Speaking for himself (verses 4, 6) and for his people (verses 5, 7-8), the psalmist again affirms his faith that it is God who gives victory to his people.
In verse 4 the Masoretic text is, as the Good News Translation and Revised Standard Version footnotes show, “You are my king, O God; give victory to Jacob.” While this is possible (followed by New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Biblia Dios Habla Hoy), the text of the versions (Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate) seems better in the context and is preferred by Good News Translation, Revised Standard Version, An American Translation, New International Version, Bible en français courant, New English Bible, Bible de Jérusalem, New Jerusalem Bible.4-5 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project follows, in part, the ancient versions and recommends “God commanding” (instead of the Masoretic text “God, command”), which it translates as follows: “(it is you, my king, who) are God, deciding.”
In some languages the expression Thou art my king and my God must be recast to say, for example, “You are the king I serve and you are the God I worship” or “You are the king who rules over me and the God I worship.”
The Hebrew verb translated ordainest means “to command,” “to decide to give.” The ultimate source of victory is God’s decision to make his people win. Jacob is a way of speaking of the people of Israel.
Verse 5 has two synonymous parallel lines (see Revised Standard Version), which Good News Translation has combined and shortened into one. Through thee and through thy name (see “name” in 5.11) both mean “by your power,” “by your help.” The two verbs push down and tread down mean to “defeat”; Bible en français courant “we repel … we tread upon” (see similar language in 18.38); and our foes and our assailants are completely synonymous. The verbs evoke a picture of a wild ox goring its opponent (New Jerusalem Bible “we gore”; Dahood “we butted”). The expression Through thee we push down our foes is an event done by the people and through the instrumentality of God. In some languages it is necessary to say, for example, “we defeat our enemies and you enable us to do this” or “because you are powerful we defeat our enemies.”
The nature of the parallelism in verse 5 is that of specification in which intensification results. In line a the enemies are “pushed down,” but in line b they are dealt with more severely, “trampled down.” The two lines may be translated, for example, “You enable us to push our enemies to the ground and even to trample them to death.” Translators should consider the dynamic movement between two parallel lines as an essential part of their meaning, and avoid combining and shortening unless there is no alternative.
The translator must decide if the switching between first person singular and first person plural pronouns is an acceptable style in the receptor language. If it is not, and if it will create difficulty in understanding, it will be better to use only the plural pronoun throughout.
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 .