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Psalm 74:4-6
New English Translation
Psalm 74:4-6
New English Translation
4 Your enemies roar[a] in the middle of your sanctuary;[b]
they set up their battle flags.[c]
5 They invade like lumberjacks
swinging their axes in a thick forest.[d]
6 And now[e] they are tearing down[f] all its engravings[g]
with axes[h] and crowbars.[i]
Footnotes
- Psalm 74:4 tn This verb is often used of a lion’s roar, so the psalmist may be comparing the enemy to a raging, devouring lion.
- Psalm 74:4 tn Heb “your meeting place.”
- Psalm 74:4 tn Heb “they set up their banners [as] banners.” The Hebrew noun אוֹת (ʾot, “sign”) here refers to the enemy army’s battle flags and banners (see Num 2:12).
- Psalm 74:5 tn Heb “it is known like one bringing upwards, in a thicket of wood, axes.” The Babylonian invaders destroyed the woodwork in the temple.
- Psalm 74:6 tn This is the reading of the Qere (marginal reading). The Kethib (consonantal text) has “and a time.”
- Psalm 74:6 tn The imperfect verbal form vividly describes the act as underway.
- Psalm 74:6 tn Heb “its engravings together.”
- Psalm 74:6 tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49-50).
- Psalm 74:6 tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT. An Akkadian cognate refers to a “pickaxe” (cf. NEB “hatchet and pick”; NIV “axes and hatchets”; NRSV “hatchets and hammers”).
New English Translation (NET)
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