Psalm 18:35–36

Footnotes

1. 102 Heb “and you give to me the shield of your deliverance.” You give me your protective shield. Ancient Near Eastern literature often refers to a god giving a king special weapons. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 260–61.
2. 103 2 Sam 22:36 omits this line, perhaps due to homoioarcton. A scribe’s eye may have jumped from the vav (ו) prefixed to “your right hand” to the vav prefixed to the following “and your answer,” causing the copyist to omit by accident the intervening words (“your right hand supports me and”).
3. 104 The of Ps 18:35 appears to read, “your condescension,” apparently referring to God’s willingness to intervene (cf. “you stoop down”). However, the noun עֲנָוָה (’anavah) elsewhere means “humility” and is used only here of God. The form עַנְוַתְךָ (’anvatékha) may be a fully written form of the suffixed infinitive construct of עָנָה (’anah, “to answer”; a defectively written form of the infinitive appears in 2 Sam 22:36). In this case the psalmist refers to God’s willingness to answer his prayer; one might translate, “your favorable response.”
4. 105 Heb “makes me great.”
5. 106 Heb “you make wide my step under me.” “Step” probably refers metonymically to the path upon which the psalmist walks. Another option is to translate, “you widen my stride.” This would suggest that God gives the psalmist the capacity to run quickly.
6. 107 Heb “lower legs.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun, which occurs only here, see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (), 112. A cognate Akkadian noun means “lower leg.”