18:33 He gives me the agility of a deer; 1
he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. 2
40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, 3
out of the slimy mud. 4
He placed my feet on a rock
and gave me secure footing. 5
61:2 From the most remote place on earth 6
I call out to you in my despair. 7
Lead me 8 up to an inaccessible rocky summit! 9
3:18 I will rejoice because of 10 the Lord;
I will be happy because of the God who delivers me!
3:19 The sovereign Lord is my source of strength. 11
He gives me the agility of a deer; 12
he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. 13
(This prayer is for the song leader. It is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.) 14
7:24 “Everyone 15 who hears these words of mine and does them is like 16 a wise man 17 who built his house on rock. 7:25 The rain fell, the flood 18 came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock.
1 tn Heb “[the one who] makes my feet like [those of ] a deer.”
2 tn Heb “and on my high places he makes me walk.” The imperfect verbal form emphasizes God’s characteristic provision. The psalmist compares his agility in battle to the ability of a deer to negotiate rugged, high terrain without falling or being injured.
3 tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).
4 tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.
5 tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”
6 tn Heb “from the end of the earth.” This may indicate (1) the psalmist is exiled in a distant land, or (2) it may be hyperbolic (the psalmist feels alienated from God’s presence, as if he were in a distant land).
7 tn Heb “while my heart faints.”
8 tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s wish or prayer.
9 tn Heb “on to a rocky summit [that] is higher than I.”
10 tn Or “in.”
11 tn Or perhaps, “is my wall,” that is, “my protector.”
12 tn Heb “he makes my feet like those of deer.”
13 tn Heb “he makes me walk on my high places.”
14 tn Heb “For the leader, on my stringed instruments.”
15 tn Grk “Therefore everyone.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.
16 tn Grk “will be like.” The same phrase occurs in v. 26.
17 tn Here and in v. 26 the Greek text reads ἀνήρ (anhr), while the parallel account in Luke 6:47-49 uses ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") in vv. 48 and 49.
18 tn Grk “the rivers.”
19 tn Grk “And answering, Simon Peter said.”
20 tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”
21 tn Grk “answering, Jesus said to him.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the syntax of this phrase has been modified for clarity.
22 tn The expression “flesh and blood” could refer to “any human being” (so TEV, NLT; cf. NIV “man”), but it could also refer to Peter himself (i.e., his own intuition; cf. CEV “You didn’t discover this on your own”). Because of the ambiguity of the referent, the phrase “flesh and blood” has been retained in the translation.
23 tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).