Both verses 7 and 8 show heightening in the second line, in which the poetic movement is from the general to the more particular, and so is more dramatic. In verse 7 line b may be rendered “I am even covered with shame,” or in some languages “I even feel the heat on my face.”

The psalmist protests that it is because of his devotion to God and the Temple (verse 7, with a more detailed expression of this in verses 9-11) that he is insulted, scorned, mocked, ridiculed. For other comments on the expression shame has covered my face, see 44.15. It is for thy sake is sometimes rendered, for example, “because of you,” “because I worship you,” or “in order to please you.”

My mother’s sons represents a dramatization or intensification of the movement between lines a and b. In line a brethren refers to the psalmist’s fellow Israelites, while mother’s sons in line b refers more specifically to his blood brothers and sisters, that is, children of his parents. The two lines are saying, for example, “I have become a stranger to my fellow Israelites; even to my own brothers and sisters I have become a foreigner.” In many languages “brothers” will mean brothers and cousins. It may be necessary in line b to say, for example, “the siblings (brothers and sisters) my mother gave birth to.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .