Mazmur 18:18

18:18 They confronted ¹  me in my day of calamity,

but the Lord helped me. ² 

Mazmur 18:1

Psalm 18 ³ 

For the music director; by the Lord’s servant David, who sang ⁴  to the Lord the words of this song when ⁵  the Lord rescued him from the power ⁶  of all his enemies, including Saul. ⁷ 

18:1 He said: ⁸ 

“I love ⁹  you, Lord, my source of strength! ¹⁰ 

1 Samuel 16:13

16:13 So Samuel took the horn full of olive oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day onward. Then Samuel got up and went to Ramah.

1 Samuel 16:2

16:2 Samuel replied, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me!” But the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you ¹¹  and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’

1 Samuel 2:4

2:4 The bows of warriors are shattered,

but those who stumble find their strength reinforced.

1 Samuel 5:3

5:3 When the residents of Ashdod got up early the next day, ¹²  Dagon was lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him back in his place.

Ayub 41:11

41:11 (Who has confronted ¹³  me that I should repay? ¹⁴ 

Everything under heaven belongs to me!) ¹⁵ 

Roma 11:35

11:35 Or who has first given to God, ¹⁶ 

that God ¹⁷  needs to repay him? ¹⁸ 

[18:18]  ¹ tn The same verb is translated “trapped” in v. 5. In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not imperfect.

[18:18]  ² tn Heb “became my support.”

[18:1]  ³ sn Psalm 18. In this long song of thanks, the psalmist (a Davidic king, traditionally understood as David himself) affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. The psalmist’s experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the psalm appears in 2 Sam 22:1-51.

[18:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “spoke.”

[18:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[18:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “hand.”

[18:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[18:1]  ⁸ tn A number of translations (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV) assign the words “he said” to the superscription, in which case the entire psalm is in first person. Other translations (e.g., NAB) include the introductory “he said” at the beginning of v. 1.

[18:1]  ⁹ tn The verb רָחַם (rakham) elsewhere appears in the Piel (or Pual) verbal stem with the basic meaning, “have compassion.” The verb occurs only here in the basic (Qal) stem. The basic stem of the verbal root also occurs in Aramaic with the meaning “love” (see DNWSI 2:1068-69; Jastrow 1467 s.v. רָחַם; G. Schmuttermayr, “rhm: eine lexikalische Studie,” Bib 51 [1970]: 515-21). Since this introductory statement does not appear in the parallel version in 2 Sam 22:1-51, it is possible that it is a later addition to the psalm, made when the poem was revised for use in worship.

[18:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my strength.” “Strength” is metonymic here, referring to the Lord as the one who bestows strength to the psalmist; thus the translation “my source of strength.”

[16:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in your hand.”

[5:3]  ¹² tc The LXX adds “they entered the temple of Dagon and saw.”

[41:11]  ¹³ tn The verb קָדַם (qadam) means “to come to meet; to come before; to confront” to the face.

[41:11]  ¹⁴ sn The verse seems an intrusion (and so E. Dhorme, H. H. Rowley, and many others change the pronouns to make it refer to the animal). But what the text is saying is that it is more dangerous to confront God than to confront this animal.

[41:11]  ¹⁵ tn This line also focuses on the sovereign God rather than Leviathan. H. H. Rowley, however, wants to change לִי־חוּא (li-hu’, “it [belongs] to me”) into לֹא הוּא (lo’ hu’, “there is no one”). So it would say that there is no one under the whole heaven who could challenge Leviathan and live, rather than saying it is more dangerous to challenge God to make him repay.

[11:35]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “him”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:35]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:35]  ¹⁸ sn A quotation from Job 41:11.