22:7 In my distress I called to the Lord;
I called to my God. 1
From his heavenly temple 2 he heard my voice;
he listened to my cry for help. 3
22:8 The earth heaved and shook; 4
the foundations of the sky 5 trembled. 6
They heaved because he was angry.
1 tn In this poetic narrative the two prefixed verbal forms in v. 7a are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects. Note the use of the vav consecutive with the prefixed verbal form that follows in v. 7b.
2 tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly, not earthly, temple is in view.
3 tn Heb “and my cry for help [entered] his ears.”
4 tn The earth heaved and shook. The imagery pictures an earthquake, in which the earth’s surface rises and falls. The earthquake motif is common in Old Testament theophanies of God as warrior and in ancient Near eastern literary descriptions of warring gods and kings. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 160-62.
5 tn Ps 18:7 reads “the roots of the mountains.”
6 tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the three prefixed verbal forms with vav consecutive in the verse.