Mazmur 17:7-9

17:7 Accomplish awesome, faithful deeds, ¹ 

you who powerfully deliver those who look to you for protection from their enemies. ² 

17:8 Protect me as you would protect the pupil of your eye! ³ 

Hide me in the shadow of your wings! ⁴ 

17:9 Protect me from ⁵  the wicked men who attack ⁶  me,

my enemies who crowd around me for the kill. ⁷ 

Mazmur 51:1

Psalm 51 ⁸ 

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. ⁹ 

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of ¹⁰  your loyal love!

Because of ¹¹  your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! ¹² 

Mazmur 62:5-8

62:5 Patiently wait for God alone, my soul! ¹³ 

For he is the one who gives me confidence. ¹⁴ 

62:6 He alone is my protector ¹⁵  and deliverer.

He is my refuge; ¹⁶  I will not be upended. ¹⁷ 

62:7 God delivers me and exalts me;

God is my strong protector and my shelter. ¹⁸ 

62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people!

Pour out your hearts before him! ¹⁹ 

God is our shelter! (Selah)

Mazmur 85:7-13

85:7 O Lord, show us your loyal love!

Bestow on us your deliverance!

85:8 I will listen to what God the Lord says. ²⁰ 

For he will make ²¹  peace with his people, his faithful followers. ²² 

Yet they must not ²³  return to their foolish ways.

85:9 Certainly his loyal followers will soon experience his deliverance; ²⁴ 

then his splendor will again appear in our land. ²⁵ 

85:10 Loyal love and faithfulness meet; ²⁶ 

deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. ²⁷ 

85:11 Faithfulness grows from the ground,

and deliverance looks down from the sky. ²⁸ 

85:12 Yes, the Lord will bestow his good blessings, ²⁹ 

and our land will yield ³⁰  its crops.

85:13 Deliverance goes ³¹  before him,

and prepares ³²  a pathway for him. ³³ 

Mazmur 109:21

109:21 O sovereign Lord,

intervene on my behalf for the sake of your reputation! ³⁴ 

Because your loyal love is good, deliver me!

Mazmur 109:26

109:26 Help me, O Lord my God!

Because you are faithful to me, deliver me! ³⁵ 

Mazmur 143:1

Psalm 143 ³⁶ 

A psalm of David.

143:1 O Lord, hear my prayer!

Pay attention to my plea for help!

Because of your faithfulness and justice, answer me!

[17:7]  ¹ tn Heb “Set apart faithful acts.”

[17:7]  ² tn Heb “[O] one who delivers those who seek shelter from the ones raising themselves up, by your right hand.” The Lord’s “right hand” here symbolizes his power to protect and deliver.

[17:7]  sn Those who look to you for protection from their enemies. “Seeking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear and serve the Lord (Pss 5:11-12; 31:17-20; 34:21-22).

[17:8]  ³ tc Heb “Protect me like the pupil, a daughter of an eye.” The noun בַּת (bat, “daughter”) should probably be emended to בָּבַת (bavat, “pupil”). See Zech 2:12 HT (2:8 ET) and HALOT 107 s.v. *בָּבָה.

[17:8]  ⁴ sn Your wings. The metaphor compares God to a protective mother bird.

[17:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “from before”; or “because.” In the Hebrew text v. 9 is subordinated to v. 8. The words “protect me” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[17:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “destroy.” The psalmist uses the perfect verbal form to emphasize the degree of danger. He describes the wicked as being already in the process of destroying him.

[17:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “my enemies, at the risk of life they surround me.” The Hebrew phrase בְּנֶפֶשׁ (bÿnefesh) sometimes has the nuance “at the risk of [one’s] life” (see 1 Kgs 2:23; Prov 7:23; Lam 5:9).

[51:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. The exiles could relate to David’s experience, for they, like him, and had been forced to confront their sin. They appropriated David’s ancient prayer and applied it to their own circumstances.

[51:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”

[51:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ¹² tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”

[62:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “only for God be silent, my soul.” The wording is similar to that of v. 1a. Here an imperatival form, דּוֹמִּי (dommiy, “be silent”), appears instead of the noun דּוּמִיָּה (dumiyyah, “silence”). The psalmist is encouraging himself to maintain his trust in God.

[62:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for from him [is] my hope.”

[62:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “my high rocky summit.”

[62:6]  ¹⁶ tn Or “my elevated place” (see Ps 18:2).

[62:6]  ¹⁷ sn The wording is identical to that of v. 2, except that רַבָּה (rabbah, “greatly”) does not appear in v. 6.

[62:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “upon God [is] my deliverance and my glory, the high rocky summit of my strength, my shelter [is] in God.”

[62:8]  ¹⁹ tn To “pour out one’s heart” means to offer up to God intense, emotional lamentation and petitionary prayers (see Lam 2:19).

[85:8]  ²⁰ sn I will listen. Having asked for the Lord’s favor, the psalmist (who here represents the nation) anticipates a divine word of assurance.

[85:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “speak.” The idiom “speak peace” refers to establishing or maintaining peaceful relations with someone (see Gen 37:4; Zech 9:10; cf. Ps 122:8).

[85:8]  ²² tn Heb “to his people and to his faithful followers.” The translation assumes that “his people” and “his faithful followers” are viewed as identical here.

[85:8]  ²³ tn Or “yet let them not.” After the negative particle אֵל (’el), the prefixed verbal form is jussive, indicating the speaker’s desire or wish.

[85:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “certainly his deliverance [is] near to those who fear him.”

[85:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “to dwell, glory, in our land.” “Glory” is the subject of the infinitive. The infinitive with -לְ (lÿ), “to dwell,” probably indicates result here (“then”). When God delivers his people and renews his relationship with them, he will once more reveal his royal splendor in the land.

[85:10]  ²⁶ tn The psalmist probably uses the perfect verbal forms in v. 10 in a dramatic or rhetorical manner, describing what he anticipates as if it were already occurring or had already occurred.

[85:10]  ²⁷ sn Deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. The psalmist personifies these abstract qualities to emphasize that God’s loyal love and faithfulness will yield deliverance and peace for his people.

[85:11]  ²⁸ sn The psalmist already sees undeniable signs of God’s faithfulness and expects deliverance to arrive soon.

[85:12]  ²⁹ tn Heb “what is good.”

[85:12]  ³⁰ tn Both “bestow” and “yield” translate the same Hebrew verb (נָתַן, natan). The repetition of the word emphasizes that agricultural prosperity is the direct result of divine blessing.

[85:13]  ³¹ tn Or “will go.”

[85:13]  ³² tn Or “will prepare.”

[85:13]  ³³ tn Heb “and it prepares for a way his footsteps.” Some suggest emending וְיָשֵׂם (vÿyasem, “and prepares”) to וְשָׁלוֹם (vÿshalom, “and peace”) since “deliverance” and “peace” are closely related earlier in v. 13. This could be translated, “and peace [goes ahead, making] a pathway for his footsteps” (cf. NEB).

[109:21]  ³⁴ tn Heb “but you, Lord, Master, do with me for the sake of your name.” Here “name” stands metonymically for God’s reputation.

[109:26]  ³⁵ tn Heb “deliver me according to your faithfulness.”

[143:1]  ³⁶ sn Psalm 143. As in the previous psalm, the psalmist laments his persecuted state and asks the Lord to deliver him from his enemies.