By David.
27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! 2
I fear no one! 3
The Lord protects my life!
I am afraid of no one! 4
For the music director; by the Korahites; according to the alamoth style; 6 a song.
46:1 God is our strong refuge; 7
he is truly our helper in times of trouble. 8
46:2 For this reason we do not fear 9 when the earth shakes, 10
and the mountains tumble into the depths of the sea, 11
118:6 The Lord is on my side, 12 I am not afraid!
What can people do to me? 13
31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;
their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.
The Lord will strike with 14 his hand;
the one who helps will stumble
and the one being helped will fall.
Together they will perish. 15
41:10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you!
Don’t be frightened, for I am your God! 16
I strengthen you –
yes, I help you –
yes, I uphold you with my saving right hand! 17
12:4 “I 18 tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, 19 and after that have nothing more they can do. 12:5 But I will warn 20 you whom you should fear: Fear the one who, after the killing, 21 has authority to throw you 22 into hell. 23 Yes, I tell you, fear him!
8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who 24 did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? 25 It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ 26 is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 27 8:36 As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 28 8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory 29 through him 30 who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, 31 nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1 sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.
2 tn Heb “the
3 tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”
4 tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”
5 sn Psalm 46. In this so-called “Song Of Zion” God’s people confidently affirm that they are secure because the great warrior-king dwells within Jerusalem and protects it from the nations that cause such chaos in the earth. A refrain (vv. 7, 11) concludes the song’s two major sections.
6 sn The meaning of the Hebrew term עֲלָמוֹת (alamoth, which means “young women”) is uncertain; perhaps it refers to a particular style of music. Cf. 1 Chr 15:20.
7 tn Heb “our refuge and strength,” which is probably a hendiadys meaning “our strong refuge” (see Ps 71:7). Another option is to translate, “our refuge and source of strength.”
8 tn Heb “a helper in times of trouble he is found [to be] greatly.” The perfect verbal form has a generalizing function here. The adverb מְאֹד (mÿ’od, “greatly”) has an emphasizing function.
9 tn The imperfect is taken in a generalizing sense (cf. NEB) because the situation described in vv. 2-3 is understood as symbolizing typical world conditions. In this case the imperfect draws attention to the typical nature of the response. The covenant community characteristically responds with confidence, not fear. Another option is to take the situation described as purely hypothetical. In this case one might translate, “We will not fear, even though the earth should shake” (cf. NIV, NRSV).
10 tn The Hiphil infinitival form is normally taken to mean “when [the earth] is altered,” being derived from מוּר (mur, “to change”). In this case the Hiphil would be intransitive, as in Ps 15:4. HALOT 560 s.v. II מור emends the form to a Niphal and derives it from a homonymic root מוּר attested in Arabic with the meaning “shake.”
11 tn Heb “heart of the seas.” The plural may be used for emphasis, pointing to the deepest sea. Note that the next verse uses a singular pronoun (“its waters,” “its swelling”) in referring back to the plural noun.
12 tn Heb “for me.”
13 tn The rhetorical question assumes the answer, “Nothing!” The imperfect is used in a modal sense here, indicating capability or potential. See Ps 56:11.
14 tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”
15 tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”
16 tn According to BDB (1043 s.v. שָׁעָה), the verb תִּשְׁתָּע (tishta’) in the second line of the poetic couplet is a Hitpael form from the root שָׁעָה (sha’ah, “gaze,” with metathesis of the stem prefix and the first root letter). Taking the Hitpael as iterative, one may then translate “do not anxiously look about.” However, the alleged Hitpael form of שָׁעָה (sha’ah) only occurs here and in verse 23. HALOT 1671 s.v. שׁתע proposes that the verb is instead a Qal form from the root שׁתע (“fear”) which is attested in cognate Semitic languages, including Ugaritic (discovered after the publishing of BDB), suggests the existence of this root. The poetic structure of v. 10 also supports the proposal, for the form in question is in synonymous parallelism to יָרֵא (yare’, “fear”).
17 tn The “right hand” is a symbol of the Lord’s power to deliver (Exod 15:6, 12) and protect (Ps 63:9 HT [63:8 ET]). Here צֶדֶק (tsedeq) has its well-attested nuance of “vindicated righteousness,” i.e., “victory, deliverance” (see 45:8; 51:5, and BDB 841-42 s.v.).
18 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
19 sn Judaism had a similar exhortation in 4 Macc 13:14-15.
20 tn Grk “will show,” but in this reflective context such a demonstration is a warning or exhortation.
21 sn The actual performer of the killing is not here specified. It could be understood to be God (so NASB, NRSV) but it could simply emphasize that, after a killing has taken place, it is God who casts the person into hell.
22 tn The direct object (“you”) is understood.
23 sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36).
24 tn Grk “[he] who.” The relative clause continues the question of v. 31 in a way that is awkward in English. The force of v. 32 is thus: “who indeed did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – How will he not also with him give us all things?”
25 sn An allusion to Isa 50:8 where the reference is singular; Paul applies this to all believers (“God’s elect” is plural here).
26 tc ‡ A number of significant and early witnesses, along with several others (Ì46vid א A C F G L Ψ 6 33 81 104 365 1505 al lat bo), read ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) after Χριστός (Cristos, “Christ”) in v. 34. But the shorter reading is not unrepresented (B D 0289 1739 1881 Ï sa). Once ᾿Ιησοῦς got into the text, what scribe would omit it? Although the external evidence is on the side of the longer reading, internally such an expansion seems suspect. The shorter reading is thus preferred. NA27 has the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.
27 tn Here “sword” is a metonymy that includes both threats of violence and acts of violence, even including death (although death is not necessarily the only thing in view here).
28 sn A quotation from Ps 44:22.
29 tn BDAG 1034 s.v. ὑπερνικάω states, “as a heightened form of νικᾶν prevail completely ὑπερνικῶμεν we are winning a most glorious victory Ro 8:37.”
30 tn Here the referent could be either God or Christ, but in v. 39 it is God’s love that is mentioned.
31 tn BDAG 138 s.v. ἀρχή 6 takes this term as a reference to angelic or transcendent powers (as opposed to merely human rulers). To clarify this, the adjective “heavenly” has been supplied in the translation. Some interpreters see this as a reference to fallen angels or demonic powers, and this view is reflected in some recent translations (NIV, NLT).
32 tc Some important
33 sn A quotation from Ps 118:6.