Psalm 62:3 Text/Translation Differences

[Dearly Bought]

While attending upon our pastor's evening sermon on Psalm 62 today, I noticed a marked difference between the ESV he read from and the Authorised Version I was reading from.

How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. (AV)

How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? (ESV)

As you will notice, the ESV relates the images of wall and fence to the Psalmist himself whereas the AV relates these images to the Psalmist's enemies. Moreover, there appears to be an entire phrase present in the AV ("ye shall be slain all of you") that is not present in the ESV.

Is this a difference in the underlying texts or in translation? Can anyone enlighten me as to the reasoning for each version?

 

[MW]

The MT has pual imperfect 2nd person plural. In the Ben Naphtali text it reads as piel. "Slain" in AV is represented by "batter" in ESV. The ESV combines it with the first clause whereas AV makes it independent. "Slaying" usually refers to unlawful killing, but the ESV translators have given it a general sense of "attacking." The last part of the verse is a translation choice. It is natural to see the final phrases as complementary. The ESV therefore continues to understand the verbs as active while the AV continues to see them as passive.

 

[Dearly Bought]

Thank you!