Bear pain: according to the Revised Standard Version footnote this translates the Syriac (see also New American Bible); the Hebrew text means “hold counsels.” The Masoretic text is etsot, which normally means “plans”; Syriac (see the margin of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) is atsabot “pains.” The verb means “to place, put”; and “to put pain,” as Briggs points out, is a unique expression, so that the scribes (according to him), by deleting one letter from the Hebrew noun, changed the original “pains” into “plans” of the Masoretic text. But according to some scholars the Hebrew text can be translated “How long shall I continue devising plans (in my mind)?” That is, the psalmist in vain tries to think of ways to improve the situation. So New Jerusalem Bible “How long must I nurse rebellion in my soul?” taking the word to have the same meaning here that it has in 106.43b (so K-B, Holladay). Some scholars hold that the Hebrew word itself can mean pain, anguish (see references in Anderson); so Good News Translation, New English Bible, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy; New Jerusalem Bible “cares”; Bible de Jérusalem “grief”; Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “worry”; Dahood “doubts.”
In translation it is often necessary to distinguish between physical pain and emotional distress, distress being appropriate in this passage. Sorrow is frequently spoken of by figures of speech such as “a heavy heart” or “a spoiled heart.”
Soul translates nefesh (see 3.2), which is parallel to heart in the next line. For an earlier use of heart, see 4.7.
All the day (Good News Translation “day and night”) translates a word meaning “by day, in the daytime,” which seems to represent the intensity and extensiveness of the psalmist’s sorrow, since grief is ordinarily associated with the nighttime.2 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project says the Hebrew may be interpreted in two ways: (1) “all the day,” “for length of days,” meaning every day; (2) “(even) by day,” that is, in daytime as well as at night. What Good News Translation has done on a translational basis is done on a textual basis by New English Bible and New Jerusalem Bible, following the Septuagint, which adds “and by night.” New Jerusalem Bible, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Bible en français courant translate “all day”; New American Bible “every day.” All the day must often be expressed as “all the time,” “without sleeping,” or “without closing the eyes.”
Be exalted translates the verb “to be high” (see also 12.8). My enemy is taken by Good News Translation to be a collective noun, “my enemies” (as it clearly is in verse 4a, parallel with “my adversaries” in verse 4b). Dahood understands it to mean death and translates “my Foe” (as in verse 4). “Enemies” must sometimes be rendered as “people who hate me” or “people who fight me.” The entire expression in line c may sometimes be expressed in translation as “How long will the people who hate me win their battle?” or as a negative request, “Don’t let those who hate me cause me to fall.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .