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Psalm 55:8-10
New English Translation
Psalm 55:8-10
New English Translation
8 I will hurry off to a place that is safe
from the strong wind[a] and the gale.”
9 Confuse them,[b] O Lord.
Frustrate their plans.[c]
For I see violence and conflict in the city.
10 Day and night they walk around on its walls,[d]
while wickedness and destruction[e] are within it.
Footnotes
- Psalm 55:8 tn Heb “[the] wind [that] sweeps away.” The verb סָעָה (saʿah, “sweep away”) occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 120).
- Psalm 55:9 tn Traditionally בַּלַּע (balaʿ) has been taken to mean “swallow” in the sense of “devour” or “destroy” (cf. KJV), but this may be a homonym meaning “confuse” (see BDB 118 s.v. בַּלַּע; HALOT 135 s.v. III *בֶּלַע). “Their tongue” is the understood object of the verb (see the next line).
- Psalm 55:9 tn Heb “split their tongue,” which apparently means “confuse their speech,” or, more paraphrastically, “frustrate the plans they devise with their tongues.”
- Psalm 55:10 tn Heb “day and night they surround it, upon its walls.” Personified “violence and conflict” are the likely subjects. They are compared to watchmen on the city’s walls.
- Psalm 55:10 sn Wickedness and destruction. These terms are also closely associated in Ps 7:14.
New English Translation (NET)
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