The psalm opens with a cry to God to listen to the psalmist’s prayer and answer him (verses 1-2a). For hide not thyself in verse 1b, see similar language and comments in 13.1; 27.9a.

Attend to me is a rather old-fashioned form of English; a more normal way of expressing the thought is “Listen to me” or “Pay attention to me.” When the psalmist asks God to answer him, the translator must not think in terms of answering a question. Here the term has the meaning of responding to the psalmist’s plea for help. Therefore in translation one must often say, for example, “help me.”

Then the psalmist describes his condition: I am overcome by my trouble (verse 2b). The Hebrew verb is of uncertain meaning; this form occurs elsewhere only in Genesis 27.40, where it appears to mean “break loose”; see New Jerusalem Bible “I am tossed about.” The Septuagint has “I am grieved” (also Vulgate); Jerome “I am humiliated.” The general idea is clear enough: worry, concern, lack of peace; one possibility is “distraught”; Weiser “restless.”

As the Revised Standard Version verse division shows, the initial verb form of the fifth line of the psalm (Revised Standard Version I am distraught) is in the Masoretic text the end of verse 2, not the beginning of verse 3. For aesthetic reasons Good News Translation has placed the verse number 3 at the beginning of the line.

I am distraught translates a verb which means “be in a stir” (the Septuagint translates “I am troubled”). Good News Translation “the threats of my enemies” translates what is literally “the voice of my enemy”; see New Jerusalem Bible “outcry” and New Jerusalem Bible “clamor,” both of which are better than Revised Standard Version noise.

In verse 3b oppression translates a word found only here in the Old Testament. Good News Translation in verse 3b supplies the verb “crushed” as being more appropriate for oppression; the Hebrew text has only one verb for both lines, namely, am distraught. The phrase because of the oppression of the wicked must be restructured in many languages; for example, “I am crushed by the evil people who oppress me” or “I am defeated because bad people oppress me.”

In verse 3c they bring translates the causative form of a Hebrew verb which means “to totter, shake” (see “be moved” in 10.6), with the direct object trouble. Briggs sees the figure of an enemy force rolling stones down from the heights upon the foe in the valley. There seems to be no need for the kind of a note that Revised Standard Version has; the other translations do not feel the need of one. New Jerusalem Bible translates “they heap up charges against me,” and New Jerusalem Bible “they bring evil upon me.” Bible en français courant may be recommended: “they cause evil to fall upon me.”

Cherish enmity translates a verb found only here in the Psalms; it means to nurse a grudge, to cherish hatred (K-B). New English Bible translates the line “they revile me in their anger” (also New International Version). A number of translations see hostile activity expressed by the verb; New Jerusalem Bible “furiously harass me”; Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “attack me with fury”; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “attack me furiously.”

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 .