These verses are understood and translated in the most diverse ways possible. The Hebrew text as it now stands is quite obscure; there are many textual problems (Hebrew Old Testament Text Project deals with four in verse 5 and two in verse 7). Weiser does not translate verses 6-7, and Oesterley, though he offers a tentative translation, regards them as hopelessly corrupt. The first three editions of Bible de Jérusalem (1950, 1955, 1964) have three different translations of these verses.

Verse 5a in Hebrew seems to say “Will strike me a good man (in) constant love and rebuke me.” This is taken as a possibility by Good News Translation and implicitly so by Revised Standard Version. New Jerusalem Bible translates “Let the righteous man strike me out of loyalty, let him reprove me.” A good man translates tsadiq “righteous,” and in kindness translates chesed “constant love, loyalty.” Dahood takes the two terms to refer to Yahweh: “the Just One … the Kind One.” The expression rebuke me in kindness may have to be recast to say, for example, “be kind to me when he scolds me” or “with a good heart show me my faults.”

Verse 5b in Hebrew is “oil of the head my head will not refuse.” New Jerusalem Bible takes this to refer to the rebukes by the righteous man in the preceding line, and translates “let my head not refuse such choice oil.” The rebukes by a righteous man are considered an honor which the psalmist will not refuse. The Hebrew word “head” means also “important, best,” and so “oil of the head” may mean “the finest oil” (so Hebrew Old Testament Text Project; New Jerusalem Bible “choice oil”). Good News Translation has here followed the Septuagint “the oil of a sinner is not to be spread on my head”; this implies that the verb form, instead of being associated with the root meaning “to refuse,” is associated with the root meaning “to adorn”; and instead of the word for “head,” the Hebrew word for “evil man” is read.

The choice seems to be between “With fine oil never let my head glisten” (Dahood; also Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), or “My head will not be anointed with the oil of wicked men” (New English Bible; similarly Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible). Another interpretation is preferred by An American Translation: “If the righteous smite me–it is a kindness. And if he rebuke me–it is the finest oil; Let not my head refuse it!” See also New American Bible, New International Version, Bible en français courant, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. For “anoint the head” see 23.5.

Verse 5c in Hebrew is “for always my prayer (is) against (or, about) their evil deeds,” which, though strange, is not too difficult: “for I am always praying against their evil deeds” (so the sense of most translations and Hebrew Old Testament Text Project; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “Despite their blows I will continue to pray”). Verse 5c may have to be restructured as a concessive clause; for example, “even though they do evil deeds to me, I will go on praying.”

In verse 6a it is difficult to decide whether “their rulers” (literally “those who judge them”; so New Jerusalem Bible “their judges”) is the subject of the verb (so New Jerusalem Bible, Good News Translation) or the indirect object (so Revised Standard Version to those who shall condemn them). The verb can mean to be dropped, thrown, or hurled. Another problem is the meaning of the Hebrew phrase, which seems to be “in the hands (or, at the sides) of the rock.” New Jerusalem Bible translates the line “May their judges slip on the rock,” and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “Their rulers have been hurled on the rock.” The sense of Good News Translation is the same as given by Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy, New American Bible. Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible, and Dahood take “rock” to be a title for Yahweh (so Bible de Jérusalem “they are delivered to the power of the Rock, their judge”). This may well be the meaning intended. It is recommended that the meaning expressed by Good News Translation and others be followed. New English Bible, a little more distant from the Hebrew, has “They shall founder on the rock of justice.”

Verse 6b in Hebrew is “and they will hear my words that (or, for) they are pleasant.” What this means in the context is impossible to determine. Revised Standard Version, instead of reading the Hebrew as “my words,” takes it to be “the word of the LORD” (the final y of the Hebrew form being taken as a shortened form of Yah; see 68.4). Perhaps the nearest one can get to making sense out of this line is achieved by New Jerusalem Bible, which translates “but let my words be heard, for they are sweet,” or New English Bible “and shall learn how acceptable my words are.” Cohen’s explanation can only be regarded as a desperate suggestion: “When the evil judges … meet with the doom of being hurled to destruction from a high rock…, they will admit before they die that the words he had spoken were pleasant and regret they had taken no notice of them.” But, it must be admitted, Good News Translation‘s (and, to a lesser degree, Revised Standard Version‘s) text is only slightly better.

The first part of verse 7 goes, in Hebrew, “like cleaving and splitting (something) on earth.” What is split is not specified in the Hebrew, but this can be either rock (Revised Standard Version), “millstone” (New Jerusalem Bible), or “wood” (Good News Translation); or else, “as the ground is plowed and broken” (so New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, New American Bible, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy). Dahood takes “earth” in line a to be the world of the dead, parallel with Sheol in line b. In line b the Hebrew text is “our bones”; Syriac and some manuscripts of the Septuagint have “their bones”; the Qumran manuscript has “my bones.” The Hebrew text is hard to understand; Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, and New Jerusalem Bible try to make sense of it by taking verse 7 to be the words of the psalmist referred to in verse 6. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project translates the verse exactly as Bible de Jérusalem has it: “as a millstone broken on the floor/earth, our bones are strewn at the mouth of the Sheol.” For Sheol see 6.5. If, in spite of these cautions, the translator follows Good News Translation, for some languages there will be adaptations to be made, particularly in regard to the passives. Since it will not be possible to say who split the wood nor who scattered the bones, it may be necessary to say, for example, “their broken bones lie near the grave like pieces of wood.”

Bible en français courant translates verses 5-7 as follows:

5 I am willing for a man of goodwill to chastise me,
or for a faithful (friend) to correct me;
it is a gesture of friendship
that I will not refuse.
But the evil done by evildoers
will not stop my prayer.
6 I said without malice:
my enemies will understand it
when their judges are thrown upon a rock.
7 As a rift opens in the earth
the world of the dead will open its mouth
to swallow their scattered bones.

It seems imperative, regardless of the translation which is finally adopted, that a note indicate that verses 5-7 in Hebrew are extremely obscure, not to say unintelligible.

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 .