Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight (v. 77). The preceding prayer is reinforced by a further request for mercy. It is practically synonymous with the first petition in verse 17: ‘Do good to your servant and I will live.’ While the reference to delighting in the law is different from that in verse 70, the meaning is practically the same.36 The Hebrew verb ‘delight in’ (shâʿaʿ) and the noun from it, ‘delights’, (shâʿashûʿîm) are definitely poetical words,