Translations
Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
lest my enemy boast, 'I have overcome him,' and my adversaries celebrate when I am shaken.
before my enemy cries out, 'I have won,' before my foes erupt in celebration at my collapse.
lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes rejoice when I fall.
Footnotes
Yekholtiw (יְכָלְתִּיו, "I have overcome/prevailed over him") is the enemy's triumphant first-person boast—the verb yakhal meaning to be able to, to prevail, to overpower. The gloating is anticipated as the psalmist's deepest social fear: not just personal collapse but public defeat that vindicates the enemy's worldview. Emmot (אֶמּוֹט) from root mwt (מוּט) means to totter, sway, or be on the verge of falling—not yet a completed collapse but the visible wavering that would be sufficient to trigger the enemy's celebration (cf. Ps. 46:5; 62:2). This is the psalmist's dread: that even the appearance of God's absence becomes a theological crisis witnessed by opponents. F.O.G. renders emmot as "shaken" to preserve the precarious, in-between quality of the moment; F.O.G.M. uses "collapse" to draw out the finality the enemy is eagerly anticipating.

