Psalm 31:1–18

Footnotes

1. 1 Heb “in your vindication rescue me.”
2. 2 Heb “turn toward me your ear.”
3. 3 Heb “become for me a rocky summit of refuge.”
4. 4 Heb “a house of strongholds to deliver me.”
5. 5 The metaphor of the high ridge pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28.
6. 6 Heb “name.” The Hebrew term שֵׁם (shem, “name”) refers here to the Lord’s reputation. (The English term “name” is often used the same way.)
7. 7 The present translation assumes that the imperfect verbal forms are generalizing, “you lead me and guide me.” Other options are to take them as an expression of confidence about the future, “you will lead me and guide me” (cf. ), or as expressing a prayer, “lead me and guide me” (cf. , , ).
8. 8 Heb “bring me out.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form expresses the psalmist’s confidence about the future. Another option is to take the form as expressing a prayer, “free me.”
9. 9 Heb “my spirit.” The noun רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) here refers to the animating spirit that gives the psalmist life.
10. 10 Or “redeem.” The perfect verbal form is understood here as anticipatory, indicating rhetorically the psalmist’s certitude and confidence that God will intervene. The psalmist is so confident of God’s positive response to his prayer that he can describe his deliverance as if it had already happened. Another option is to take the perfect as precative, expressing a wish or request (“rescue me”; cf. ). See §30.5.4c, d. However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.
11. 11 Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.
12. 12 Heb “you know the distresses of my life.”
13. 13 Heb “you cause my feet to stand.”
14. 14 Or perhaps, “are swollen.”
15. 15 Cf. Ps 6:7, which has a similar line.
16. 16 Heb “my breath and my stomach [grow weak].” Apparently the verb in the previous line (“grow dim, be weakened”) is to be understood here. The Hebrew term נפשׁ can mean “life,” or, more specifically, “throat, breath.” The psalmist seems to be lamenting that his breathing is impaired because of the physical and emotional suffering he is forced to endure.
17. 17 Heb “and my years in groaning.”
18. 18 Heb “stumbles in.”
19. 19 Heb “grow weak.”
20. 20 Heb “because of all my enemies I am a reproach.”
21. 21 Heb “and to my neighbors, exceedingly.” If the is retained, then these words probably go with what precedes. However the syntactical awkwardness of the text suggests it is textually corrupt. P. C. Craigie (Psalms 1–50 [], ) suggests that the initial mem (ם) on מְאֹד (me’od, “exceedingly”) be understood as an enclitic mem (ם) which was originally suffixed to the preceding form and then later misinterpreted. The resulting form אֵד (’ed) can then be taken as a defectively written form of אֵיד (’ed, “calamity”). If one follows this emendation, then the text reads literally, “and to my neighbors [I am one who experiences] calamity.” The noun פַחַד (fakhad, “[object of] horror”) occurs in the next line; אֵיד and פַחַד appear in parallelism elsewhere (see Prov 1:26–27).
22. 22 Heb “and [an object of] horror to those known by me.”
23. 23 Heb “I am forgotten, like a dead man, from [the] heart.” The “heart” is here viewed as the center of one’s thoughts.
24. 24 Heb “I am like a broken jar.” One throws away a broken jar without a second thought because it is considered worthless and useless.
25. 25 Heb “the report of many.”
26. 26 Heb “the terror from all around.”
27. 27 Heb “in your hand [are] my times.”
28. 28 Heb “cause your face to shine.”
29. 29 The verb יִדְּמוּ (yiddému) is understood as a form of דָּמַם (damam, “wail, lament”). Another option is to take the verb from דָּמַם (“be quiet”; see 198–99 I דָּמַם), in which case one might translate, “May they lie silent in the grave.”
30. 30 Heb “the [ones which].”
31. 31 Or “godly.”