Translations
If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
When the foundations are collapsing, what can even the righteous do?
If the very foundations are collapsing, what can the righteous do?
If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”
Footnotes
The noun shetot, from the root shath (to set or lay), refers to foundational pillars or structural supports—the underpinnings of social and moral order. The voice is ambiguous: this may still be the counsel of the fearful (vv.1–2), arguing that societal collapse makes flight reasonable, or it may be David's own lament given voice before the answer arrives in v.4. F.O.G. renders it as an unfolding reality ('when') to capture ongoing destruction; F.O.G.M. uses 'if' to preserve the rhetorical force—the desperate question that faith must answer when everything looks structurally lost.

