Psalm 10 Semantics

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(For more information, click "Phrase-level Legend" below.)

Phrase-level Legend

Visualization	Description
	The prepositional phrase is indicated by a solid green oval.
	The construct chain is indicated by a solid yellow oval.
	When the conjunction ו appears at the phrase-level (not clause-level), it is indicated by a solid light purple oval.
	The article is indicated by a solid blue oval.

v. 1

v. 2

• The association of נפש with the root אבה 'implies a specific aspect of its meaning, i.e., desire, will, longing. n., then, is not fundamentally a passive state of being but an active pursuit of something’.
• Do the wicked ‘pursue’ the poor or ‘oppress’ them? SDBH identifies the use of דלק in Psalm 10.2 as the only instance of the meaning ‘to oppress’, via metaphorical extension: ‘causative action by which humans cause hardship to other humans < as if continuously pursuing them’. Other lexica, however, do not transfer meaning from the domain of a chase (‘pursue’) into that of persecution/oppression (> ‘oppress’). DCH cites this verse under דלק II ‘to pursue’, along with the following verses: וַיָּשֻׁ֙בוּ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל מִדְּלֹ֖ק אַחֲרֵ֣י פְלִשְׁתִּ֑ים ‘The Israelites turned back from pursuing after the Philistines’ (1 Sam 17:53); מַ֣ה חַטָּאתִ֔י כִּ֥י דָלַ֖קְתָּ אַחֲרָֽי׃ ‘What is my offense that you have pursued after me?’ (Gen 31:36); קַלִּ֤ים הָיוּ֙ רֹדְפֵ֔ינוּ …דְּלָקֻ֔נוּ ‘Our pursuer were swift...they pursued us...’ (Lam 4:19). HALOT glosses as ‘hotly to pursue’; BDB also glosses this way but rightly notices that Psa 10:2 and Lam 4:19 are directly followed by their objects whereas in the other two verses they are complemented with אחרי. Keil and Delitzsch read the subject here as עני and so construe the maning of דלק as ‘burn’, yet their comment still reflects the fact that the context gives rise to the implication that the ‘wicked’ are the agents of the burning: ‘the verb דָּלַק which calls to mind דַּלֶּקֶת, πυρετός, is perhaps chosen with reference to the heat of feeling under oppression, which is the result of the persecution.’ In the notes to this verse for the ‘grammar’ layer, it was argued that ‘burning’ is probably not the right interpretation of this word, since it is not clear what it means. Thus, Keil and Delitzsch seem to support the SDBH gloss. Briggs (1906, 76) comments that ‘persecutre’ (and we could include ‘oppress’ here) is ‘too general’. He opts for ‘hotly pursue’. Kraus (1960, 75) translates as verfolgen ‘pursue’, although it's not clear why. It seems to us that ‘oppress’ is more of an interpretation rather than the semantics of the word. The imagery of a trap reflected by יתפשו in the next verse also suggests the idea of a pursuit here.

v. 3

• ‘ This categorization, qal for a divine subj. and pi. for a divine obj., is no accident: the qal indicates the actual completion of an act, the pi. limits the activity to volitional intention (cf. HP 225f.). The individual songs of lament accuse the “godless” of disdaining Yahweh (Psa 10:3, 13); the communal laments charge his enemies with speaking lightly of his name (Psa 74:10, 18). This disdain results from the arrogance that leads evildoers to conclude that they need not regard God’.
• ‘‘Avoidance of the qal with God as direct object means that it is impossible for human n'ṣ really to affect God; with the hoelp of the piel, n'ṣ is “limited to the mental intent oand attitude of the blashpemer”.

v. 4

• כגבה אפו: ‘The second word can, of course, be translated “anger”, but “the exaltedness of his anger” would have to be paraphrased to mean that (in the opinion of the wicked) even when the LORD’s anger is high he still does not demand anything from the wicked (see A. A. Anderson, Psalms 1—72, p. 114). In this context it is simpler to take the words to refer to the scornful proud expression on the face of the wicked’. . According to Jenni, the manner of the action is in agreement with a quality that the agent always possesses.
• The word מזמות cannot mean 'thoughts'. All his 'plans' being 'there is no God' means that all his plans amounts to there being no God.

v. 5

• ”The pl. mišpāṭîm mentioned in relation to Yahweh—in almost all the pl. passages—refers to the casuistic laws that have been incorporated into the law of Yahweh’.
• ‘Time’ here probably has the sense of ‘occasion’—a discrete portion of time. The psalmist is saying that each occasion of the wicked's conduct ends successfully. This is not a comment on the nature of time in general, in which sense that the wicked's ways endure would be an immutable truth.

v. 6

• דר ודר, lit., ׳generation and generation׳; that is, each successive generation perpetually.

v. 7

• On און: ‘The chief meaning of the term largely reflects its etymology: destructive power (S. Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien [1921], 1:30ff.). Its usage presupposes a dynamistic understanding of existence (a concept of domains of action): disaster is a mighty process, and might, when it assumes a negative form, is disaster’
• The mouth is thought of as a chamber where words are stored for use (Baetghegan 1904, 28). BDB: ‘of something held there as a dainty morsel, and ready, when needed, to be brought out, fig. of sweetness Ct 4:11, of evil ψ 10:7’, cf. Craige (2004:124-125): ‘The Hebrew poetry conveys the implication that the trouble and iniquity which are “under his tongue” are a source of pleasurable taste and genuine delight to the wicked person...The wicked person not only speaks evil, but positively delights in it!’
• The wicked's mouth engages in three things connected by waw. Notice the close connection between the final two items with waw + qamets so that the list is actually 1 item plus 2 closely related items (possibly a hendiadys) See Revel 2015 on waw + qamets.

v. 8

• See Josh 8:9 and Judg 9:35 for מארב as a physical place.
• Here, the eyes are hidden (in ambush) in order to ambush the חלכה. Hence, חלכה is marked with ל. According to Jenni the syntactic construction of marking an object with a preposition is used to express an occurrence applied to the syntactic object that is the expected outcome of the verb—The verbs cause the event implied (for which they are a purpose).

v. 9

v. 10

• The word עצומיו here is difficult because substantival adjectives like these typically refer to animate entities. However, in Psa 10:10 this simply does not work. The 3ms suffix on עצומיו refers to the antagonist who is the subject of the verbs in v. 9; the text gives no impression that this antagonist has an entourage and so translating verse 10 as 'the strength of the disheartened (or the wretches [ketiv]) fall by his mighty ones' does not make much sense. Several options have been proposed as a solution to this difficulty.
  • Some translations gloss as ‘strong ones’.This contrasts nicely with the ketiv חלכאים, rightly connects the suffix to the generic רשע in v. 4, and maintains the typical meaning of עצום. It effectively says that wretches fall through all the instantiations of the idea רשע. The only difficulty here is the phrasal semantics of עצומיו. This is an awkward way to express entity-class membership.
  • Some versions seem as if they are reading an infinitive (עצוֹם?) with temporal ב.. This requires emendation of the text. Which does not seem to be justified.
  • Some read עצומיו as an abstract substantive. ‘The word for “strength” is written in the plural as an abstract plural to emphasize the idea'.. For this to be true עצוּם must be analysed as a noun, and so it begs the question (cf. JM §136g).
  • Another option is to understand this as an instnace of Antimeria, defined as ‘an expected noun is replaced by an adjective describing some essential characteristic of the elided noun'...'the artistic use of a descriptive term for a closely associated noun'.Murphy gives the example ‘The white fell gently upon the Canadian forest‘. Waltke and O'Conner gives the Hebrew example עַל־קַל נִרְכָּב ‘We will ride off on a swift (steed)’ (Isa 30:16). BDB's entry reads ψ 10:10 his mighty ones (i.e. claws, of lion). The only difficulty here, however, is that the simile with the lion is discontinued at the mentioning of the 'net' in v. 9
  • Briggs (1906, 80) reads 'great numbers'. This has no support from modern translations. Additionally, The only difficulty here, however, is that the simile with the lion is discontinued at the mentioning of the 'net' in v. 9.
  • We have chosen to analyse this as an instance of Antimeria, since this view has the fewest difficulties.

v. 11

v. 12

v. 13

v. 14

• As stated plainly in TLOT (2:786), 'lātēt beyādekā, is difficult.' NETS also recognises that 'It is uncertain who or what is being given into God’s hand.' The accentuation suggests to read the phrase with what comes before, in which case the object is the עמל וכעס and the semantics of the preposition ב is localisation 'in'—'to take it into your hand' ([H]CSB; LEB; NASB1995; NIV; RSV; DELUT [G]; NBH [G]; SCH2000 [G]; BDS [F]; TLA [S]?) >> 'to “take care” of it (viz., the trouble and hardship) >> to take control (Hupfeld 1888, 169; so Jenni 1992, 200). So Ross (2011, 316) ‘the verse simply says that God will take care of it, and the next line harmonizes with that (“the helpless leaves it to you”). Many translations also reflect this interpretation (). This is the simpler reading of the text and has a conceptual parallel in Psa 56:9 where God gathers tears into a bottle (Baethegan 1904, 29). Also, the second half of the verse sheds light on the meaning here. It is the burden of the afflicted that the afflicted 'abandon' into God's hand (Olshausen 1863, 57). Some translations, however, reflect some variation of translating נתן as 'requite' (So Craigie 1983, 121). This interpretation, it seems, originated with Briggs (1906, 87), who cites Psalm 28:4 and 120:3 as support for translating נתן as 'requite'. In both cases, however, the verb has ל–[ANIMATE ENTITY] as a complement, viz., 'give to him' >> 'give to him (as payback) >> 'requite'. Such an interpretation was already suggested by Qimḥi, '...It is in Your power (lit., 'hand') to give to him recompense whenever you desire' (בידך לתת לו גמול בכל עת שתרצה). If only the phrase לתת לו is considered 'to requite' then the bet preposition must be analysed as instrument 'with'. But herein lies confusion among translations, some which interpret only the unit לתת לו as 'requite (with Your hand)' (ASV, KJV; TOJB2011; ELBBK [G]; LBLA [S]) and others the whole unit לתת לו בידך as simply 'to requite' (NLT; DHH94I [S]; NTV [S]). The problem with applying this translation here is that it requires one to posit an elided לו whose referent would still remain unclear, e.g., '...giving recompense to the faithless and/or to the wretched...' (Goldingay 2006, 182). Another problem is that 'recompense' is simply a contextual interpretation due to the 'impossibility of at once assigning such a meaning to giving' (Hegstenberg 1863, 170; cf. Hupfeld 1888, 169).
• Note the waw + qamets on עמל וכעס: 'The strong vocalisation is particularly frequent when two analogous words are closely associated and form a group' (JM §104d), e.g., זָהב וָכֶסֶף.'

v. 15

v. 16

v. 17

• The waw + qamets in the phrase יתום ודך possibly expresses that both the fatherless and oppressed were thought of as belonging to a larger group.

v. 18