Arm is here, as often, a figure for power, strength, might. In expressive terms the psalmist asks God to break the power of the wicked and eliminate completely the evil they do. Break, as used in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, is a figurative expression which in some languages will have to be replaced by another figure such as “wipe away,” “undo” or “cut away.” In other languages a nonmetaphor will be required, such as “Take away the power” or “Don’t let wicked and evil men be powerful.”

Seek out his wickedness means deal with it, eliminate it so completely that “you will not find any left at all.” Or else, “make them pay for all their evil until there is no more to pay for.” New Jerusalem Bible has “so that when You look for his wickedness You will find it no more.” Some take the object of the verb find to be the wicked man, not his wickedness: Knox “let him be seen no more”; New American Bible “let them not survive.” If the translator follows the Good News Translation model, it may be necessary to recast lines b and c; for example, “punish them until they do no more wrong.”

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 .