Psalms 18:6

18:6 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I cried out to my God. ¹ 

From his heavenly temple ²  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ³ 

Psalms 66:18-20

66:18 If I had harbored sin in my heart, ⁴ 

the Lord would not have listened.

66:19 However, God heard;

he listened to my prayer.

66:20 God deserves praise, ⁵ 

for ⁶  he did not reject my prayer

or abandon his love for me! ⁷ 

Psalms 116:1-2

Psalm 116 ⁸ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ⁹ 

116:2 and listened to me. ¹⁰ 

As long as I live, I will call to him when I need help. ¹¹ 

[18:6]  ¹ tn In this poetic narrative context the four prefixed verbal forms in v. 6 are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects.

[18:6]  ² 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.

[18:6]  ³ 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.

[66:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “sin if I had seen in my heart.”

[66:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “blessed [be] God.”

[66:20]  ⁶ tn Or “who.” In a blessing formula after בָּרוּךְ (barukh, “blessed be”) the form אֲשֶׁר (’asher), whether taken as a relative pronoun or causal particle, introduces the basis for the blessing/praise.

[66:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “did not turn aside my prayer and his loyal love with me.”

[116:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 116. The psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him from a life threatening crisis and promises to tell the entire covenant community what God has done for him.

[116:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “I love because the Lord heard my voice, my pleas.” It is possible that “the Lord” originally appeared directly after “I love” and was later accidentally misplaced. The translation assumes the prefixed verbal form is a preterite. The psalmist recalls that God heard his cry for help (note the perfect in v. 2a and the narrative in vv. 3-4).

[116:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “because he turned his ear to me.”

[116:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and in my days I will cry out.”