17:8 Protect me as you would protect the pupil of your eye! 1
Hide me in the shadow of your wings! 2
22:20 Deliver me 3 from the sword!
Save 4 my life 5 from the claws 6 of the wild dogs!
22:21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lion, 7
and from the horns of the wild oxen! 8
You have answered me! 9
121:7 The Lord will protect you from all harm;
he will protect your life.
1 tc Heb “Protect me like the pupil, a daughter of an eye.” The noun בַּת (bat, “daughter”) should probably be emended to בָּבַת (bavat, “pupil”). See Zech 2:12 HT (2:8 ET) and HALOT 107 s.v. *בָּבָה.
2 sn Your wings. The metaphor compares God to a protective mother bird.
3 tn Or “my life.”
4 tn The verb “save” is supplied in the translation; it is understood by ellipsis (see “deliver” in the preceding line).
5 tn Heb “my only one.” The psalmist may mean that his life is precious, or that he feels isolated and alone.
6 tn Heb “from the hand.” Here “hand” is understood by metonymy as a reference to the “paw” and thus the “claws” of the wild dogs.
7 sn The psalmist again compares his enemies to vicious dogs and ferocious lions (see vv. 13, 16).
8 tn The Hebrew term רֵמִים (remim) appears to be an alternate spelling of רְאֵמִים (rÿ’emim, “wild oxen”; see BDB 910 s.v. רְאֵם).
9 tn Heb “and from the horns of the wild oxen you answer me.” Most take the final verb with the preceding prepositional phrase. Some understand the verb form as a relatively rare precative perfect, expressing a wish or request (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. (See the discussion at Ps 3:7.) Others prefer to take the perfect in its usual indicative sense. The psalmist, perhaps in response to an oracle of salvation, affirms confidently that God has answered him, assuring him that deliverance is on the way. The present translation takes the prepositional phrase as parallel to the preceding “from the mouth of the lion” and as collocated with the verb “rescue” at the beginning of the verse. “You have answered me” is understood as a triumphant shout which marks a sudden shift in tone and introduces the next major section of the psalm. By isolating the statement syntactically, the psalmist highlights the declaration.
10 sn A quotation from Ps 31:5. It is a psalm of trust. The righteous, innocent sufferer trusts in God. Luke does not have the cry of pain from Ps 22:1 (cf. Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34), but notes Jesus’ trust instead.
11 tn Grk “And they.” Because of the length of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences, καί (kai) has not been translated here; a new sentence is begun instead.