‏ Psalms 74:3-7

3Hurry ▼
▼tn Heb “lift up your steps to,” which may mean “run, hurry.”
to the permanent ruins,
and to all the damage the enemy has done to the temple. ▼
▼tn Heb “everything [the] enemy has damaged in the holy place.”

4Your enemies roar ▼
▼tn This verb is often used of a lion’s roar, so the psalmist may be comparing the enemy to a raging, devouring lion.
in the middle of your sanctuary; ▼
▼tn Heb “your meeting place.”

they set up their battle flags. ▼
▼tn Heb “they set up their banners [as] banners.” The Hebrew noun אוֹת (ʾot, “sign”) here refers to the enemy army’s battle flags and banners (see Num 2:12).

5They invade like lumberjacks
swinging their axes in a thick forest. ▼
▼tn Heb “it is known like one bringing upwards, in a thicket of wood, axes.” The Babylonian invaders destroyed the woodwork in the temple.

6And now ▼
▼tn This is the reading of the Qere (marginal reading). The Kethib (consonantal text) has “and a time.”
they are tearing down ▼
▼tn The imperfect verbal form vividly describes the act as underway.
all its engravings ▼
▼tn Heb “its engravings together.”

with axes ▼
▼tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49-50).
and crowbars. ▼
▼tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT. An Akkadian cognate refers to a “pickaxe” (cf. NEB “hatchet and pick”; NIV “axes and hatchets”; NRSV “hatchets and hammers”).

7They set your sanctuary on fire;
they desecrate your dwelling place by knocking it to the ground. ▼
▼tn Heb “to the ground they desecrate the dwelling place of your name.”

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