Psalms 7 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
The era of David's reign, roughly 1010 to 970 BC, with the heading pointing to an episode involving a Benjaminite named Cush
Location
Israel, with the imagery drawn from the law court and from open country where a lion hunts
Audience
Israelite worshipers facing false accusation, with the heading calling the piece a shiggaion, a term of uncertain meaning that may indicate a passionate or irregular musical setting
Situation
Falsely accused, the speaker asks God to judge his case and swears an oath that if he has done what he is charged with, he deserves to be trampled into the dust. He then pictures God as a judge whose court is assembled and as a warrior sharpening his sword.
Key Background
The heading's reference to Cush the Benjaminite matches no known story in the books of Samuel, a reminder that Israel preserved memories of David's conflicts, particularly with Saul's tribe of Benjamin, that did not all survive in narrative form. The self-curse in the middle of the psalm follows a real legal procedure: when evidence was insufficient, an accused person could swear an oath calling down disaster on himself, and the community treated a willingness to do so as evidence. The closing image of a wrongdoer digging a pit and falling into it is a widespread ancient proverb about a moral order built into the world, where schemes recoil on their makers.
Yahweh, my God, I to you for — rescue me from everyone me down, pull me free,
before they me a — ripping me to pieces with no one to save me.
Yahweh, my God — if I have done this, if there is on my
if I have repaid a friend with harm, or someone who opposed me without cause —
then let my enemy chase me down and catch me, let him my the and leave my in the
up, Yahweh, in your anger! Stand tall against the rage of my enemies! Wake up, my God — you have
Let the of surround you, and them all.
Yahweh the peoples — vindicate me, Yahweh, according to my according to the innocence that is in me.
Put an end to the violence of the but establish the one who does right — you who and you just
My is with God, who saves the in
God is a just judge, and a God who with every against corruption.
If someone does not God he has bent bow and made it ready.
He has prepared he with
Look — the corrupt one with conceives harm, and to
He a and hollows it out, then the very he
trouble on own violence down on own
I will Yahweh for his I will sing praise to the name of Yahweh, the Most