Psalms 31:2-3

31:2 Listen to me! ¹ 

Quickly deliver me!

Be my protector and refuge, ² 

a stronghold where I can be safe! ³ 

31:3 For you are my high ridge ⁴  and my stronghold;

for the sake of your own reputation ⁵  you lead me and guide me. ⁶ 

Psalms 63:1

Psalm 63 ⁷ 

A psalm of David, written when he was in the Judean wilderness. ⁸ 

63:1 O God, you are my God! I long for you! ⁹ 

My soul thirsts ¹⁰  for you,

my flesh yearns for you,

in a dry and parched ¹¹  land where there is no water.

[31:2]  ¹ tn Heb “turn toward me your ear.”

[31:2]  ² tn Heb “become for me a rocky summit of refuge.”

[31:2]  ³ tn Heb “a house of strongholds to deliver me.”

[31:3]  ⁴ sn The metaphor of the high ridge pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28.

[31:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “name.” The Hebrew term שֵׁם (shem, “name”) refers here to the Lord’s reputation. (The English term “name” is often used the same way.)

[31:3]  ⁶ tn The present translation assumes that the imperfect verbal forms are generalizing, “you lead me and guide me.” Other options are to take them as an expression of confidence about the future, “you will lead me and guide me” (cf. NASB), or as expressing a prayer, “lead me and guide me” (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV).

[63:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 63. The psalmist expresses his intense desire to be in God’s presence and confidently affirms that God will judge his enemies.

[63:1]  ⁸ sn According to the psalm superscription David wrote the psalm while in the “wilderness of Judah.” Perhaps this refers to the period described in 1 Sam 23-24 or to the incident mentioned in 2 Sam 15:23.

[63:1]  ⁹ tn Or “I will seek you.”

[63:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I thirst.”

[63:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “faint” or “weary.” This may picture the land as “faint” or “weary,” or it may allude to the effect this dry desert has on those who are forced to live in it.