TheBibleNet: Psalm 10

Psalms:

Bk 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

Bk 2: 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Bk 3: 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Bk 4: 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

Bk 5: 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119a 119b 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132
133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Additional Psalms: 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 Samuel Chronicles

Essays: Intro - Music - Form & Language

No title on this one, nor any designation of any kind - Psalms 1, 2 10 and 33 are all anonymous, while the remainder of Book One is "attributed" to David. Is that because it was there, originally, but got lost? And if so, lost before it reached the time of the Redactor, or lost afterwards? And can we deduce from the text what any part of its title might/would have been? Clearly not the musical accompaniment, but the difference between a Mizmor and a...

But then look again at my introduction to Psalm 9, which suggests that Psalm 10 was its continuation, erroneously separated in the Masoretic version... in which case, the title of Psalm 9 would be the title of Psalm 10 as well... except that, again according to my notes there, I do not think that it is.

10:1 LAMAH YHVH TA'AMOD BE RACHOK TA'LIM LE ITOT BA TSARAH

לָמָה יְהוָה תַּעֲמֹד בְּרָחוֹק תַּעְלִים לְעִתּוֹת בַּצָּרָה

KJ (King James Translation): Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?

BN (BibleNet translation): Why do you stand so far away, YHVH, hiding yourself in times of trouble?

If this is the continuation of Psalm 9, then it surely needs to follow the alphabetical accrostic which was begun there. Psalm 9 ended on a Chaf line, and this begins on the next letter, which is Lamed, so there is a first sign of continuity... but alas, from that point on, there are, literally (pun intended), no others.

10:2 BE GA'AVAT RASH'A YIDLAK ANI YITAPHSU BIMZIMOT ZU CHASHAVU

בְּגַאֲוַת רָשָׁע יִדְלַק עָנִי יִתָּפְשׂוּ בִּמְזִמּוֹת זוּ חָשָׁבוּ

KJ: The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.

BN: The wicked in his vainglory persecutes the worse-off. Let them be the victims of the plots they have themselves contrived.

GA'AVAT: Used for "majesty" and "excellence" but always with a hint of the egotistical and the self-important.

RASH'A on this occasion comes with a singular, but then a plural verb: he becomes they; for the remainder of the Psalm it will come with singular verbs. A minor oddity, but an oddity nonetheless.

10:3 KI HILEL RASH'A AL TA'AVAT NAPHSHO U VOTSE'A BERECH NI'ETS YHVH

כִּי הִלֵּל רָשָׁע עַל תַּאֲוַת נַפְשׁוֹ וּבֹצֵעַ בֵּרֵךְ נִאֵץ יְהוָה

KJ: For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.

BN: For the wicked brags about his heart's desire, and the hypocrite kneels to make a blessing, even while he is treating YHVH with contempt.

HILEL: With three Lameds, noch, the third noted by the dot inside the second one. And yes, this is the same spelling as the great Rabbi Hillel, though the archived records do not insinuate Ga'avah in his case; rather a humble man, actually, who lived in virtual poverty all his life. Click here for his full story.

VOTSE'A: See the link; there are many options for translating this, but I think "hypocrite" captures most of them.

NI'ETS: Again, see the link. The errors in the KJ lie in the complex grammar here, which comes down to mistaking gerunds for participles, and therefore mixing nominatives and accusatives. I have slightly extended my translation in order to bring out the full meaning.

Note the use of half-rhymes in these last two verses: TA'AVAT in 3 goes with GA'AVAH in 2, NAPHSHO in 3 with TITAPHSU in 2, while RASH'A repeats.

10:4 RASH'A KE GOVAH APO BAL YIDROSH EYN ELOHIM KOL MEZIMOTAV

רָשָׁע כְּגֹבַהּ אַפּוֹ בַּל יִדְרֹשׁ אֵין אֱלֹהִים כָּל מְזִמּוֹתָיו

KJ: The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.

BN: The wicked, in his high-and-mightyness and with his nose in the air, oh not he, not "needing" Elohim'; not one thought in that direction in any of his schemes.

The challenge of atheism, even then!

GOVAH is not the same as GA'AVAH in verse 2, though clearly another word-game is being played here. GOVAH is really physical "height", though here the continuing sarcasm renders it rather more metaphorical...

APH: ... and even more so as he sticks his nose in the air, not inflating and deflating it like an angry deity, but simply that image of the superior human being in his self-bestowed self-importance.

BAL: Which of course hints at BEL and BA'AL, the "false" gods. But this is the rarely used alternative to EPHES and LO and AL, and comes as a pair here with EYN, all of them ways of saying Zero, Nought, Not, Nothing, None. Four more instances of it as we continue through this Psalm - verses 6, 11, 15 and 18,

Again I have extended my translation to bring out the full meaning.

10:5 YACHIYLU DARKO BE CHOL ET MAROM MISHPATEYCHA MI NEGDO KOL TSORERAV YAPHI'ACH BA HEM

יָחִילוּ דָרְכּו בְּכָל עֵת מָרוֹם מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ מִנֶּגְדּוֹ כָּל צוֹרְרָיו יָפִיחַ בָּהֶם

KJ: His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them.

BN: He is amazingly successful in everything he does. He pays absolutely no attention to your criticisms. As for his rivals, he sneers at them.

YACHIYLU: The root is CHUL, which has the sense of "twisting and turning", and it could be writhing in agony (Isaiah 13:8, Micah 4:10) like a woman in childbirth, or it could be the beautiful ballet movements of a dancer (Judges 21:21), though here, in the context of the previous verses, it is rather more the twists and turns of schemes and plots that are being metaphored.

10:6 AMAR BE LIBO BAL EMOT LE DOR VA DOR ASHER LO VER'A

אָמַר בְּלִבּוֹ בַּל אֶמּוֹט לְדֹר וָדֹר אֲשֶׁר לֹא בְרָע

KJ: He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in adversity.

BN: He has said in his heart: "I will never falter, now or at any time to come. Nothing bad will ever happen to me".

EMOT: Word-play. The root is in fact MOT with a TET ending, but what you hear is MOT with a Tav ending: "I will never die"; and in case you missed the word-play, LE DOR VA DOR extends it infinitely, and adds a hint of divinity that can only be sarcasm (by the poet!). And in case you missed that, VER'A is rooted in the word for "wickedness", RA, but it also homophones as the very word used by Elohim in Genesis 1:1, for the Creation of the Cosmos; with an Aleph there, an Ayin here, but homophones are homophones.

10:7 ALAH PIYHU MAL'E U MIRMOT VA TOCH TACHAT LESHONO AMAL VA AVEN

אָלָה פִּיהוּ מָלֵא וּמִרְמוֹת וָתֹךְ תַּחַת לְשׁוֹנוֹ עָמָל וָאָוֶן

KJ: His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

BN: His mouth is full of oaths and guile and hidden agendas; under his tongue is mischief and malintent.

ALAH: Oaths, but like the English word, it can be the sort we swear in court (Genesis 26:28, Leviticus 5:1), or it can be the rather more vulgar kind intended here.

MIRMOT: Cf Genesis 27:35 and 34:13.

TOCH: The word only occurs three times in the Tanach, and all three are in the Psalms: here, 55:12 and 72:14. Translating it as "oppression" assumes the root is TACHAH (תחה), but Gesenius reckons the root is TACHACH (תחך), which is the Arabic word for "cut" or "spoil", and connects to the Yehudit LACHTOCH, with the same meaning. That takes us to Proverbs 29:13, where a poor man meets a con-man (TECHACHIM), and gives us a much better translation; though I think we should also hear TOCH as "inside", as in BE TOCH (בְּתוֹך).

AMAL: Like ALAH, this can have a virtuous or a mischievous intent, though, as per the link, the latter is the more common. What was that slavery-hymn, "All my trials, Lord, soon be over"? Definitely AMALIM.

AVEN: See the link, and note the connections with death again, via mourning on this occasion.

10:8 YESHEV BE MA'RAV CHATSERIM BA MISTARIM YAHAROG NAKI EYNAV LE CHELCHAH YITSPONU

יֵשֵׁב בְּמַאְרַב חֲצֵרִים בַּמִּסְתָּרִים יַהֲרֹג נָקִי עֵינָיו לְחֵלְכָה יִצְפֹּנוּ

KJ: He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.

BN: He hangs about in the alleyways behind the villages; in hidden nooks he murders the innocent; his eyes are on permanent look-out for the vulnerable.

MA'RAV: From the root OREV, which has been part of word-play throughout the Tanach, especially in Joshua and Judges: "liers-in-wait" when towns were being besieged; but there was also the man Orev, who was slain on the rock Orev, in Judges 7:25; and Orev the crow, full of all those mythological connotations that Ted Hughes explored so brilliantly. And evening, which is the crow-black place where the sun goes to hide, getting ready to spring upon you the next morning (or to morning upon you the next spring, if you prefer the word-game that way around).

10:9 YE'EROV BA MISTAR KE ARYEH VE SUKOH YE'EROV LACHATOPH ANI YACHTOPH ANI BE MASHCHO VE RISHTO

יֶאֱרֹב בַּמִּסְתָּר כְּאַרְיֵה בְסֻכֹּה יֶאֱרֹב לַחֲטוֹף עָנִי יַחְטֹף עָנִי בְּמָשְׁכוֹ בְרִשְׁתּוֹ

KJ: He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.

BN: He hangs about in hidden nooks like a lion in his lair; he hangs about to catch the poor; {N} he snares the poor, when he draws him up into his net.

YE'EROV BA MISTAR...YE'EROV: Most unusual for the Psalmist(s) not to come up with synonyms where synonyms are available, as they are in plenty for both these words. Poetically, there is only ever one good reason, and I really do mean one, and good, as well as reason, for repeating words, and that is because you want to emphasise them.

YE'EROV: But this now requires me to go back and change my translation as "hangs about", which I chose because of the crow, and works for the sun suspended (in those days anyway) from the solid ceiling of the primum mobile; but which isn't really appropriate for a prowling lion. "Lurks", perhaps? Shifts the alliteration though: hangs with hidden, lurks with lion and lair.

BE MASHCHO VE RISHTO: Oh but it is so tempting to play with that "net" and have him "hack and spam the naive, when he finds them on the [Inter]net". Either Hon'ah (הונאה) or Tarmiyt (תרמית) - click here.

10:10 VIDKEH YASHO'ACH VE NAPHAL BA ATSUMAV CHELKA'IM

וִדְכֶּה יָשֹׁחַ וְנָפַל בַּעֲצוּמָיו חֵלכָּאִים

KJ: He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.

BN: He pretends to be contrite, he goes down on his knees, and the helpless fall into his powerful claws.

VIDKEH: Or possibly YIDKEH - the texts generally give both, one in brackets. If we translate this as "crouch" - which lions certainly do - then it parallels the kneeling in verse 3. But DACHAH, which is the root, does not mean "crouch"; it means "crush", and occurs for the crushing sound that waves make when they crash, in Psalm 93:3, and for crushing in general in Psalms 38:9, 44:20, 51:10 and 19. Interesting that these are all Psalmic, because there is also DACHAH with an Aleph, which is probably the Aramaic and therefore belongs to later Yehudit, post Sennacherib (700s BCE); dozens of usages of the Aleph version, from the crushing of the testicles in Deuteronomy 23:2 to the more psycho-spiritual sort, in Isaiah 19:10,and 57:15, Jeremiah 44:10, several Psalms too.

What then does it mean here, if it doesn't mean "crouch", and it doesn't make sense as "crush"? The Isaiah and Jeremiah links all translate it as "contrition", which again parallels the kneeling in verse 3, provided that we also recognise the falsity and hypocricy of the contrition, as per verse 3.

10:11 AMAR BE LIBO SHACHACH EL HISTIR PANAV BAL RA'AH LA NETSACH

אָמַר בְּלִבּוֹ שָׁכַח אֵל הִסְתִּיר פָּנָיו בַּל רָאָה לָנֶצַח

KJ: He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it.

BN: He has told himself: "El has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never notice me."

BE LIBO: Remember, throughout the Tanach, that to the ancients the heart was the locus of thought, not the brain.

EL: One of the possible reasons why this Psalm has no title, nor dedication, is perhaps demonstrated here, by the god in question being El, the father of the Kena'ani pantheon, and not YHVH. What is odd is that the reference was not removed in the Redaction - probably it was because the hymn was widely known and much loved, and therefore no point trying to change the words. YHVH will nonetheless return in the next verse, and the attempt will be made there to pretend that YHVH and EL are the same deity.

HISTIR PANAV: The first time that we have encountered this concept explicitly, though there have been hints of it repeatedly. This is the opposite of Yevarechecha. In one, the sun-god turns his face to shine on us, and everything is good with the world; but when the sun-god turns his face away, oh, then anything can happen, from cloudy skies and rain all the way to people crouching in back-alleys waiting to do you mischief.

10:12 KUMAH YHVH EL NES'A YADECHA AL TISHKACH ANIYIM

קוּמָה יְהוָה אֵל נְשָׂא יָדֶךָ אַל תִּשְׁכַּח עֲנִיִּים

KJ: Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.

BN: Arise, YHVH; El, lift up your hand. Do not forget the poor.

10:13 AL MEH NI'ETS RASH'A ELOHIM AMAR BE LIBO LO TIDROSH

עַל מֶה נִאֵץ רָשָׁע אֱלֹהִים אָמַר בְּלִבּוֹ לֹא תִּדְרֹשׁ

KJ: Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.

BN: Why does the wicked man have such contempt for the gods that he has said in his heart: "You cannot make demands of me"?

NI'ETS: Takes us back yet again to verse 3, where we first encountered the word.

TIDROSH: Whereas this takes us back to verse 4, and again parallels the concept with the repeated word.

10:14 RA'ITAH KI ATAH AMAL VA CHA'AS TABIT LATET BE YADECHA ALEYCHA YA'AZOV CHELECHAH YATOM ATAH HAYITA OZER

רָאִתָה כִּי אַתָּה עָמָל וָכַעַס תַּבִּיט לָתֵת בְּיָדֶךָ עָלֶיךָ יַעֲזֹב חֵלֶכָה יָתוֹם אַתָּה הָיִיתָ עוֹזֵר

KJ: Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.

BN: But you have seen it. For you always pay attention to trouble and vexation, and lend your hand to deal with them; {N} the vulnerable commit themselves to you; you have provided support for the orphan.

RA'ITAH: Challenging the man's claim (histir panav...) in verse 11.

AMAL: Still more echoes and parallels and repetitions - this time see verse 7.

CHA'AS: The root really means "anger", which is the response to troubles, rather than it being a word for the trouble that causes it. I think "vexation" probably covers both: cause and effect.

TABIT: There is a repeated word-play by Jesus, (Matthew 11:15 is the first hint of it, but 13:9 is stronger, and 13:13ff provide the key - the Greek text uses akouetō) where he talks to his students about the difference between listening and hearing, or looking and seeing, or hearing and understanding: different levels of intensity, different levels of depth, only one leading to cognition. This Psalm may well be one of his sources. RA'ITAH at the beginning of the verse is the seeing, which is already stronger than LEHISTAKEL (להסתכל), which would be "looking", but doesn't yet have the sort of cognitive engagement that comes with TABIT. KJ translates it as "behold", which is dead on, but rather old-fashioned for me.

CHELCHAH: Yet one more repetition; see verse 8 (though I think the pointing must be in error in one or the other; probably this one)

10:15 SHEVOR ZERU'A RASH'A VA RA TIDROSH RISH'O VAL TIMTS'A

שְׁבֹר זְרוֹעַ רָשָׁע וָרָע תִּדְרוֹשׁ רִשְׁעוֹ בַל תִּמְצָא

KJ: Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.

BN: Break the arm of the wicked; and as for the evil man, demand to know what bad things he has done, until there are no more to be found.

TIDROSH: repeated from the previous verse; but now with a slightly different meaning.

RASH'A VA RA: The two concepts usually go together, especially in later Jewish liturgy: both meaning "wickedness", but RASH'A less bad than RA. Worth looking at chapter 1 of "Legends of the Jews" (verse 10 especially); worth looking at it as assistance on the terms in use here, but even more so as a splendidly fantastical introduction to the Yehudit alphabet and Jewish mysticism. Click here.

10:16 YHVH MELECH OLAM VA ED AVDU GOYIM ME ARTSO

יְהוָה מֶלֶךְ עוֹלָם וָעֶד אָבְדוּ גוֹיִם מֵאַרְצוֹ

KJ: The LORD is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.

BN: YHVH rules eternally; the [non-Yisra-Eli] nations have been eradicated from his land.

VA ED...AVDU: more word-play, sounds rather than meanings this time.

The inference is genocide and ethnic cleansing; fortunately the evidence of history challenges this.

10:17 TA'AVAT ANAVIM SHAM'ATA YHVH TACHIN LIBAM TAKSHIV AZNECHA

תַּאֲוַת עֲנָוִים שָׁמַעְתָּ יְהוָה תָּכִין לִבָּם תַּקְשִׁיב אָזְנֶךָ

KJ: LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:

BN: YHVH, you have heard the aspiration of the humble; you will direct their heart; you will cause your ear to pay attention;

SHAM'ATA: As per my note to TABIT as verse 14, this is "hearing" where mere "listening" would be LEHA'AZIYN (להאזין), from the root OZEN, which is the closing word of the verse, but there intensified by TAKSHIV, which is a call to paying serious attention.

10:18 LISHPOT YATOM VA DACH BAL YOSIPH OD LA'AROTS ENOSH MIN HA ARETS

לִשְׁפֹּט יָתוֹם וָדָךְ בַּל יוֹסִיף עוֹד לַעֲרֹץ אֱנוֹשׁ מִן הָאָרֶץ

KJ: To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.

BN: ...to judge the orphan and the oppressed, so that "alleyway-man" will have no power to bully ever again. {P}

DACH: See my note at verse 10.

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Psalms:

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