treacherous with your covenant, |
18כָּל זֹאת בָּאַתְנוּ וְלֹא שְׁכַחֲנוּךָ וְלֹא שִׁקַּרְנוּ בִּבְרִיתֶךָ. |
19 καὶ οὐκ ἀπέστη εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν· καὶ ἐξέκλινας τὰς τρίβους ἡμῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ σου. |
18 And our heart has not gone back; but thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way. |
19)
And our heart hath not turned back: |
18
Our heart is not turned back, |
18 {and} our heart has not turned back. Yet you extended our steps away from your path |
19 BBלֹא נָסוֹג אָחוֹר לִבֵּנוּ וַתֵּטBC אֲשֻׁרֵינוּ מִנִּי אָרְחֶךָ. |
20
ὅτι ἐταπείνωσας
ἡμᾶς ἐν τόπῳ
κακώσεωςBD,
καὶ ἐπεκάλυψ |
19 For thou hast laid us low in a place of affliction, and X the shadow of death has covered X us. |
20) For thou hast humbled us in the place of affliction: and X the shadow of death hath covered us. |
19
Though thou hast sore brokenBE
us in the place of |
19 so that you have crushed us in a place of jackals, and you’ve been covering us over with the shadow of death. |
20כִּיBG דִכִּיתָנוּBH בִּמְקוֹם תַּנִּים וַתְּכַס עָלֵינוּ BIבְצַלְמָוֶת. |
21 εἰ ἐπελαθόμεθα τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ εἰ διεπετάσαμεν χεῖρας ἡμῶν πρὸς θεὸν ἀλλότριον, |
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have spread out our hands to a strange god; |
21) If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have spread forth our hands to a strange god: |
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretchedBJ out our hands to a strangeBK god; |
20 If we ignored the name of our God and reached out our hands to a foreign god, |
21אִם שָׁכַחְנוּ שֵׁם אֱלֹהֵינוּ וַנִּפְרֹשׂ כַּפֵּינוּ לְאֵל זָר. |
22
οὐχὶ ὁ θεὸς
ἐκζητήσει
ταῦτ |
shall
not God search
th |
22)
Shall not God search
out th |
21 Shall not God searchBL this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. |
21 wouldn’t God find out about this? Indeed, He knows the secrets of a heart! |
22הֲלֹא אֱלֹהִים יַחֲקָר זֹאת כִּי הוּא יֹדֵעַ תַּעֲלֻמוֹת לֵב. |
23 ὅτι ἕνεκα σοῦ θανατούμεθα ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν, ἐλογίσθημεν ὡς πρόβατα σφαγῆς. |
22 For, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for slaughter. |
22 Because for thy sake we are killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. |
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are countedBM as sheep for [the] slaughter. |
22 Indeed, it’s on account of you that we’ve gotten slaughtered all the time! We’ve been reckoned as a butcher’s sheep. |
23כִּי עָלֶיךָ הֹרַגְנוּ כָל הַיּוֹם נֶחְשַׁבְנוּ כְּצֹאן BNטִבְחָה. |
24 ἐξεγέρθητι· ἵνα τί ὑπνοῖς, κύριε; ἀνάστηθι [καὶ]BO μὴ ἀπώσῃ εἰς τέλος. |
23 Awake, wherefore sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, and do not cast [us] off for ever. |
23 Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, and cast [us] not off to the end. |
23 AwakeBP, why sleepest thou, O Lord? ariseBQ, castBR us not off for ever. |
23 Please stir yourself up! Why should you be dormant, Master? Please become active; stop putting off indefinitely! |
24עוּרָה לָמָּה תִישַׁן אֲדֹנָי הָקִיצָה אַל תִּזְנַח לָנֶצַח. |
25 ἵνα τί τὸ πρόσωπόν σου ἀποστρέφειςBS, ἐπιλανθάνῃ τῆς πτωχείαςBT ἡμῶν καὶ τῆς θλίψεως ἡμῶν; |
24 Wherefore turnest thou thy face away, and forgettest our poverty and our affliction? |
24 Why turnest thou thy face away? and forgettest our want and our trouble? |
24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? |
24 Why is it your face that you are hiding? You are ignoring our debasement and our distress! |
25לָמָּה פָנֶיךָ תַסְתִּיר תִּשְׁכַּח עָנְיֵנוּBU וְלַחֲצֵנוּ. |
26 ὅτι ἐταπεινώθηBV εἰς χοῦν ἡ ψυχὴ ἡμῶν, ἐκολλήθη εἰς γῆν ἡ γαστὴρ ἡμῶν. |
25 For our soul has been brought down to the dust; our belly has cleaved to the earth. |
25 For our soul is humbled down to the dust: our belly cleaveth to the earth. |
25 For our soul is bowedBW down to the dust: our bellyBX cleaveth unto the earth. |
25 Indeed, our soul has declined down to the dust; our belly has stuck to the ground. |
26כִּי שָׁחָה לֶעָפָר נַפְשֵׁנוּ דָּבְקָה לָאָרֶץ בִּטְנֵנוּ. |
27 ἀνάστα, κύριε, βοήθησον ἡμῖν καὶ λύτρωσαι ἡμᾶς ἕνεκεν τοῦ ὀνόματόςBY σου. |
26 Arise, O Lord, help us, and redeem us for thy name's sake. |
26 Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for thy name's sake. |
26
Arise [for] our
help, and redeem us for thy BZmerc |
26 {Yahweh}, please rise up to be a helper for us, and redeem us on account of your loving-kindness! |
1“‘the paths of God’ does not always refer to doctrine, but sometimes to prosperous and desirable events.” ~J. Calvin
2The other main theory among commentators I read (Calvin, Delitzsch) was during the time of the Maccabees when there seemed to be more piety among the Jews as a nation than there was around the time of the exile, although there wasn’t a major battle lost or much of a diaspora.
3cf. Deut. 32:30 “How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?” (Anderson/Calvin)
4Calvin noted that even after they hauled the Jerusalemites back to Babylon as captives, they were “enraged” at the Jews for condemning Babylonian gods. The experience of Daniel and his friends would be a case in point.
5Oration in defense of Flaccus, as quoted by John Calvin in his commentary on Psalm 44.
61 Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth... 7 The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. 8 The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you... 10 So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you." (NASB)
7“It ought to be observed, that when the faithful represent God as the author of their calamities, it is not in the way of murmuring against Him, but that they may with greater confidence seek relief, as it were, from the same hand which smote and wounded them. It is certainly impossible that those who impute their miseries to fortune can sincerely have recourse… If, therefore, we would expect a remedy from God for our miseries, we must believe that they befall us not by fortune or mere chance, but that they are inflicted upon us properly by His hand.” ~J. Calvin
8e.g. Isaiah 28:15 “traitors to the Covenant” and Jeremiah 13:25 “This is your lot, The portion of your measures from Me," says the LORD, "Because you have forgotten Me And trusted in falsehood.” (NAW)
9The original (unpointed) Hebrew can be read either way, the difference is in whether one of the vowels should be represented by a short or a long vowel. It doesn’t make a big difference in meaning except that if God (“you”) is the subject, the tone of blaming God is intensified, plus it follows the rules of grammar better, and it doesn’t require adding the word “not” to the second half of the verse, which isn’t there in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. See endnote BD for a fuller explanation.
10The Geneva and KJV translators identified the tannim in Psalm 44 with the tannim in the book of Ezekiel (29:3, 32:2), an animal associated with large bodies of water, and they related it to the tannin, a water-dwelling creature in Genesis 1:21, Job 7:12, and Psalms 74:13 and 148:7, and a serpent-like creature in Exodus 7. Calvin called it a “whale.” But when you narrow the searches to just tannim (with the Hebrew “m” at the end), all but the two in Ezekiel are clearly desert animals, mentioned in parallel with the word for “hyenas,” and they live in dens, so there seem to be two different kinds of animals, the tannim being a hydrophilic reptile, and the tannin being a wild dog, which where I live, is called a coyote, but the variety in the Middle East seems to be called a jackal. Others, such as Aquila (a Jew in the second century AD) and Anderson (who translated Calvin’s commentaries into English) thought it was a desert snake.
11Isa. 13:22, 34:13, 35:7, Jer. 9:11, 10:22, 49:33, 51:37, Mal 1:3, perhaps also Neh. 2:13
12NAW, v.15 in Hebrew
13Jer. 2:6 also called the wilderness that the Hebrews wandered through on their way to the Promised Land from Egypt the “shadow of death… where no one dwelt.” Job also mentioned his calamities as being tselmuth in 3:5; 10:21-22; 12:22; 16:16; 24:17; 28:3; 34:22; & 38:17.
14G. Wilson suggested in his commentary that this could be describing the position of a dead body.
AMy
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. The only known Dead Sea
Scrolls containing any part of Psalm 43 are 1QPsc which
contains fragments of vs. 2-9 & 23-25, and 4QPsc,
which contains fragments of vs. 6-9, highlighted in purple.
B2nd & 3rd century AD Jews (Aquila & Symmachus) who made translations into Greek omitted this word as the MT does.
CThis phrase “days of yore” occurs nowhere else in the O.T. with this beth preposition, but it does occur 5x with the ablative mem preposition (Isa. 23:7; 37:26; Lam. 1:7; 2:17; Mic. 7:20) and 2x with the comparative coph preposition (Isa. 51:9; Jer. 46:26). The fact that all the other instances of this figure of speech are close to the time of the exile could be an indicator that this Psalm was not written in David’s time.
DAquila used the synonym φυλα (tribes)
EAq. translated more like the MT with exapesteilas = commissioned
FNAS=spread abroad, NIV=made flourish, ESB=set free
GThe image of “planting” Israel as a nation is also in Ex. 15:17, Isa. 5:7, and Isa. 40:23-34
HChrysostom used a synonym for sword μαχαιρα
INIV=loved,
ESV=delighted
JThe Dead Sea Scroll containing this verse, dating a thousand years older than the Masoretic text spells the 2nd person pronomial suffixes in this verse with כה- rather than ך-
KAquila, whose 2nd century AD Greek translation closely follows the MT, kept this pronoun which is not in the MT, as did Theodotion. Symmachus, on the other hand, in this 3rd century translation does attest to the MT by leaving off the μου
LSym. supports the MT with an imperative rather than a participle here, but presumably not Aq.
MNIV=[who] decree[s], ESV=ordain
NNAS/NIV=victories, ESV=salvationX
OMT pointing interpreted this as an imperative, but LXX (and Syriac and NIV) interpreted it as a participle. I think it’s a matter of word spacing. The original manuscripts didn’t have much in the way of spaces, so the letters אלהיםצוה could be divided as אלהי | םצוה “my god, commanding” or as אלהים | צוה “God, command” either way makes sense and fits with the rest of scripture. It is unique among both imperative and participle forms of this word in the O.T. in that this is the only imperative of this word issued from man to God; all others are issued from God to a civil or ecclesiastical leader (although other imperatives are issued toward God), and it is the only participle describing God as “one who commands” (although God obviously issued many commands).
PIn v.8 of the LXX, the same Hebrew word is rendered with a different, but synonymous word.
QThis is Rahlf’s edition. The Vaticanus spelled it with a delta instead of a theta, these are alternate spellings of the same word, not two different words. Aq. & Sym. Translated closer to the MT with συμπατησομεν “we will tread down together” and Chrysostom with κατακρατησομεν “we will whelm down/overpower/subdue.”
RNAS=adversaries, ESV=foes, same in v.7
SThis verb is found only 9 other places in the O.T., all but the last of them describing offensive action with an animal’s horn (Ex. 21:28, 31-32; Dt. 33:17; 1 Ki. 22:11; 2 Chr. 18:10; Ezek. 34:21; Dan. 8:4; 11:40).
TThis word only occurs elsewhere in two Davidic psalms (Ps. 60:14; 108:14) a Proverb (27:7) and the major prophets (Isa. 14:19, 25; 63:6, 18; Jer. 12:10; Ezek. 16:6, 22; Zech. 10:5).
Ucf. Chrysostom = ‘οτι
VOf the two extant DSS containing this verse, one (4Q – followed by the NIV) does not contain the copula here but the other (1Q) does. LXX also contains it, so it’s genuine. Either way, it doesn’t change the meaning.
WΑq. & Sym. Translated with more-common synonyms for boasting (καυχησομεθα) and singing hymns of praise (‘υμνουμεν) – both in the Greek future tense, although the MT verb is Perfect tense.
XESV=continually
YAlexandrian, Lucian, and Veronen Greek manuscripts agree with the Vulgate’s addition of “O God” and with the future tense of “gone out/deployed.” The Hebrew verb is spelled in the imperfect tense (which can be interpreted as future) but it also has a vav prefix (which can be interpreted as throwing an imperfect verb into perfect tense), so the Hebrew supports the range of interpretation given by both Greek and English versions of the verb tense, but since this is a litany of complaints, all the actions must have happened in the past to be able to accuse God of them.
ZNASB=dishonored, NIV=humbled, ESV=disgraced
AADelitzsch argued for “nevertheless” in his commentary. G. Wilson argued that it “must” be translated “but now.”
ABSymmachus supported the MT singular.
ACNIV=retreat
ADNASB=adversary, ESV=foe
AENIV=plundered
AFSyrac and Targums read לנו "to us” - which is the NIV’s rendering, but Symmachus supported the LXX and MT.
AGNASB=to be eaten, NIV=to be devoured, ESV=for slaughter
AHAll other English versions read “nations” here and in v.14
AIcf. Symmachus ‘υπαρξεως και ου πολλην εποιησας την τιμην αυτων and Theodotian ην πλεονασμα εν τς αλαλαγματι ‘ημων
AJNASB=cheaply, NIV=for a pittance, ESV=for a trifle
AKNASB=profit,
NIV=gaining [any]thing, ESV=demanding
ALNASB, NIV=sale
AMESV=the
taunt
ANNASB=scoffing
AOThis condition of reproach and being mocked has been mentioned before by David in Psalm 31:11 and 35:16 (and by the Messiah in Psalm 22:6 and 8)
APSymmachus rendered φυλαις “tribes,” which might be closer to the MT.
AQNASB, ESV=laughingstock
ARAll other English translations render this plural, as the Hebrew and Greek is.
ASNASB=dishonor, NIV, ESV=disgrace
ATLiterally in Hebrew and Greek, “all the day” thus all other English versions read “all day long.”
AUCf. NASB: “my humiliation has overwhelmed me”
AVESV=taunter (cf. v.13)
AWNASB, NIV, ESV=revile
AXLit.=face,
NASB=presence, ESV=sight
AYAquila (εψευσαμεθα “engaged in falsehood”) and Symmachus (παρελογισαμεθα “sidetracked words”) seem to have corrected the LXX to the MT.
AZNASB=with, NIV/ESV=to
BANASB=deviated, NIV=strayed, ESV=departed
BBThe LXX, Vulgate, and Syriac all insert “And” at the beginning of this verse. No DSS exists for this verse.
BCThe Masoretic vowel pointing added around the 10th century to the Hebrew text indicates a third singular subject, stretched by some to include plurality, thus the English versions (and the ancient Greek witness E from Origen’s Hexapla) “our feet declined/deviated,” but the original Hebrew could just as well support this verb being second person singular (with only one difference in the vowel pointing), thus, “you turned aside” is the LXX and Vulgate rendering. The Syriac and Lucian rescension of the Greek also support this with “you did not turn aside,” although the negative is not there in any Hebrew manuscript. Delitzsch commented, “This is therefore not one of the many instances in which the לא of one clause also had influence over the clause that follows...” Symmachus’ 3rd century Greek version reads 3rd plural with a passive “our steps were turned.”
BDcf. Aq: συνετριψας ημας εν τοπω σειρηνων (“afflicted? us together in a place of sirens”) and Sym: συνεθλασας ‘ημας εν τοπω αοικητω (“You shattered us in a place of homelesness?”) seem closer to the MT.
BENASB, NIV=crushed
BFNASB, NIV, ESV=jackals
BGCalvin argued for this particle to be translated “although” or “when” instead of “because.”
BHcf. Ps. 38:2
BINeither Symmachus nor E nor the Vulgate nor the LXX have the preposition “with” but Aquila does. Nevertheless, Aq, Sym, and E all attest to the verb being 2nd person singular “you covered” agreeing with the MT over the LXX.
BJNASB=extended, NIV,ESV=spread out
BKNIV, ESV=foreign
BLNASB=find, NIV, ESV=discover
BMNASB, NIV=considered, ESV=regarded
BNEnglish versions add “to,” following the Syriac and Targums and a couple of Hebrew manuscripts which insert -ל here. cf. Jer. 12:3 which does have the lamed preposition in the MT.
BODespite the fact that Symmachus, Syriac, and Vulgate support the addition of this “and,” it is definitely not in the DSS. Aq., curiously adds “into victory.”
BPNASB=arouse yourself
BQNASB=awake, NIV, ESV=arouse yourself
BRNASB, NIV, ESV=reject
BSThe Greek versions of Aquila and Symmachus both support the MT with “hide” instead of “turn away.”
BTSymmachus and others went with translations based on κακος “bad” rather than “poor,” but the Hebrew word supports both meanings.
BUcf. Psalm 9:13, 25:18, 31:7, 42:9, 10:11-14, Hosea 4:6 for why God “forgets”
BVAq: κατεκαμφθη (“bend down” is closer to the MT), cf. Σ: κατεκυψεν (“cut down”?)
BWNASB=sunk, NIV=brought
BXNASB, NIV=body
BYAq. & Sym. followed the MT with ελεος “mercy”
BZNASB=lovingkindness, NIV=unfailing love, ESV=steadfast love
CAThe LXX and Vulgate add “O Lord.” I wish this verse had been preserved in the DSS for comparison!
CBDelitzsch commented that the paragogic he here is directional. He didn’t comment on the accompanying verbs which also end with he, which I think are supplicatory, the equivalent of saying “please.”