HarperCollins Study Bible
Page 206
deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.
5For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who can give you praise?
6I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
7My eyes waste away because of grief;
they grow weak because of all my foes.
8Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
9The LORD has heard my supplication;
the LORD accepts my prayer.
10All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror;
they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.
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6.1–10 A prayer for help by an individual in trouble. The first of the seven “penitential psalms” (Pss 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; 143), so called because the early Christian church saw in them a special note of contrition or penitence. To the leader…instruments. See note on 4.1–8. According to The Sheminith, lit. “according to the eighth” meaning uncertain, perhaps referring to a musical instrument.
6.1–5 Petitions for deliverance by the Lord. The language suggesting physical illness may reflect an actual situation in which a sick person prays for healing or it may be metaphorical for trouble in general.
6.1 Illness or whatever has happened to the psalmist is seen as a judgment of God.
6.3 My soul…is struck. Cf. Jn 12.27. How long? is a typical complaint against God in the cries or prayers for help by the individual (e.g., 13.1–2) or the community (e.g., 74.10; 79.5; 80.4).
6.5 Sheol, the abode of the dead. Death is seen as a condition in which one is removed from God’s presence and the possibility of worship and praise (cf. Job 10.21–22; Isa 38.18). That fact is given as a motivation to encourage divine assistance.
6.6–7 The psalmist’s physical and emotional distress.
6.7 Grief, better “vexation” or “provocation.” For the suffering caused by the vexation of others, see 1 Sam 1.6–7.
6.8–10 The confidence of the sufferer that God has heard and will deliver. The particular form of evil (v. 8) or enmity (v. 10) is not indicated. It may be the sort of provocation evidenced by Peninnah in the face of Hannah’s personal distress of barrenness (see 1 Sam 1.6–7).
6.8 Depart from me. Cf. Mt 7.23; Lk 13.27.
6.10 Terror. See vv. 2–3. The fate of the sufferer becomes the fate of those who have caused suffering.
PSALM 7
Plea for Help against Persecutors
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.
1O LORD my God, in you I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,
2or like a lion they will tear me apart;
they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.
3O LORD my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
4if I have repaid my ally with harm
or plundered my foe without cause,
5then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,
trample my life to the ground,
and lay my soul in the dust.
Selah
6Rise up, O LORD, in your anger;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake, O my God;a you have appointed a judgment.
7Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,
and over it take your seatb on high.
8The LORD judges the peoples;
judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
9O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
but establish the righteous,
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God.
10God is my shield,
who saves the upright in heart.
11God is a righteous judge,
and a God who has indignation every day.
12If one does not repent, Godc will whet his sword;
he has bent and strung his bow;
13he has prepared his deadly weapons,
making his arrows fiery shafts.
14See how they conceive evil,
and are pregnant with mischief,
and bring forth lies.
15They make a pit, digging it out,
and fall into the hole that they have made.
16Their mischief returns upon their own heads,
and on their own heads their violence descends.
17I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,
and sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
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a Or awake for me
b Cn: Heb return
c Heb he
7.1–17 A prayer for help of a person who has probably been falsely accused of some wrong. The psalm would have had its setting in the sanctuary, where an innocent person could come before God for protection and vindication when falsely accused. See 1 Kings 8.31–32; Deut 17.8–9. The accused would declare innocence before God and await a divine decision. The superscription assigns this psalm to an incident in David’s life that is unknown in the OT. Shiggaion, a word of uncertain meaning that has been taken to mean “lament.”
7.1–2 The accused invokes God’s protection from those who threaten. Refuge. See note on 2.10–12.
7.2 Like a lion. Enemies in Psalms are often compared to wild animals attacking (10.9; 17.12; 22.12–13; 35.17; 57.4; 58.3–6).
7.3–5 A protestation of innocence by the sufferer (cf. 17.3–5; Job 31).
7.3 If I have done this. The claim is not of general innocence but of the specific wrong of which the praying one is accused.
7.4 If I have…harm. The accusation against the psalmist may have been betrayal of a trust.
7.5 Selah. See note on 3.2.
7.6–11 The appeal to the Lord as righteous judge to render judgment in this case.
7.8 My righteousness…integrity, i.e., “my innocence in this matter.”
7.9–11 The justice of God can be counted upon by the psalmist.
7.12–16 The psalmist now expresses confidence that the wicked who falsely accuse will suffer the fate they have sought to effect against the accused.
7.12–13 It is not clear whether the subject of this sentence is God or the wicked. See text note c.
7.15 Pit. See note on 9.15.
7.17 A vow to give thanks to God when deliverance comes.
PSALM 8
Divine Majesty and Human Dignity
To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
1O LORD, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortalsa that you care for them?
5Yet you have made them a little lower than God,b
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9O LORD, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
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a Heb ben adam, lit. son of man
b Or than the divine beings or angels: Heb eloh
im
8.1–9 A hymn of praise for God’s exaltation of the human creature. To the leader. See note on 4.1–8. According to The Gittith, possibly a kind of melody.
8.1–2 The glory of God. Out of the mouths…infants may refer to the praise that comes even from the babbling of babies (cf. Mt 21.16). Founded a bulwark may be better translated as “established strength” in parallel with “set your glory.”
8.3–9 Human glory as a manifestation of the glory of God.
8.3–4 Awareness of the awesome universe as God’s handiwork raises the question of what value human beings could possibly have in that grand cosmos.
8.3 The moon…established. The heavenly bodies are God’s creation and have no independent character as deities.
8.4 For less positive responses to the same question, see 144.3; Job 7.17. For an application to Christ, cf. Heb 2.6–8.
8.5–6 A similar view of humankind is found in Gen 1.26–28. The terminology used to describe the human creature had its origin in the royal ideology of the ancient Near East.
8.5 God, better “divine beings” or “angels,” as in text note b (cf. “our image,” Gen 1.26; Heb 2.7; Ps 8.5, Septuagint).
8.6 All things…feet. For an eschatological reading, see 1 Cor 15.27; Eph 1.22.
PSALM 9
God’s Power and Justice
To the leader: according to Muth-labben. A Psalm of David.
1I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
2I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
3When my enemies turned back,
they stumbled and perished before you.
4For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgment.
5You have rebuked the nations, you have destroyed the wicked;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
6The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins;
their cities you have rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.
7But the LORD sits enthroned forever,
he has established his throne for judgment.
8He judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with equity.
9The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.
11Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion.
Declare his deeds among the peoples.
12For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
13Be gracious to me, O LORD.
See what I suffer from those who hate me;
you are the one who lifts me up from the gates of death,
14so that I may recount all your praises,
and, in the gates of daughter Zion,
rejoice in your deliverance.
15The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid has their own foot been caught.
16The LORD has made himself known, he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.
Higgaion. Selah
17The wicked shall depart to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.
18For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
19Rise up, O LORD! Do not let mortals prevail;
let the nations be judged before you.
20Put them in fear, O LORD;
let the nations know that they are only human.
Selah
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9.1–10.18 Pss 9 and 10 are to be read as a unit. The Septuagint combines them. In the Hebrew they generally follow an alphabetic acrostic pattern in which every other verse begins with a letter of the alphabet, beginning with the first letter in 9.1 and ending with the last in 10.17. Note also the absence in Ps 10 of a superscription, which is present in most psalms in the first book of the Psalter (Pss 1–41). Furthermore, Selah, which concludes Ps 9, nowhere else comes at the end of a psalm. Within the unity, however, one may recognize in Ps 9 a song of thanksgiving by an individual into which has been incorporated a prayer for help in Ps 10. It is uncertain if the song of thanksgiving is meant to be anticipatory of deliverance or praise because it has happened. To the leader. See note on 4.1–8. According to Muth-labben, probably a musical notation, meaning uncertain.
9.1–2 A hymnic expression of personal thanksgiving and praise for God’s saving activity.
9.2 I will sing…name connects the psalm to 8.1, 9.
9.3–10 God as righteous judge has dealt justly with the oppressed one and with the peoples of the earth generally. The imagery and activity of God as ruler and judge come together as the grounds for praise and thanksgiving.
9.11–12 A call to praise (v. 11) echoes the declaration of praise at the beginning, and the reason (v. 12) is a reiteration of the psalmist’s experience of God’s positive response to the cry of the sufferer.
9.13–14 Anticipating the extended prayer for help in Ps 10 and believing the claim of v. 12, the psalmist seeks God’s gracious attention to the suffering now going on.
9.15–18 The psalmist expresses confidence because of the experience of God’s delivering judgment in the nation’s history.
9.15 The imagery of pit and net as weapons of enemies and evildoers is frequent in Psalms and is often a way of speaking about the wicked being caught in their own evil schemes (7.15–16; 10.9; 25.15; 31.4; 35.7–8; 57.6; 140.5; cf. Job 18.8).
9.16 Higgaion, translated melody in 92.3, perhaps here a musical interlude of some sort. Selah. See note on 3.2.
9.17 Sheol. See note on 6.5.
9.18 The claim here anticipates the fear that is at the heart of Ps 10, that God has forgotten the weak and helpless (see 10.2–4, 11–13).
9.19–20 A concluding call to God to rise up in judgment against the nations (cf. 7.6–8; 82.8; 96.13; 98.9). These verses also lead into the complaints and petitions for help of Ps 10.
PSALM 10
Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies
1Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
2In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor—
let them be caught in the schemes they have devised.
3For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart,
those greedy for gain curse and renounce the LORD.
4In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, “God will not seek it out”
all their thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5Their ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of their sight;
as for their foes, they scoff at them.
6They think in their heart, “We shall not be moved;
throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity.”
7Their mouths are filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under their tongues are mischief and iniquity.
8They sit in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places they murder the innocent.
Their eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9they lurk in secret like a lion in its covert;
they lurk that they may seize the poor;
they seize the poor and drag them off in their net.
10They stoop, they crouch,
and the helpless fall by their might.
11They think in their heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”
12Rise up, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand;
do not forget the oppressed.
13Why do the wicked r
enounce God,
and say in their hearts, “You will not call us to account”?
14But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief,
that you may take it into your hands;
the helpless commit themselves to you;
you have been the helper of the orphan.
15Break the arm of the wicked and evildoers;
seek out their wickedness until you find none.
16The LORD is king forever and ever;
the nations shall perish from his land.
17O LORD, you will hear the desire of the meek;
you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your ear
18to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed,
so that those from earth may strike terror no more.a
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10.1–11 The psalmist complains to God on behalf of the poor (v. 2; cf. 9.18) and helpless (vv. 8, 10). The wicked believe their successful oppression of the helpless and innocent is a reflection of God’s absence or indifference to whatever they do.
10.1 Why…far off? is a frequent complaint to God in cries for help (22.1, 19; 35.22; 38.21; 71.12). Why…hide yourself? is also a common form of complaint to God (see 55.1; also the related expression hide your face in 13.1; 27.9; 30.7; 44.24; 69.17; 88.14; 102.2; 143.7; note on 27.9) as well as an assumption of the wicked (v. 11).
10.2 Cf. 9.15–16.
10.4 Cf. 14.1.
10.7 Mouths are filled. Cf. Rom 3.14.
10.8–11 Vivid imagery to describe the scheming, plotting, and treachery by which the wicked and immoral do in the innocent and helpless.
10.12–19 Petitions for help and expressions of confidence that God will aid the helpless. The Lord will see (v. 14) and hear (v. 17).