PSALM 10
1Why do You stand far off, O LORD,ל
turn away in times of distress?
2In the wicked man’s pride he pursues the poor,
but is caught in the schemes he devised.
3For the wicked did vaunt in his very lust,
grasping for gain—cursed, blasphemed the LORD.
4The wicked sought not in his towering wrath—
“There is no God” is all his schemes.
5His ways are uncertain in every hour,
Your judgments are high up above him.
All his foes he enflames.
6He said in his heart, “I will not stumble,
for all time I will not come to harm.”
7His mouth is full of oaths,פ
beneath his tongue are guile and deceit,
mischief and misdeed.
8He waits in ambush in a sheltered place,
from a covert he kills the blameless,
for the wretched his eyes look out.ע
9He lies in wait in a covert like a lion in his lair,
lies in wait to snatch up the poor,
snatch the poor as he pulls with his net.
10The lowly bow down,
and the wretched fall into his traps.
11He said in his heart, “God has forgotten,
has hidden His face, never more to see.”
12Rise, O LORD, raise Your hand,ק
13Why has the wicked despised God,
has said in his heart, “You shall not seek out”?
14For You have seen mischiefר
and have looked on vexation.
The wretched leaves his fate in Your hands.
It is You Who help the orphan.
15Break the arm of the wicked,ש
and seek out evil,
let wickedness not be found.
16The LORD is king for all time,
nations are lost from His land.
17The desire of the poor You have heard, O LORD,ת
You make their heart firm, Your ear listens.
18To do justice for the orphan and the wretched,
and let none still oppress man in the land.
PSALM 10 NOTES
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1. Why do You stand far off, O LORD? This note of distress does not match the mood of thanksgiving of the first half of the psalm. It is possible that material from other sources was spliced into the text at this point.
2. he devised. The Hebrew here switches from singular to plural. The scheming of the wicked against the vulnerable poor reflects a recurrent theme in Psalms of a plea for social justice.
3. the wicked did vaunt . . . / grasping for gain—cursed, blasphemed the LORD. The translation seeks to rescue some meaning from the received text, but the whole verse as it stands is not very intelligible.
4. The wicked sought not in his towering wrath. Syntax and idiom are confusing. The text that has come down to us again looks suspect.
5. His ways are uncertain. The textual difficulties continue through this patch of the poem. The meaning of the verb yaḥilu (rendered as “are uncertain”) is uncertain. “Your judgments are high up above him” is literally “Height Your judgments before him.” The meaning of the verb yafiaḥ (“enflames”) is no more than an educated guess, and it could even be a noun, “witness.”
6. I will not come to harm. The Hebrew (literally, “that is not in harm [or, evil]”) is crabbed and unclear.
9. as he pulls with his net. At this point the poet abandons the lion simile and represents the evildoer as a human schemer lying in wait with a net to entangle his victim.
10. The lowly. Instead of the enigmatic widkeh (the qeri, the marginal notation of how to sound the word, here is yidkeh, “he will be low”) of the Masoretic Text, this translation assumes the original reading was nidkeh or wedakh, either of which means “the lowly.”
14. The wretched leaves his fate in Your hands. The Hebrew is far less smooth than this. A literal representation of the sequence of Hebrew words would be: “to give in Your hands upon You the wretched leaves.” This could scarcely be the original form of the text.
17. The desire of the poor. The conclusion of the psalm, formally signaled by the initial letter taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, returns to the thanksgiving theme that was sounded at the beginning and thus appears to be part of the original poem.
18. let none still oppress man in the land. The very last words of the psalm once more are not entirely transparent in the Hebrew. The concluding phrase in the Hebrew is literally “from the land,” which seems better suited to a verb such as “wipe out” or “drive out” than “oppress,” but the Hebrew verb used means rather “to oppress” or “to terrorize.”