Mazmur 18:33

18:33 He gives me the agility of a deer; ¹ 

he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. ² 

Mazmur 40:2

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ³ 

out of the slimy mud. ⁴ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ⁵ 

Mazmur 61:2

61:2 From the most remote place on earth ⁶ 

I call out to you in my despair. ⁷ 

Lead me ⁸  up to an inaccessible rocky summit! ⁹ 

Habakuk 3:18-19

3:18 I will rejoice because of ¹⁰  the Lord;

I will be happy because of the God who delivers me!

3:19 The sovereign Lord is my source of strength. ¹¹ 

He gives me the agility of a deer; ¹² 

he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. ¹³ 

(This prayer is for the song leader. It is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.) ¹⁴ 

Matius 7:24-25

Hearing and Doing

7:24 “Everyone ¹⁵  who hears these words of mine and does them is like ¹⁶  a wise man ¹⁷  who built his house on rock. 7:25 The rain fell, the flood ¹⁸  came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock.

Matius 16:16-18

16:16 Simon Peter answered, ¹⁹  “You are the Christ, ²⁰  the Son of the living God.” 16:17 And Jesus answered him, ²¹  “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood ²²  did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven! 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades ²³  will not overpower it.

[18:33]  ¹ tn Heb “[the one who] makes my feet like [those of ] a deer.”

[18:33]  ² tn Heb “and on my high places he makes me walk.” The imperfect verbal form emphasizes God’s characteristic provision. The psalmist compares his agility in battle to the ability of a deer to negotiate rugged, high terrain without falling or being injured.

[18:33]  sn Habakkuk uses similar language to describe his faith during difficult times. See Hab 3:19.

[40:2]  ³ tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).

[40:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[40:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[61:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “from the end of the earth.” This may indicate (1) the psalmist is exiled in a distant land, or (2) it may be hyperbolic (the psalmist feels alienated from God’s presence, as if he were in a distant land).

[61:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “while my heart faints.”

[61:2]  ⁸ tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s wish or prayer.

[61:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “on to a rocky summit [that] is higher than I.”

[3:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “in.”

[3:19]  ¹¹ tn Or perhaps, “is my wall,” that is, “my protector.”

[3:19]  ¹² tn Heb “he makes my feet like those of deer.”

[3:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “he makes me walk on my high places.”

[3:19]  sn Difficult times are coming, but Habakkuk is confident the Lord will sustain him. Habakkuk will be able to survive, just as the deer negotiates the difficult rugged terrain of the high places without injury.

[3:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “For the leader, on my stringed instruments.”

[7:24]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “Therefore everyone.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

[7:24]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “will be like.” The same phrase occurs in v. 26.

[7:24]  ¹⁷ tn Here and in v. 26 the Greek text reads ἀνήρ (anhr), while the parallel account in Luke 6:47-49 uses ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") in vv. 48 and 49.

[7:25]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “the rivers.”

[16:16]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “And answering, Simon Peter said.”

[16:16]  ²⁰ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[16:16]  sn See the note on Christ in 1:16.

[16:17]  ²¹ tn Grk “answering, Jesus said to him.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the syntax of this phrase has been modified for clarity.

[16:17]  ²² tn The expression “flesh and blood” could refer to “any human being” (so TEV, NLT; cf. NIV “man”), but it could also refer to Peter himself (i.e., his own intuition; cf. CEV “You didn’t discover this on your own”). Because of the ambiguity of the referent, the phrase “flesh and blood” has been retained in the translation.

[16:18]  ²³ tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).

[16:18]  sn In the OT, Hades was known as Sheol. It is the place where the unrighteous will reside (Matt 11:23; Luke 16:23; Rev 20:13-14). Some translations render this by its modern equivalent, “hell”; others see it as a reference to the power of death.