Psalms 94

Lord God, you are the one who pays back wrong. God, you are the one who pays back wrong. Show yourself.

1O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.

Note"Vengeance" translates a Hebrew word for legally owed payback, the redress a judge, or a wronged family's protector, is entitled to exact. It is a courtroom idea rather than private spite. "Shew thyself" renders a verb meaning to shine out or blaze forth, used of God appearing in light to rescue or to pass sentence. Note also that where the King James prints LORD in capital letters it is standing in for God's personal name in Hebrew, while plain "Lord" is the ordinary title meaning master.

2Stand up, you who judge the earth. Give proud people what they have earned.

2Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.

Note"Render a reward" does not mean hand out a prize. In 1611 English a "reward" was simply what someone had coming to them, good or bad; here it is the payment due for wrongdoing.

3Lord, how long will wicked people celebrate? How long?

3LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?

Note"Triumph" in the King James means to gloat or crow over a victory, not to win one.

4How long will they pour out harsh, boastful words? How long will everyone who does evil brag?

4How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?

5They crush your people, Lord. They grind down the people who belong to you.

5They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.

Note"Heritage" here, and "inheritance" in v. 14, translate a Hebrew word for the plot of land permanently allotted to a family and handed down through it. Israel is spoken of as the portion allotted to God himself, property he holds rather than something he can trade away or lose.

6They kill the widow and the foreigner. They murder children who have no father.

6They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.

NoteWidows, fatherless children and resident foreigners were the three groups in Israelite society with no man of the household to speak for them in court or hold land on their behalf. Israel's laws single them out repeatedly for protection, which is why harming them stands here as the sharpest available example of lawlessness.

7And they say, "The Lord does not see it. The God of Jacob pays no attention."

7Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

NoteJacob was the ancestor from whom the twelve tribes of Israel were reckoned to descend. "The God of Jacob" is a standard way of saying the God this particular nation worships.

8Pay attention, you senseless people. You fools, when will you get some sense?

8Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

Note"Brutish" in 1611 English meant animal-like, dull, unable to reason things through. It did not mean cruel or violent.

9The one who made the ear (will he not hear? The one who formed the eye) will he not see?

9He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

10The one who corrects whole nations (will he not punish? The one who teaches people what they know) does he not know?

10He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?

Note"The heathen" in the King James simply means the nations, the peoples other than Israel. It carries no suggestion of savagery or of having no religion.

11The Lord knows what people think, and he knows their thoughts are empty.

11The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

Note"Vanity" in the King James does not mean conceit. It means emptiness: the Hebrew word pictures a breath or a puff of vapor, something with no substance that cannot be held onto.

12Lord, the person you correct is well off, the person you teach from your law.

12Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law;

Note"Blessed" here means fortunate, well off, in an enviable position, a comment on how the person stands, not a status conferred on them. "Chastenest" means disciplines or trains, as a parent trains a child, rather than punishes. "Thy law" translates torah, a word covering instruction and teaching as much as legislation.

13You give that person relief from hard days, until a pit is dug for the wicked.

13That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

NoteA pit dug for the wicked is a hunting image: a covered trap dug in the ground for a large animal to fall into. The digging goes on out of sight while the quarry walks about unaware.

14The Lord will not throw his people away. He will not walk off and leave the people who belong to him.

14For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.

15Judging will become fair again, and everyone with an honest heart will follow it.

15But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.

NoteThis line is compressed in the Hebrew and can be read more than one way: that legal verdicts will go back to being based on what is right, or that the right to judge will pass back to those who are upright. The rendering takes the first sense; the ambiguity is in the original.

16Who will stand up for me against evil people? Who will take my side against those who do wrong?

16Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?

17If the Lord had not helped me, I would soon have been living in the land of silence.

17Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

Note"The land of silence" is the world of the dead, pictured in Hebrew poetry as a place underground where no one speaks and nothing is heard. To go and live there means simply to die.

18When I said, "My foot is slipping," your faithful love, Lord, held me up.

18When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.

Note"Mercy" translates hesed, the loyal and committed love that one party owes another inside a binding relationship. It is dependable follow-through rather than a warm feeling.

19When worries crowd inside me, your comfort makes me glad.

19In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.

NoteThe Hebrew word behind "my thoughts" means specifically the churning, unsettling kind, worries and agitation, not ideas.

20Can a corrupt ruler be your partner, one who uses the law itself to cause harm?

20Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

NoteA "throne" stands for the person sitting on it and the power he holds; in Israel the king was also the highest court, so a corrupt throne is a crooked judge. "Frameth mischief by a law" means writing harm into the statutes, making injustice legal rather than merely committing it.

21They band together against the life of a person who does right, and they condemn innocent people to death.

21They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

Note"Condemn the innocent blood" is a Hebrew legal idiom: to return a guilty verdict, and so a death sentence, against someone whose blood carries no bloodguilt. "Blood" here stands for a life taken.

22But the Lord has been my safe place, and my God is the rock where I hide.

22But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.

Note"Defence" and "rock of my refuge" draw on the terrain of Judea, where a high outcrop of rock with caves and ledges was a literal hiding place from raiders or an army, hard to reach and impossible to shift.

23He will bring their own wrongdoing back on them. He will destroy them for their own evil. The Lord our God will destroy them.

23And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.

Note"Cut them off" is a standard Hebrew expression for putting someone to death or wiping out their family line, not merely for shutting them out.