Eleven verses aimed at one man. The heading sends the reader to 1 Samuel 21 and 22: Doeg the Edomite reports to Saul that David was given bread and a sword at Nob, and Saul has the priests of the town killed. The psalm never mentions the killing. What it prosecutes is the tongue that made it possible, and every charge in verses 3 to 6 is an act of speech. Watch one verb: the root for trust appears in verse 9 of the man who relied on his wealth, and again in verse 10 of the speaker who relied on something else. The whole reversal is carried by that repetition.
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1
לַמְנַצֵּחַ
מַשְׂכִּיל לְדָוִד
לַמְנַצֵּחַ
lam-na-TZE-ach
for the leader
For the leader.
מַשְׂכִּיל
mas-KIL
a maskil
לְדָוִד
le-da-VID
of David
A maskil of David.
The heading names the genre before it names the situation: a maskil, an instruction piece, handed to the choirmaster.
The situation, taken from the narrative in 1 Samuel 22. Every action in it is an act of reporting: he came, he told, he said. No weapon appears anywhere in the sentence.
The accusation opens as a question, and the title given to the accused is mighty man, which the rest of the psalm sets out to disprove. The second line answers the boast rather than the man.
falsehood more than speaking what is right. Selah.
Two comparisons built on the same prefix meaning more than: evil over good, falsehood over right speech. He is not accused of confusion but of preference.
6
אָהַבְתָּ כׇל דִּבְרֵי בָלַע
לְשׁוֹן מִרְמָה
אָהַבְתָּ
a-hav-TA
you have loved
כׇל
chol
all
דִּבְרֵי
div-REI
the words of
בָלַע
VA-la
swallowing up
You have loved every devouring word,
לְשׁוֹן
le-SHON
tongue of
מִרְמָה
mir-MA
deceit
you deceitful tongue.
The verb repeats from the previous verse, which is how the psalm builds its case. Loved again, and this time what is loved is the tongue itself.
But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God;
בָּטַחְתִּי
ba-tach-TI
I have trusted
בְחֶסֶד
ve-CHE-sed
in the kindness of
אֱלֹהִים
e-lo-HIM
God
עוֹלָם
o-LAM
for ever
וָעֶד
VA-ed
and ever
I have trusted in the kindness of God for ever and ever.
The turn. Against a man torn out of a tent, a tree that stays green inside a house. The verb of trust returns, aimed now at kindness rather than at wealth.
I will thank You for ever, because You have acted;
וַאֲקַוֶּה
va-a-ka-VE
and I will hope in
שִׁמְךָ
shim-CHA
Your name
כִי
chi
for
טוֹב
tov
it is good
נֶגֶד
NE-ged
in front of
חֲסִידֶיךָ
cha-si-dei-CHA
Your faithful ones
and I will hope in Your name, for it is good, in front of Your faithful.
The close is future and public: thanks, hope and the name, all of it stated in front of witnesses who are called the faithful.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Two verses of heading, four of accusation, one of sentence, two of witness, two of reply. The accusation in verses 3 to 6 is entirely about speech: devising, boasting, loving falsehood over right speech, loving a devouring tongue. The sentence in verse 7 answers with three verbs that all end in the suffix for you, and its imagery is domestic rather than military: a man pulled out of a tent, a plant pulled out of the ground. Verse 10 answers that with a tree that stays where it is. The seam between the two halves is a single verb, the root for trust, used of the man in verse 9 and of the speaker in verse 10 with a different object.
רמז · Remez: allusion
Verse 3 ends in a clause with no verb: the kindness of God, חֶסֶד (che-sed, v.3), all the day. Read as a statement it answers the boast, since the man's power is momentary and the kindness is not. Read as part of the accusation it becomes something the boaster claims or abuses. The syntax allows both and the reading is disputed. Two smaller details reward attention. The rare noun at הַוּוֹת (ha-u-ot, v.4), destruction, returns in verse 9 as בְּהַוָּתוֹ (be-ha-va-to, v.9) with a possessive suffix, so the thing he devised becomes the thing he draws strength from and finally the thing he is removed for. And the same root as the verb at יַחְתְּךָ (yach-te-cha, v.7) is used in Proverbs of taking up burning coals, which is why translators reach for snatch rather than strike.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
The heading is the only place Doeg is named, and the narrative it points to says plainly that what he reported was true: David was at Nob, and Ahimelech did give him bread and a sword. That is what makes this psalm useful for thinking about harmful speech, because the charge against him cannot be that he lied. A reading that follows from the same observation notices that the punishment in verse 7 is expulsion from a tent and from the land of the living, which is what happened to the priests of Nob and not, in the narrative, to Doeg. On that reading the psalm speaks the informer's end rather than reporting it. Where the psalm clearly goes beyond 1 Samuel is verse 9: the man is condemned for what he relied on, and nothing in the story says Doeg was rich.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
Read the two dwellings against each other. The wicked man is in a tent, and both the tent and its occupant are portable; the speaker is a tree inside a house, and a house in this book is where a life gets measured in length of days. The tree chosen is the olive, כְּזַיִת (ke-za-yit, v.10), which keeps its leaves through the dry season and yields the oil a lamp burns, so the image is of a life that stays green because its source is not in the season. In this reading trust is not an opinion but an attachment. The man of verse 9 is attached to a quantity, and quantities can be removed; the speaker is attached to kindness, which is why the last word of the psalm names people rather than things.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).