Psalms 31:5-7

31:5 Into your hand I entrust my life; ¹ 

you will rescue ²  me, O Lord, the faithful God.

31:6 I hate those who serve worthless idols, ³ 

but I trust in the Lord.

31:7 I will be happy and rejoice in your faithfulness,

because you notice my pain

and you are aware of how distressed I am. ⁴ 

[31:5]  ¹ tn Heb “my spirit.” The noun רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) here refers to the animating spirit that gives the psalmist life.

[31:5]  ² tn 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. NIV). See IBHS 494-95 §30.5.4c, d. However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.

[31:6]  ³ tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.

[31:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “you know the distresses of my life.”