Psalm 6-10
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Psalm 6[a]
Prayer in Distress
1 For the leader; with stringed instruments, “upon the eighth.”[b]
A psalm of David.
I
2 Do not reprove me in your anger, Lord,
nor punish me in your wrath.(A)
3 Have pity on me, Lord, for I am weak;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are shuddering.(B)
4 My soul too is shuddering greatly—
and you, Lord, how long…?[c](C)
5 Turn back, Lord, rescue my soul;
save me because of your mercy.
6 For in death there is no remembrance of you.
Who praises you in Sheol?[d](D)
II
7 I am wearied with sighing;
all night long I drench my bed with tears;
I soak my couch with weeping.
8 My eyes are dimmed with sorrow,
worn out because of all my foes.(E)
III
9 Away from me, all who do evil!(F)
The Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
10 The Lord has heard my plea;
the Lord will receive my prayer.
11 My foes will all be disgraced and will shudder greatly;
they will turn back in sudden disgrace.(G)
Psalm 7[e]
God the Vindicator
1 A plaintive song of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, the Benjaminite.
I
2 Lord my God, in you I trusted;
save me; rescue me from all who pursue me,(H)
3 Lest someone maul me like a lion,
tear my soul apart with no one to deliver.
II
4 Lord my God, if I have done this,[f]
if there is guilt on my hands,
5 If I have maltreated someone treating me equitably—
or even despoiled my oppressor without cause—
6 Then let my enemy pursue and overtake my soul,
trample my life to the ground,
and lay my honor in the dust.(I)
Selah
III
7 Rise up, Lord, in your anger;
be aroused against the outrages of my oppressors.(J)
Stir up the justice, my God, you have commanded.
8 Have the assembly of the peoples gather about you;
and return on high above them,
9 the Lord will pass judgment on the peoples.
Judge me, Lord, according to my righteousness,
and my integrity.
10 Let the malice of the wicked end.
Uphold the just one,
O just God,(K)
who tries hearts and minds.
IV
11 God is a shield above me
saving the upright of heart.(L)
12 God is a just judge, powerful and patient,[g]
not exercising anger every day.
13 If one does not repent,
God sharpens his sword,
strings and readies the bow,(M)
14 Prepares his deadly shafts,
makes arrows blazing thunderbolts.(N)
V
15 Consider how one conceives iniquity;
is pregnant with mischief,
and gives birth to deception.(O)
16 He digs a hole and bores it deep,
but he falls into the pit he has made.(P)
17 His malice turns back upon his head;
his violence falls on his own skull.
VI
18 I will thank the Lord in accordance with his justice;
I will sing the name of the Lord Most High.(Q)
Psalm 8[h]
Divine Majesty and Human Dignity
1 For the leader; “upon the gittith.”[i] A psalm of David.
2 O Lord, our Lord,
how awesome is your name through all the earth!
I will sing of your majesty above the heavens
3 with the mouths of babes(R) and infants.[j]
You have established a bulwark against your foes,
to silence enemy and avenger.
4 When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place—
5 [k]What is man that you are mindful of him,(S)
and a son of man that you care for him?(T)
6 Yet you have made him little less than a god,[l]
crowned him with glory and honor.
7 You have given him rule over the works of your hands,(U)
put all things at his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen,
even the beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
10 O Lord, our Lord,
how awesome is your name through all the earth!
Psalm 9[m]
Thanksgiving for Victory and Prayer for Justice
1 For the leader; according to Muth Labben.[n] A psalm of David.
I
2 I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart;
I will declare all your wondrous deeds.
3 I will delight and rejoice in you;
I will sing hymns to your name, Most High.
4 When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before you.
II
5 For you upheld my right and my cause,
seated on your throne, judging justly.
6 You rebuked the nations, you destroyed the wicked;
their name you blotted out for all time.(V)
7 The enemies have been ruined forever;
you destroyed their cities;
their memory has perished.
III
8 The Lord rules forever,
has set up his throne for judgment.
9 It is he who judges the world with justice,(W)
who judges the peoples with fairness.
10 The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.(X)
11 Those who know your name trust in you;
you never forsake those who seek you, Lord.
IV
12 Sing hymns to the Lord enthroned on Zion;
proclaim his deeds among the nations!
13 For the avenger of bloodshed remembers,
does not forget the cry of the afflicted.(Y)
V
14 Be gracious to me, Lord;
see how my foes afflict me!
You alone can raise me from the gates of death.(Z)
15 Then I will declare all your praises,
sing joyously of your salvation
in the gates of daughter Zion.[o]
VI
16 The nations fall into the pit they dig;
in the snare they hide, their own foot is caught.
17 [p]The Lord is revealed in making judgments:
by the deeds they do the wicked are trapped.(AA)
Higgaion. Selah
VII
18 To Sheol the wicked will depart,
all the nations that forget God.
19 For the needy will never be forgotten,
nor will the hope of the afflicted ever fade.(AB)
20 Arise, Lord, let no mortal prevail;
let the nations be judged in your presence.
21 Strike them with terror, Lord;
show the nations they are only human.
Selah
Psalm 10
I
1 Why, Lord, do you stand afar
and pay no heed in times of trouble?
2 Arrogant scoundrels pursue the poor;
they trap them by their cunning schemes.(AC)
II
3 The wicked even boast of their greed;
these robbers curse and scorn the Lord.(AD)
4 In their insolence the wicked boast:
“God does not care; there is no God.”(AE)
5 Yet their affairs always succeed;
they ignore your judgment on high;
they sneer at all who oppose them.
6 They say in their hearts, “We will never fall;
never will we see misfortune.”
7 Their mouths are full of oaths, violence, and lies;
discord and evil are under their tongues.(AF)
8 They wait in ambush near towns;
their eyes watch for the helpless
to murder the innocent in secret.(AG)
9 They lurk in ambush like lions in a thicket,
hide there to trap the poor,
snare them and close the net.(AH)
10 The helpless are crushed, laid low;
they fall into the power of the wicked,
11 Who say in their hearts, “God has forgotten,
shows no concern, never bothers to look.”(AI)
III
12 Rise up, Lord! God, lift up your hand!
Do not forget the poor!
13 Why should the wicked scorn God,
say in their hearts, “God does not care”?
14 But you do see;
you take note of misery and sorrow;(AJ)
you take the matter in hand.
To you the helpless can entrust their cause;
you are the defender of orphans.(AK)
15 Break the arm of the wicked and depraved;
make them account for their crimes;
let none of them survive.
IV
16 The Lord is king forever;(AL)
the nations have vanished from his land.
17 You listen, Lord, to the needs of the poor;
you strengthen their heart and incline your ear.
18 You win justice for the orphaned and oppressed;(AM)
no one on earth will cause terror again.
Footnotes
- Psalm 6 The first of the seven Penitential Psalms (Ps 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143), a designation dating from the seventh century A.D. for Psalms suitable to express repentance. The psalmist does not, as in many laments, claim to be innocent but appeals to God’s mercy (Ps 6:5). Sin here, as often in the Bible, is both the sinful act and its injurious consequences; here it is physical sickness (Ps 6:3–4, 7–8) and the attacks of enemies (Ps 6:8, 9, 11). The psalmist prays that the effects of personal and social sin be taken away.
- 6:1 Upon the eighth: apparently a musical notation, now lost.
- 6:4 How long?: elliptical for “How long will it be before you answer my prayer?” cf. Ps 13:2–3.
- 6:6 A motive for God to preserve the psalmist from death: in the shadowy world of the dead no one offers you praise. Sheol is the biblical term for the underworld where the insubstantial souls of dead human beings dwelt. It was similar to the Hades of Greek and Latin literature. In the second century B.C., biblical books begin to speak positively of life with God after death (Dn 12:1–3; Wis 3).
- Psalm 7 An individual lament. The psalmist flees to God’s presence in the sanctuary for justice and protection (Ps 7:2–3) and takes an oath that only the innocent can swear (Ps 7:4–6). The innocent psalmist can thus hope for the just God’s protection (Ps 7:7–14) and be confident that the actions of the wicked will come back upon their own heads (Ps 7:15–17). The justice of God leads the psalmist to praise (Ps 7:18).
- 7:4 Have done this: in the accusation the enemies have made against the psalmist.
- 7:12 Powerful and patient: the inclusion of these words is drawn from the Septuagint tradition concerning this verse.
- Psalm 8 While marvelling at the limitless grandeur of God (Ps 8:2–3), the psalmist is struck first by the smallness of human beings in creation (Ps 8:4–5), and then by the royal dignity and power that God has graciously bestowed upon them (Ps 8:6–9).
- 8:1 Upon the gittith: probably the title of the melody to which the Psalm was to be sung or a musical instrument.
- 8:3 With the mouths of babes and infants: the psalmist realizes that his attempts to praise such an awesome God are hopelessly inadequate and amount to little more than the sounds made by infants. Established a bulwark: an allusion to lost myth telling how God built a fortress for himself in the heavens in primordial times in his battle with the powers of chaos. This “bulwark” is the firmament. Enemy and avenger: probably cosmic enemies. The primeval powers of watery chaos are often personified in poetic texts (Ps 74:13–14; 89:11; Jb 9:13; 26:12–13; Is 51:9).
- 8:5 Man…a son of man: the emphasis is on the fragility and mortality of human beings to whom God has given great dignity.
- 8:6 Little less than a god: Hebrew ‘elohim, the ordinary word for “God” or “the gods” or members of the heavenly court. The Greek version translated ‘elohim by “angel, messenger”; several ancient and modern versions so translate. The meaning seems to be that God created human beings almost at the level of the beings in the heavenly world. Hb 2:9, translating “for a little while,” finds the eminent fulfillment of this verse in Jesus Christ, who was humbled before being glorified, cf. also 1 Cor 15:27 where St. Paul applies to Christ the closing words of Ps 8:7.
- Psalms 9–10 Ps 9 and Ps 10 in the Hebrew text have been transmitted as separate poems but they actually form a single acrostic poem and are so transmitted in the Greek and Latin tradition. Each verse of the two Psalms begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet (though several letters have no corresponding stanza). The Psalm states loosely connected themes: the rescue of the helpless poor from their enemies, God’s worldwide judgment and rule over the nations, the psalmist’s own concern for rescue (Ps 9:14–15).
- 9:1 Muth Labben: probably the melodic accompaniment of the Psalm, now lost.
- 9:15 Daughter Zion: an ancient Near Eastern city could sometimes be personified as a woman or a queen, the spouse of the god of the city.
- 9:17 The Lord is revealed in making judgments: God has so made the universe that the wicked are punished by the very actions they perform. Selah: see note on Ps 3:3.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.