Confuse them, Lord, and confound their language, for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
Parallel translations
- KJV Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
- BSB O Lord, confuse and confound their speech, for I see violence and strife in the city.
- NKJV Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues, For I have seen violence and strife in the city.
- NASB ¶Confuse them, Lord, divide their tongues, For I have seen violence and strife in the city.
- NLT Confuse them, Lord, and frustrate their plans, for I see violence and conflict in the city.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David asks God to confuse and divide the violent, deceitful city. It prays for God to thwart the wickedness around him.
Overview
Seeing violence and strife filling the city, David appeals to God to confound his enemies, echoing the confusion of languages at Babel. He entrusts judgment to God rather than acting on his own. The prayer reflects a longing for evil's disruption that God alone can accomplish justly.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Jer 6:7As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness: violence and destruction is heard in her; before me continually is sickness and wounds.
- 2 Sam 15:31Someone told David, saying, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” David said, “Yahweh, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”
- Acts 23:6–10But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Men and brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!”
- Gen 11:7–9Come, let’s go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
- Jer 23:14In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”
- John 7:45–53The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why didn’t you bring him?”
- Matt 23:37–38“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
- 2 Sam 17:1–14Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me now choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David tonight.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 55:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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