Psalm 9

Introduction

Well, welcome back, everyone, to Torah Today Ministries, as we continue our series Tehillim Talks, a series of studies in the Psalms. And in this episode, we find ourselves in Psalm 9. Psalm 9 has been a fascinating study for me, and you must understand that Psalms 9 and 10 are considered to be one psalm and are printed that way in the Septuagint.

And the reason they are printed together as one psalm in the Septuagint is because this is an acrostic psalm. Let me just move ahead for a moment so you can see what I mean.

The first and second verses of the psalm begin with the letter Aleph (א), which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And then the third verse begins with the letter Beit (ב), which is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Verse five begins with the letter Gimel (ג), which is the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and so on.

But Psalm 9 only gets us halfway through the alphabet, and then 10 picks up right where 9 left off. So the question is not why are these two psalms combined as one with the Septuagint, but why are they separated into two psalms everywhere else? And I think there’s a very good answer for this, but you’ll have to wait till we get to Psalm 10 to see what that answer is.

The Attribution – Mut Labben (מוּת לַבֵּן)

So let’s just dive right in to our psalm and let’s begin with the approbation. It says:

“To the choir master, according to Mut Labben, a psalm of David.” (Psalm 9:1)

What in the world is Mut Labben (מוּת לַבֵּן)?

Well, the word Mut (מוּת) means death or death of, and Labben is the same as the name Laban (לָבָן). And remember that Laban was Jacob’s father-in-law who cheated him over and over and over again and even swapped brides on Jacob’s wedding night. But the commentators really go crazy with this and try to figure out who this Labben was that David is talking about.

And we don’t really know. It could even be some type of a melody called Labben, but why is it Mut Labben? We still don’t know.

But one of the things that’s interesting is the word Labben or Laban spelled backwards, spells the word Nabal (נָבָל), which means fool. If you recall, David married a woman named Abigail. Her first husband’s name was Nabal, and he was indeed a fool.

And Abigail basically said he lives up to his name. So it could be on the death of some fool. And as we read through the Psalm, it could be that David’s referring to the destruction of some enemy, some attacking army, some group.

And again, we don’t know, just something for you to chew on and think about.

Psalm 9:1-2 – A Thanksgiving Psalm

Well, let’s just dive right into the body of the Psalm itself. Verse one and verse two both begin with the letter Aleph (א).

And if we can see right from the get go that this is a Thanksgiving Psalm. David says:

“I will give thanks to Adonai with my whole heart, and I will recount all of your wonderful deeds, your fele. I will be glad and exult in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.” (Psalm 9:1-2)

I’m always struck by how purposeful David is to praise God. Yes, he sometimes waited till he felt like it, but even when he didn’t feel like it, he chose to praise God.

This must be a conscious choice that we make as well. God deserves our praise, whether we’re going through a time that’s pleasant or a time that’s very difficult and unpleasant.

Psalm 9:3-4 – Righteous Judgment

“When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before your presence. For you have maintained my just cause. You have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.” (Psalm 9:3-4)

Now, I’ve mentioned this before, and I will keep reiterating this, that we should not have a negative connotation of the word judgment. The word judgment in Hebraic and in Greek thought is a very neutral word. And judgment is wonderful if you’re the one who’s bringing your case to the judge and you win your suit.

But judgment can be very painful if you are the villain standing before the judge and you’re getting your comeuppance. But you must think of the word judgment in scripture like you might think of an umpire at a baseball game. His job is to identify things for what they are.

You slide into first base or second base and he says you’re out, which feels painful, or he says you’re safe and you’re happy. He’s just simply calling things for what they are. And once he makes his call, you have to live with the consequences.

So we must look at God’s judgment as something that could be both positive or negative, depending on whether you’ve done what’s right or whether you’ve done what’s wrong.

Psalm 9:5 – The Word Goyim (גּוֹיִם)

“You have rebuked nations. You have made the wicked perish. You have blotted out their name forever and ever.” (Psalm 9:5)

Now you’ll see here I have a word nations in bold and also the phrase forever and ever. We wanna look at these individually because these are very important terms that will come up many times in our studies.

First of all, the word nations in Hebrew is the word goyim (גּוֹיִם), a very common word that you’ve probably heard before. The singular of that is the word goy (גּוֹי). And when you hear the word goy, you usually translate it gentile.

But goyim can be gentiles, but literally it means nations. And so you have to look at the context to see if it’s just talking about a group of gentiles or a group of nations. But we must also understand that this word goy applies to Jews as well because after all, Israel is a nation.

I remember someone calling me many years ago and someone I had never met and they never called back since, but they called because they had a question about the word goyim. And when I mentioned that the Jewish people are a number of times called goyim, he got very, very angry. Even though I gave him the reference, he just didn’t want to embrace the truth.

But here’s an example, I’ll give you just one. In Genesis 12:2, God is speaking to Abraham and he says to him:

“And I will make you a great goy, a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you’ll be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2)

There’s the word goy (גּוֹי).

And I can show you many more instances where the Israelite people are called a goy or one of the goyim. Now we’ve seen this word goyim before because back in Psalm 2, David asked the questions:

“Why did the goyim rage and the peoples plot in vain?” (Psalm 2:1)

And then in verse 8 again in chapter 2:

“Ask of me and I will make the goyim your heritage.” (Psalm 2:8)

So I just thought it was finally time we look at this word and understand that most of the time it’s used as referring to the Gentile nations or just to a group of Gentiles, but it can also be referring to the Jews. Look at the context.

The Phrase “Forever and Ever” – Le’olam Va’ed (לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד)

Now this phrase forever and ever, we’re gonna look at three phrases or words in this Psalm that are often translated eternal or forever, but they’re all different. They all mean slightly different things. And the truth is we don’t really have English words for these Hebrew words.

So let’s look at this phrase forever and ever. Whenever you see that phrase in your Hebrew Bible, it’s le’olam va’ed (לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד). If you’re familiar with the Shema, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, it’s usually followed up with a phrase:

“Baruch shem k’vod malchuto le’olam va’ed” – “Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever.”

Except it doesn’t mean forever and ever. Le’olam (לְעוֹלָם) means to the olam (עוֹלָם). What is an olam?

Ah, well, that’s the kicker. Olam (עוֹלָם) comes from root, which means hidden. And sometimes, many times, the word olam means an age, because when it’s used it’s not referring to something eternal, but something that may last for a long time and then eventually disappear.

It can also refer and sometimes translate it as world. We often say:

“Baruch atah Adonai, melech ha’olam” – “Blessed are You, Lord, King of the universe.”

Olam (עוֹלָם) can be universe or world.

Again, we don’t have an English word to translate olam. But when you take all of these meanings together, what it does, it expresses this sense that you find throughout the scriptures from Genesis right on up to Revelation. And it also expresses this thing we find in ourselves that there’s something coming.

There’s something around the corner, something that is hidden from view, something that is hinted at and revealed to a degree in the scriptures, something that you can sense that you know that a day is coming that all of human history is pointing to. Because ever since the Garden, when mankind fell, we know the world is broken. And as hard as well-meaning people and politicians may be to fix the world, we know there is a day that eventually it will be fixed and put back right.

Righteousness will be recognized. Righteousness and right living will become the standard of the day. Sin will become the anomaly and a rarity.

And it will be wiped away completely at some point. But this day is hidden from us. But it’s something that affects the entire universe.

It is an age that is coming that, of course, I believe that will be eternal. But this word olam kind of captures that. But even beyond the word olam, this coming messianic age, it says va’ed (וָעֶד), which means and until.

And until what? Well, we know from prophecy that the messianic age will last for a thousand years. And it will be wonderful.

But it won’t be perfect. But after the messianic age, there will come a new heavens and a new earth, which are described in the last two chapters of Revelation and also referred to in the prophets in Isaiah and elsewhere. And when that happens, there will be sin no more.

There will be no more crying. There will be no more death. And I think that is the until that we’re looking to.

So, le’olam va’ed (לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד) can mean unto the age and even until. Does it literally mean forever and ever? Not exactly.

It has more structure and content and insight than just unending time. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are Hebrew and Greek phrases that do mean unending time, time without end.

And when you see a phrase, it just says without end, then that’s the phrase that’s being used in the Hebrew or the Greek. But when it says forever and ever, it’s to the age and until. And even in the Greek scriptures, we see this phrase, eis tous aionas ton aionon (εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων).

Aion is where we get the word eon. And this means unto the age of the ages, the aionas ton aionon, unto the age of the ages. Our translators translate it forever and ever, but that is not what it means.

It’s got more structure and specificity to it than that. So we need to be careful that when we see terms that just are haphazardly translated forever, they usually are more specific. They have something else in mind.

So this is the first of three terms used in this Psalm that is usually translated forever in our English translations. But keep this in mind, do some study on yourself, and we will revisit in the future, I promise.

The Missing Dalet (ד)

Now, the next verse should begin with the letter Dalet (ד) because it is the fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, but for whatever reason, the verse that would have started with Dalet is missing. We don’t know if David edited it out or if he just purposely skipped it. We do know that the letter Dalet (ד) means door.

Dalet is a door. And why the verse or the couple of the verses that begin with Dalet have been excised or just never included, not written down in the Psalm, why there’s a missing door here, I don’t know. I just want to draw your attention to it.

Psalm 9:6 – Addressing the Enemy

And then we come to the letter Hey (ה), which is verse six. Now you’ll notice the heavy vertical dotted line on the left because that means the Hebrew here is difficult and can be taken a couple of different ways. Now in most translations, this verse is translated as if it’s addressing God, what God has done to the enemies.

But it can also be translated as addressing the enemy himself. And that’s the way I choose to translate it here because as we see, this verse stands in contrast to what follows.

So it would seem that David is addressing the enemy here, and then he’s going to contrast that and address God.

Let’s see what it says. It says:

“Oh enemy, ruins have come to an end forever. The cities you destroyed, their remembrances have perished. Their remembrance has perished.” (Psalm 9:6)

So he seems to be saying, enemy, you tried to conquer, but you conquer us merely by destroying, and your wickedness has caused you in turn to be destroyed. So everything you’ve tried to accomplish, every so-called victory that’s come your way, has in the end become a loss, because it’s all forgotten, there’s nothing left to show for all your efforts.

And I say, see verse 15, because this thought is continued and explained more there.

The Word Netzach (נֶצַח) – Victory and Endurance

Now here’s the next word that is often translated forever. It’s the word Netzach (נֶצַח), which is completely different from the word we saw earlier.

And again, we have no English word to translate Netzach. Netzach is a word that is sometimes translated for enduring, a long enduring time, but it’s also a word that means victory. And you have to look at the context.

The best I can do is give you a feeling for what this word conjures up when I read it. And it seems to mean enduring due to victory or endurance due to victory. You know, when two armies fight, the one that wins is the one that endures because the enemy is destroyed.

And there’s a kind of endurance, there’s a kind of lasting over long periods of time that come because of victory, because of netzach (נֶצַח). So this is a word we will see again and again. But again, just to translate it as forever, is to far oversimplify the word.

That is not really what it means. It has more of a flavor to it, a spice about it that means there’s victory involved in this enduring length of time.

Psalm 9:7-10 – Adonai Enthroned Forever

So in contrast to verse 6, David says:

“But Adonai sits enthroned forever.” (Psalm 9:7a)

Unlike the enemies of verse 6, whose kingdoms perish, they just crumble to dust and they’re forgotten. Says, but Adonai sits enthroned forever.

He is on his throne. He is at rest, mission accomplished. He’s not worried.

He is at peace. He runs the world.

“He has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness. He judges the peoples with fairness. Adonai is a high tower for the oppressed, a high tower in times of trouble.” (Psalm 9:7b-9)

Now, I used the term high tower there because there are several different terms in Hebrew to refer to towers, fortresses, strongholds.

And this particular one means a very high tower. It’s not only something that’s strong, but it’s especially notable because of its height, its elevation. And so I will always translate this word high tower when we encounter it in the Psalms.

So think of this high tower. The higher you can get above the ground, the better your perspective is, the better perspective you have of your surroundings. You can see the context of your life and the things that are going on around you.

And God is our high tower. And He invites us to come in for protection, but also that we can achieve a better perspective of what’s going on. I know that for me, when I’m going through a difficult time, things seem bleak.

If I can just get a higher perspective, stretch out my vision so that—what is that called when you can see to the sides?—my brain just went blank—But you can see just a wider point of view and all of a sudden you can see your particular situation in a better context. And you become more hopeful.

So if you want to increase your faith, stretch out your vision.

—I’m still bugged because I can’t remember that word, that term. I know you’re all saying that. You’re probably shouting it at your screens right now—Oh well, I’ll get it right later on.

So he judges the people with fairness, Adonai is a high tower for the oppressed, a high tower in times of trouble. Periphery vision, that’s the one.

“And those who know your name, put their trust in you, for you, O Adonai, have not forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9:10)

What does it mean to know God’s name? Many people know God’s name as Yod Hey Vav Hey (י-ה-ו-ה), but that doesn’t mean they know his name.

God’s name is his character, a principle throughout Hebraic thought that a person’s name is the person’s essence. And God’s name, Yod Hey Vav Hey, is a holy name, so holy that we dare not even pronounce it. And it’s also a verb.

If you want to pronounce his name, you don’t do it with your lips. We don’t know how it’s pronounced anyway. But we can pronounce it with our lives by doing the things he does, doing the things he gives us to do, keeping his commandments, speaking the words he gives us to say, and by always rehearsing the text, his word, with our lips and in our hearts.

His name is a verb. You don’t pronounce it with your lips. You pronounce it with your life by doing it, by being his image bearer here on earth.

So, to know his name, that is the thing we should pursue with our entire being. For those who know your name, put their trust in you. Just knowing how it’s spelled in Hebrew doesn’t make you trust him more.

But knowing his character’s attributes, his essence, you just can’t doubt. You’ll have peace in your life.

Now, I have the word seek in red. And when you see me put a word in red, but it’s not in bold, that means that the word is going to come up later or has come up previously in the Psalm. And so that way you’ll note how these words kind of connect. They’ll make a chain.

The Word Tevel (תֵּבֵל) – The Broken World

Now, the word for world that is used here is the word tevel (תֵּבֵל). And there are three main words in Hebrew that are translated world, but it’s good to know which word is used. We’ve looked at one already.

That’s the word olam (עוֹלָם), which means something more than just the world—It’s the universe—It’s the spiritual realm from which the physical world was spoken to existence.

There’s olam. That’s the highest name for world and includes everything in the world and everything outside the world, everything that’s seen and unseen. The things are hidden from our eyes and also time.

It includes all these things. It’s a word that defies description or our ability to grasp it. And then there’s a word that’s more common, and that’s the word eretz (אֶרֶץ).

That’s the word that’s used throughout Genesis, chapter one:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the eretz, the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

Eretz (אֶרֶץ) can also mean land, like eretz Yisrael (אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל), the land of Israel. And it’s referring to the physical world, but not just the physical world, but the action that takes place on it and the people, especially of righteousness, that are taking place.

And again, the first place the word eretz is used is in Genesis one, when God looked at everything he made and said, this is good. And that’s what eretz was, and that’s what it’s going to be again. And the word eretz comes from the word ratzah (רָצָה), which means to run.

It’s in this world we do our running. And this world, I believe, is running back to the garden, back to the place where it once was. But this word tevel (תֵּבֵל) is the lowest of the three.

Tevel refers distinctly and exclusively to the physical creation, just the physical nuts and bolts planet Earth, but also in the context that it’s broken. In fact, the word tevel is a word that also means perversion. You find it a couple of times in Leviticus, Leviticus 18:23, and in 20:12, where it talks about abominable sexual unions.

And God says these are tevel. They are perverse. Don’t do them because it’s a mixture of two things that don’t belong.

So when we see this word tevel, it has a hint of brokenness. There’s something in this world that doesn’t belong here. And someday tevel will return to what it’s supposed to be.

So just a little side note. So when you see the word world in the Hebrew scriptures, stop and get out your lexicon and see which word is used, because that will give you an insight into the passage.

Psalm 9:11-12 – The One Who Avenges Blood

Now we just saw the word seek here in verse 10, and it’s used here again in verse 11 and 12. It says:

“Sing praises to Adonai who sits enthroned in Zion. Tell among the peoples his deeds, for he who avenges, and literally is the one who seeks blood, is mindful of them. He does not forget the cry of the afflicted.” (Psalm 9:11-12)

Now seeks blood, that sounds a little gruesome, like God is looking for something to cause bloodshed. It’s not what it means.

It means to avenge blood. But this expression that David uses here in verse 12, hearkens all the way back to Genesis, chapter 4 verse 10, when Cain killed his brother Abel. And it says:

“Adonai said to Cain, what have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” (Genesis 4:10)

He’s crying to me from the ground. And so God then brought some real difficulties into Cain’s life as a consequence of him murdering his brother.

God avenges the blood of the slain ones, of the innocent victims. So he who avenges, he seeks the blood, is mindful of them. He does not forget the cry of the afflicted.

So he wants to avenge the afflicted like he wanted to avenge the death of righteous Abel, whose blood was crying from the ground.

Psalm 9:13-14 – From the Gates of Death to the Gates of Zion

“Be gracious to me, Adonai. See my affliction from those who hate me. You who lift me up from the gates of death that I may recount all your praises in the gates of the daughter of Zion. I will rejoice in your Yeshua.” (Psalm 9:13-14)

And the word here is Yeshua (יְשׁוּעָה), the Hebrew word for salvation.

So he’s saying, remove me from the gates of death because dead people can’t praise you. I mean, I’m dead. My body can’t sing to you.

But Lord, instead, restore me to the gates of the daughter of Zion so that I can sing to you. Now, daughter of Zion, daughter of Jerusalem, what does this mean? When you see the word daughter of a city, it’s always referring to the small towns around it.

Bethlehem is called the daughter of Jerusalem because Bethlehem is just a couple miles down the road from Jerusalem. So it’s like a city of a major city. Then you have villages and towns around it, and these are the daughters of this city.

Psalm 9:15-16 – The Wicked Snared in Their Own Work

I will rejoice in your Yeshua.

“Wherever the nations have sunk in the pit that they made, and the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught. There Adonai has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.” (Psalm 9:15-16)

Does this theme sound familiar to you? It’s something we’ve seen before in the previous psalm or two.

This is something we can always rest in if we have the patience. Because the wicked, whether it’s a person or it’s a nation, the wicked always collapse under their own weight. Wickedness cannot support itself. It cannot endure.

Because it’s based on falsehoods and on lies which have no real substance.

Higgaion Selah (הִגָּיוֹן סֶלָה)

And then we have this word, Higgaion (הִגָּיוֹן), and then the word Selah (סֶלָה). And I’ve mentioned Selah before. We’ve already encountered it in a previous psalm.

We don’t know what it means. It may mean pause. It may mean repeat.

We don’t know. And Higgaion is a word that also occurs a few times, not as often as Selah. But Higgaion comes from the word hagah (הָגָה), which means to meditate, to really stop and contemplate and meditate on something.

Now, meditation is a big deal in Scripture. But meditation in the Bible is not meditation in Eastern religion. In Eastern religion, when they meditate, they try to empty their minds of all thought.

That’s exactly the opposite of what biblical meditation is. Biblical meditation is when you put a thought in your mind and then focus on it and think about it and chew on it mentally to where you really grasp it and it becomes part of you. So this Higgaion, which comes from the word to meditate, might mean stop and think about this.

And that’s a good idea. Because this is something that I constantly have to remind myself of. Because I have enemies.

I don’t know of anyone who tries to serve God who doesn’t have enemies. And sometimes it just doesn’t seem fair that enemies get to say things and I don’t get to say things back because I’m not to behave like them. They get to do things, but God says, vengeance is mine, I repay.

So I just have to be still and be quiet. What the truth of the matter is, is that the wicked never truly get away with anything. Eventually their deeds are exposed.

Truth is always eventually justified by its fruit. So just rest in that and trust God. Because his timing is perfect.

But if I take matters into my own hands, it’ll get ugly. And I’ll get right down in the mud with my enemies and you won’t be able to tell us apart. So it’s best to stand with God, to wait on him, to be patient, and then just do what Moses told the children of Israel to do on the shore of the Red Sea.

Just be still, don’t be afraid. Behold, the salvation of the Lord. And I’ve seen it happen many times in the past.

And God’s always been faithful.

Psalm 9:17 – The Wicked Shall Return to Sheol

“The wicked shall return or retreat to Sheol, all the goyim that forget God.” (Psalm 9:17)

Now this word is literally returned, but some translators say that they can also mean to retreat.

But when you retreat, what do you do? You return to the place you were. So return is a perfectly good word for translating this word.

But what does it mean to retreat to Sheol (שְׁאוֹל)? Sheol means the grave. We’ve looked at this before.

When you see the word Sheol, just think of grave. But I’ve never been in the grave. How can a wicked person retreat to the grave?

Are these zombies that came out of the grave and have to go back into it? I think what David is getting at here, what the Holy Spirit is speaking through him, is this. We come from dust, dirt.

And when we die, our bodies go back to dust, to dirt. And since Sheol is a hole in the dirt, it’s like the wicked return to where they came from. But for the righteous person, one who puts their faith in God, though our bodies may go back into the dirt and into the Sheol, into the grave, we know that there’s a day coming of resurrection.

So there’s this war going on between our flesh and our spirit. And when we allow the flesh to win, then we go to where the flesh goes. It pulls down our soul, our essence of who we are, into just dirt.

But when we feed our soul and spirit, when we focus on the spiritual things and live lives according to the spirit and walk in the spirit instead of in the flesh, we may pursue things that are spiritual and righteous and heavenly and godly, then our spirit pulls our bodies out of the mud and there’s an elevation that comes later in the resurrection. It’s just a thought with some rough edges to it. But it’s kind of a word picture that’s painted for me.

To be put bluntly, it’s like our souls can follow our bodies back into the dirt, or our bodies can follow our souls into glory. I think I’d rather have the second than the first.

Psalm 9:18-20 – Hope for the Needy

“For the needy shall not always be forgotten. And the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.” (Psalm 9:18)

Here we come to our third expression that’s often haphazardly translated forever. There’s our word netzach (נֶצַח) again.

So I like the word netzach here because what is netzach? It’s enduring that comes out of victory, the endurance that has its foundation in victory. And he’s saying to the needy, there’s a victory for you and that victory is going to endure, you’re going to be okay. You can have hope and you will not perish because your God is a victorious God.

He’s got you.

The Word La’ad (לָעַד) – Toward the Until

So what is the word for forever translated forever here? And this is the word la’ad (לָעַד).

Now this is very similar to what we saw earlier. Similar, before it was le’olam va’ed (לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד), and until, but this is la’ad, which means to until. When you put a lamed (ל) at the front of a word, it means to or toward.

Toward what? Toward ad (עַד), toward until. What does it mean, to until?

I don’t know. But I just keep going back to that there’s something around the corner that’s coming. We all sense it.

We’re born with that awareness. And it’s spoken of throughout the Scriptures, and there’s a trajectory to the Word of God that’s leading to something that’s coming. And I think this la’ad is referring to that, whatever it is, something good, something wonderful, and something we need to be patient for and await and have faith in, because our God is going to have the last word, and he’s going to serve the best wine last.

So, he says, the poor shall not perish la’ad (לָעַד), to until. In other words, it’s going to come to an end. And boy, it’s going to be worth waiting for.

Psalm 9:19-20 – Rise, O Adonai

“Kumah Adonai” (קוּמָה יְהוָה) – “Rise, O Adonai, let not man prevail. Let the goyim be judged before you. Place your mastery over them, O Adonai. Let the goyim know that they are but enosh.” (Psalm 9:19-20)

We’ve seen that phrase before, Rise O Adonai. And there’s that word enosh (אֱנוֹשׁ). I think it was in the previous Psalms, Psalm 8, where we saw this.

And it’s often translated frail man, because enosh can also mean something’s incurable. It’s not the word adam (אָדָם), which is man made in God’s image, but enosh, which is man which is in a broken image of God. Let not enosh prevail.

Let the goyim be judged before you. Place your mastery. That word mastery is the word morah (מוֹרָה), which means teacher.

And translators get this all different ways, but there are a few really good translations. They get it right. It’s like, Father, place your mastery.

A teacher is one who has mastered the subject matter. And place your teacher, your mastery over them. In other words, enosh, frail, broken man, needs what you alone can teach from your word.

Place your mastery over them. Teach them, Father. There’s such a note of hope at the ending of Psalm 9.

Place your mastery over them, O Adonai. Let the goyim know that they are but enosh (אֱנוֹשׁ). It’s the same word as we saw here, that they’re just broken people, just broken people.

Conclusion

And then that is where Psalm 9 ends with the letter Kuf (ק). I’ll give you one guess where Psalm 10 begins, with the letter Lamed (ל), which is the next letter of the alphabet. But Psalm 10 has a completely different tone from Psalm 9.

And also, a little spoiler alert, you’re going to find the acrostic pattern of Psalm 10 break down in the middle. And then at the end, it restores itself. Something very unusual is going on in Psalm 10.

And so I’m glad that God saw fit to break this into Psalm 9 and 10, so to draw our attention to these two things that we’ll address in our next lesson. So until then, I wish you shalom and God bless, and read ahead, read Psalm 10 for yourself, and be ready to look at this with me next time. God bless.

Teaching Material

All Scripture Passages

Psalm 9:1-20; Psalm 2:1; Psalm 2:8; Psalm 8; Genesis 1:1; Genesis 4:10; Genesis 12:2; Leviticus 18:23; Leviticus 20:12; Revelation 21-22 (ESV)

Hebrew Text Resources

• Psalm 9 – Full Hebrew Text with Commentary (Sefaria)
• Psalm 2 – Reference for Goyim Usage (Sefaria)

Hebrew Word Studies

• H4192 – Mut (מוּת) – “Death”
• H3837 – Laban (לָבָן) – “White”
• H5036 – Nabal (נָבָל) – “Fool”
• H1471 – Goy/Goyim (גּוֹי/גּוֹיִם) – “Nation, Gentile”
• H5769 – Olam (עוֹלָם) – “Eternal, World, Age”
• H5703 – Ad (עַד) – “Perpetuity, Forever, Until”
• H5331 – Netzach (נֶצַח) – “Victory, Endurance, Forever”
• H7585 – Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) – “Grave, Underworld”
• H8398 – Tevel (תֵּבֵל) – “World”
• H776 – Eretz (אֶרֶץ) – “Earth, Land”
• H1902 – Higgaion (הִגָּיוֹן) – “Meditation, Solemn Sound”
• H5542 – Selah (סֶלָה) – “Pause”
• H1897 – Hagah (הָגָה) – “To Meditate, Mutter”
• H3444 – Yeshua (יְשׁוּעָה) – “Salvation”
• H582 – Enosh (אֱנוֹשׁ) – “Man, Mortal, Frail”
• H120 – Adam (אָדָם) – “Man, Mankind”
• H4175 – Morah (מוֹרֶה) – “Teacher, Rain”

Additional References

• Septuagint – Psalm 9 in Greek (Blue Letter Bible)
• The Shema – Deuteronomy 6:4 (Jewish Virtual Library)
• Torah Today Ministries