1For the lead player, a David psalm.
2Free me, LORD, from evil folk,
from a violent man preserve me.
3Who plot evil in their heart,
4 They sharpen their tongue like a serpent,
venom of spiders beneath their lip.
selah
5Guard me, LORD, from the wicked man’s hands,
from a violent man preserve me,
who plots to trip up my steps.
6The haughty laid down a trap for me,
and with cords they spread out a net.
Alongside the path they set snares for me.
selah
7I said to the LORD, “My God are You.
Hearken, O LORD, to the sound of my pleas.”
8 LORD, Master, my rescuing strength,
You sheltered my head on the day of the fray.
9 Do not grant, O LORD, the desires of the wicked,
do not fulfill his devising.
selah
10May the mischief of their own lips
cover the heads of those who come round me.
11 May He rain coals of fire upon them,
make them fall into ravines, never to rise.
12 May no slanderer stand firm in the land,
may the violent evil man be trapped in pitfalls.
13I know that the LORD will take up
the cause of the lowly, the case of the needy.
14Yes, the righteous will acclaim Your name,
the upright will dwell in Your presence.
PSALM 140 NOTES
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2. Free me, LORD, from evil folk. The poem immediately launches on a series of formulas of the psalm of supplication that continue to the end.
3. stir up battles. The Masoretic Text appears to say “fear [yaguru] battles.” A minor emendation of the verb to yegaru, which is the reading reflected in three ancient translations, yields the more likely “stir up.”
8. on the day of the fray. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “on the day of weapons.”
9. They would rise. At this point, continuing to the end of verse 12, the text shows numerous signs of mangling in scribal transmission. Attempts to reconstruct it have not been notably successful, though one might adopt the proposal of adding the negative ʾal, yielding “Let them not rise.” “They would rise” (a single word in the Hebrew) does not make evident sense in context, and the doubts about its textual authenticity are compounded by the fact that as one word with one accented syllable it does not scan and could not constitute a verset.
10. May the mischief of their own lips. The translation of the entire verse is no more than a plausible guess. The syntax looks odd, and “mischief” for ʿamal (elsewhere, either “toil” or “trouble”) is something of a stretch in order to make sense of these words.
11. May He rain. The Masoretic Text has a plural verb, yimotu, which means “will slip down” and is not the word that would be used for the coming down from the sky of a shower of fiery coals. This translation follows one version of the Syriac in reading yamteir, “May He rain,” the same verb used in Genesis to describe the destruction of Sodom.
ravines. The Hebrew mahamurot appears only here. It seems to mean a deep pit or a natural crevice, as this translation guesses.
12. slanderer. The literal meaning of the Hebrew is “man of the tongue.”
may the violent evil man be trapped in pitfalls. The Hebrew here, like the translation, is ungainly and seems too long to constitute a verset. The verb “may be trapped” is literally “may he trap him,” though sometimes in biblical Hebrew the third-person singular is used as an equivalent of the passive form of the verb. “Pitfalls,” madḥeifot, occurs only here but shows a verbal stem that means “to push over.”
13–14. The plea to be rescued from the hands of evildoers concludes with an affirmation of trust that God will intervene on behalf of the oppressed and that the righteous will enjoy God’s presence, giving thanks to Him as is due.