Psalm 73
The full text of Psalm 73 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
A psalm of Asaph.
1 Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, 'How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?'
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, 'I will speak thus,'
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
Translation notes (8)
- Psalm 73:4a The Masoretic Text reads lemotam (לְמוֹתָם), 'until their death'. Many critics redivide the same consonants as lamo tam, 'sound are they', yielding 'they have no pangs; sound and fat are their bodies'. This translation retains the traditional word division. The rare chartsubbot, 'bonds' or 'torments', occurs elsewhere only in Isaiah 58:6.
- Psalm 73:7a Hebrew reads literally "their eye goes forth from fat," an idiom apparently picturing eyes bulging from a fleshy, prosperous face. The Septuagint and Syriac reflect avonamo, 'their iniquity', in place of enemo, 'their eye', yielding "their iniquity proceeds from fatness"; this translation retains the Masoretic Text.
- Psalm 73:9a The Hebrew verb halak, 'to walk', pictures the tongue parading freely across the earth, hence 'struts'. Paired with mouths set against the heavens, the line forms a merism: the arrogant claim the whole cosmos, from sky to soil, as the range of their speech, sparing neither God above nor humanity below.
- Psalm 73:10a This is a difficult verse; it possibly means, "therefore the people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance."
- Psalm 73:17a Hebrew miqdeshei-el (מִקְדְּשֵׁי־אֵל) is literally plural, 'sanctuaries of God', likely an intensive or honorific plural referring to the single temple precinct; some take it of the sanctuary's multiple courts. The word rendered 'end' is acharit, the final outcome or latter state of a person, marking the psalm's turning point from verse 16's perplexity.
- Psalm 73:20a The word rendered here as 'phantoms' is tselem (צֶלֶם), 'image', the term used of the divine image in Genesis 1:27; in this psalm it denotes an insubstantial semblance. The Hebrew ba'ir may be read as 'in the city' or as an infinitive of ur, 'to awake'; the translation follows the latter, which suits the imagery of waking from a dream.
- Psalm 73:23a The Hebrew 'achazta beyad-yemini (אָחַזְתָּ בְּיַד־יְמִינִי), 'you have grasped my right hand', echoes the language of Isaiah 41:13 and 45:1, where God takes hold of the right hand of those he strengthens and commissions. Grasping the right hand signified support and favor; here the psalmist claims that sustaining grip even after confessing his brutish doubt.
- Psalm 73:24a Or 'afterward you will take me in honor/glory' — possible afterlife hope (cf. Ps 49:15)
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