Translation commentary on Psalm 3:7

In verse 1a it was the enemies who were “rising against me.” Now the psalmist, whose courage has been restored, calls out Arise, O LORD! using the same verb as in verse 1a.

Arise: a cry for help, asking Yahweh to bestir himself, to take action. So Bible en français courant has “Intervene, Lord.” The idea may be implicit that God is to rise from his heavenly throne in order to go into action; see the word as used in the marching song of the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings (Num 10.35; see also Psa 68.1). But the general idea of “act,” “take action,” is probably what the Hebrew verb means.

Deliver me: the verb is related to the noun translated “help” in verse 2. In this context the translation “Save me” (Good News Translation and others) seems the best in English.

Deliver me, O my God requires two adjustments in some languages: First, it may be necessary to state the condition from which deliverance is sought. Here it is from enemies. Secondly, the expression my God may have to be recast as “the God whom I worship,” since God may not be thought of as one’s possession.

The psalmist reminds God of his readiness to act, as an incentive for him to act now. For introduces the ground or basis on which the psalmist calls for God to help him. The psalmist knows that God can and will defeat his enemies.

The two figures of God “smiting the enemies on the cheek” and “breaking the teeth of the wicked” represent his attacking them and defeating them. To smite … the cheek was an insulting gesture of humiliation and shame (see 1 Kgs 22.24; Job 16.10; Micah 5.1). To break the teeth was a figure for making the enemy powerless to harm (see 58.6).

These two parallel lines are to be considered as a whole. There is no intention of the psalmist to make one statement about his enemies and another about wicked people. The parallelism is that of process followed by consequence. The structure is two noun phrases bracketed by verbs. Literally in Hebrew “For you strike my enemies on the cheek, the teeth of the wicked you break.” The focusing is done by placing the consequence in the second clause. In order to maintain the unity of the two lines in translation, it may be clearer to say, for example, “When you hit my enemies in the face, you break their teeth to pieces.” If the translator wishes to replace these forceful figures with nonfigurative expressions (see Good News Translation), the process-consequence relation should be reflected in the translation.

In translation it may be necessary to employ a different set of metaphors; for example, smite … enemies is sometimes rendered “to bend the enemy’s head down,” “to take away the enemy’s name,” or “to cause the enemy’s eyes to lower.” The translation of break the teeth will again require in most languages a different figure of speech or an expression meaning “to render those wicked enemies harmless” or “take away their power so that they cannot harm me.”

Instead of the descriptive present tense, “You punish … and leave” (Good News Translation; also Revised Standard Version and others), the Hebrew perfect tense may be translated as a future (An American Translation) or as a way of referring to action in the past (Briggs, Kirkpatrick). New International Version translates as though the Hebrew were imperative. Dahood interprets the initial Hebrew conjunction as an emphatic particle introducing a wish: “O that you yourself would smite all my foes on the jaw!” It seems best to follow Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation.

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 .

Sleep Peacefully - Psalm 3

The following is an English translation of Psalm 3 into song by linguists & professional musicians under the auspices of The Spoken English Bible , an oral Bible translation designed to reach Americans who may not yet engage with Scripture and to serve as a model for Bible translation in minority languages.

Creative Commons Attribution license

Psalm 3: Layer by Layer

The following is a presentation by the Psalms: Layer by Layer project, run by Scriptura .


Copyright © Scriptura

The overview in French (click or tap here to view the video):


Copyright © Scriptura

Psalm 3 as classical Chinese poetry

John Wu Ching-hsiung (1899-1986) was a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang, a renowned jurist who studied in Europe and the United States, and served as a professor of law at Soochow University, as a judge and the Acting President of the Shanghai Provisional Court, and as the Vice President of the Commission for the Drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of China, before becoming the Minister of the Republic of China to the Holy See. Wu has written extensively, not only on law but also on Chinese philosophy, and has also written his autobiography, Beyond East and West, in English. Wu was a devout Catholic and had a personal relationship with Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975). Wu began translating the the Psalms in 1938, and was encouraged by Chiang to translate the entire New Testament, which he corrected in his own handwriting. (…) John Wu Ching-hsiung’s translation of the Psalms (first draft in 1946, revised in 1975) was translated into Literary Chinese in the form of poetic rhyme, with attention paid to the style of writing. According to the content and mood of the different chapters of the original psalm, Wu chose Chinese poetic forms such as tetrameter, pentameter, heptameter [4, 5 or 7 syllables/Chinese characters per stanza], and the [less formal] Sao style, and sometimes more than two poetic forms were used in a single poem. (Source: Simon Wong)

John Wu Ching-hsiung himself talks about his celebrated and much-admired (though difficult-to-understand) translation in his aforementioned autobiography: (Click or tap here to see)

“Nothing could have been farther from my mind than to translate the Bible or any parts of it with a view to publishing it as an authorized version. I had rendered some of the Psalms into Chinese verse, but that was done as a part of my private devotion and as a literary hobby. When I was in Hongkong in 1938, I had come to know Madame H. H. Kung [Soong Ai-ling], and as she was deeply interested in the Bible, I gave her about a dozen pieces of my amateurish work just for her own enjoyment. What was my surprise when, the next time I saw her, she told me, “My sister [Soong Mei-ling] has written to say that the Generalissimo [Chiang Kai-shek] likes your translation of the Psalms very much, especially the first, the fifteenth, and the twenty-third, the Psalm of the Good Shepherd!”

“In the Autumn of 1940, when I was in Chungking, the Generalissimo invited me several times to lunch with him and expressed his appreciation of the few pieces that he had read. So I sent him some more. A few days later I received a letter from Madame Chiang [Soong Mei-ling], dated September 21, 1940, in which she said that they both liked my translation of the few Psalms I had sent them. ‘For many years,’ she wrote, ‘the Generalissimo has been wanting to have a really adequate and readable Wen-li (literary) translation of the Bible. He has never been able to find anyone who could undertake the matter.’ The letter ends up by saying that I should take up the job and that ‘the Generalissimo would gladly finance the undertaking of this work.’

“After some preliminary study of the commentaries, I started my work with the Psalms on January 6, 1943, the Feast of the Epiphany.

“I had three thousand years of Chinese literature to draw upon. The Chinese vocabulary for describing the beauties of nature is so rich that I seldom failed to find a word, a phrase, and sometimes even a whole line to fit the scene. But what makes such Psalms so unique is that they bring an intimate knowledge of the Creator to bear upon a loving observation of things of nature. I think one of the reasons why my translation is so well received by the Chinese scholars is that I have made the Psalms read like native poems written by a Chinese, who happens to be a Christian. Thus to my countrymen they are at once familiar and new — not so familiar as to be jejune, and not so new as to be bizarre. I did not publish it as a literal translation, but only as a paraphrase.

“To my greatest surprise, [my translation of the Psalms] sold like hot dogs. The popularity of that work was beyond my fondest dreams. Numberless papers and periodicals, irrespective of religion, published reviews too good to be true. I was very much tickled when I saw the opening verse of the first Psalm used as a headline on the front page of one of the non-religious dailies.”


A contemporary researcher (Lindblom 2021) mentions this about Wu’s translation: “Wu created a unique and personal work of sacred art that bears the imprint of his own admitted love and devotion, a landmark achievement comparable to Antoni Gaudi’s Basilica of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain. Although its use is still somewhat limited today, it continues to attract readers for the aforementioned qualities, and continues to be used in prayers and music by those who desire beauty and an authentic Chinese-sounding text that draws from China’s ancient traditions.”

The translation of Psalm 3 from the 1946 edition is in tetrameter and pentameter (the 1946 edition did not have verse numbers either):

恃主無恐

主乎主乎。吾敵何多。耀武揚威。向我操戈。 曰彼無神助。其如予何。
主作我盾。護我周圍。主為我光。令我揚眉。 竭聲籲主。聲達靈帷。
寤寐思服。主恩罔極。 雖在重圍。何所用懾。
主乎救我。俯聽悲嗟。既批敵頰。又折其牙。 鮮民何恃。主德無涯。

Transcription into Roman alphabet:

shì zhǔ wú kǒng

zhǔ hū zhǔ hū 。 wú dí hé duō 。 yào wǔ yáng wēi 。 xiàng wǒ cāo gē 。 yuē bǐ wú shén zhù 。 qí rú yú hé 。
zhǔ zuò wǒ dùn 。 hù wǒ zhōu wéi 。 zhǔ wéi wǒ guāng 。 líng wǒ yáng méi 。 jié shēng xū zhǔ 。 shēng dá líng wéi 。
wù mèi sī fú 。 zhǔ ēn wǎng jí 。 suī zài zhòng wéi 。 hé suǒ yòng shè 。
zhǔ hū jiù wǒ 。 fǔ tīng bēi jiē 。 jì pī dí jiá 。 yòu zhē qí yá 。 xiān mín hé shì 。 zhǔ dé wú yá 。

With thanks to Simon Wong.