18:5 The ropes of Sheol tightened around me, 3
the snares of death trapped me. 4
18:6 In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried out to my God. 5
From his heavenly temple 6 he heard my voice;
he listened to my cry for help. 7
For the music director; according to the tune “Morning Doe;” 9 a psalm of David.
22:1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? 10
I groan in prayer, but help seems far away. 11
22:2 My God, I cry out during the day,
but you do not answer,
and during the night my prayers do not let up. 12
A song, a psalm written by the Korahites; for the music director; according to the machalath-leannoth style; 14 a well-written song 15 by Heman the Ezrachite.
88:1 O Lord God who delivers me! 16
By day I cry out
and at night I pray before you. 17
88:2 Listen to my prayer! 18
Pay attention 19 to my cry for help!
88:3 For my life 20 is filled with troubles
and I am ready to enter Sheol. 21
109:4 They repay my love with accusations, 22
but I continue to pray. 23
1 tn The word means “Father” in Aramaic.
2 sn This cup alludes to the wrath of God that Jesus would experience (in the form of suffering and death) for us. See Ps 11:6; 75:8-9; Isa 51:17, 19, 22 for this figure.
3 tn Heb “surrounded me.”
4 tn Heb “confronted me.”
5 tn In this poetic narrative context the four prefixed verbal forms in v. 6 are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects.
6 tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly temple is in view, not the earthly one.
7 tc Heb “and my cry for help before him came into his ears.” 2 Sam 22:7 has a shorter reading, “my cry for help, in his ears.” It is likely that Ps 18:6 MT as it now stands represents a conflation of two readings: (1) “my cry for help came before him,” (2) “my cry for help came into his ears.” See F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS), 144, n. 13.
8 sn Psalm 22. The psalmist cries out to the Lord for deliverance from his dangerous enemies, who have surrounded him and threaten his life. Confident that the Lord will intervene, he then vows to thank the Lord publicly for his help and anticipates a time when all people will recognize the Lord’s greatness and worship him.
9 tn Heb “according to the doe of the dawn.” Apparently this refers to a particular musical tune or style.
10 sn From the psalmist’s perspective it seems that God has abandoned him, for he fails to answer his cry for help (vv. 1b-2).
11 tn Heb “far from my deliverance [are] the words of my groaning.” The Hebrew noun שְׁאָגָה (shÿ’agah) and its related verb שָׁאַג (sha’ag) are sometimes used of a lion’s roar, but they can also describe human groaning (see Job 3:24 and Pss 32:3 and 38:8.
12 tn Heb “there is no silence to me.”
13 sn Psalm 88. The psalmist cries out in pain to the Lord, begging him for relief from his intense and constant suffering. The psalmist regards God as the ultimate cause of his distress, but nevertheless clings to God in hope.
14 tn The Hebrew phrase מָחֲלַת לְעַנּוֹת (makhalat lÿ’annot) may mean “illness to afflict.” Perhaps it refers to a particular style of music, a tune title, or a musical instrument. The term מָחֲלַת also appears in the superscription of Ps 53.
15 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. The word is derived from a verb meaning “to be prudent; to be wise.” Various options are: “a contemplative song,” “a song imparting moral wisdom,” or “a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.” The term occurs in the superscriptions of Pss 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142, as well as in Ps 47:7.
16 tn Heb “O
17 tn Heb “[by] day I cry out, in the night before you.”
18 tn Heb “may my prayer come before you.” The prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive, indicating the psalmist’s desire or prayer.
19 tn Heb “turn your ear.”
20 tn Or “my soul.”
21 tn Heb “and my life approaches Sheol.”
22 tn Heb “in place of my love they oppose me.”
23 tn Heb “and I, prayer.”