Psalms 74:18-23

74:18 Remember how ¹  the enemy hurls insults, O Lord, ² 

and how a foolish nation blasphemes your name!

74:19 Do not hand the life of your dove ³  over to a wild animal!

Do not continue to disregard ⁴  the lives of your oppressed people!

74:20 Remember your covenant promises, ⁵ 

for the dark regions of the earth are full of places where violence rules. ⁶ 

74:21 Do not let the afflicted be turned back in shame!

Let the oppressed and poor praise your name! ⁷ 

74:22 Rise up, O God! Defend your honor! ⁸ 

Remember how fools insult you all day long! ⁹ 

74:23 Do not disregard ¹⁰  what your enemies say, ¹¹ 

or the unceasing shouts of those who defy you. ¹² 

Jonah 2:1-2

2:1 Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish 2:2 and said,

“I ¹³  called out to the Lord from my distress,

and he answered me; ¹⁴ 

from the belly of Sheol ¹⁵  I cried out for help,

and you heard my prayer. ¹⁶ 

Jonah 2:7

2:7 When my life ¹⁷  was ebbing away, ¹⁸  I called out to ¹⁹  the Lord,

and my prayer came to your holy temple. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 15:15

15:15 I said, ²¹ 

“Lord, you know how I suffer. ²² 

Take thought of me and care for me.

Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me.

Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me.

Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake.

[74:18]  ¹ tn Heb “remember this.”

[74:18]  ² tn Or “[how] the enemy insults the Lord.”

[74:19]  ³ sn Your dove. The psalmist compares weak and vulnerable Israel to a helpless dove.

[74:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “do not forget forever.”

[74:20]  ⁵ tc Heb “look at the covenant.” The LXX reads “your covenant,” which seems to assume a second person pronominal suffix. The suffix may have been accidentally omitted by haplography. Note that the following word (כִּי) begins with kaf (כ).

[74:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “for the dark places of the earth are full of dwelling places of violence.” The “dark regions” are probably the lands where the people have been exiled (see C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, Psalms [ICC], 2:157). In some contexts “dark regions” refers to Sheol (Ps 88:6) or to hiding places likened to Sheol (Ps 143:3; Lam 3:6).

[74:21]  ⁷ sn Let the oppressed and poor praise your name! The statement is metonymic. The point is this: May the oppressed be delivered from their enemies! Then they will have ample reason to praise God’s name.

[74:22]  ⁸ tn Or “defend your cause.”

[74:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “remember your reproach from a fool all the day.”

[74:23]  ¹⁰ tn Or “forget.”

[74:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the voice of your enemies.”

[74:23]  ¹² tn Heb “the roar of those who rise up against you, which ascends continually.”

[2:2]  ¹³ sn The eight verses of Jonah’s prayer in Hebrew contain twenty-seven first-person pronominal references to himself. There are fifteen second- or third-person references to the Lord.

[2:2]  ¹⁴ tn Tg. Jonah 2:2 renders this interpretively: “and he heard my prayer.”

[2:2]  ¹⁵ sn Sheol was a name for the place of residence of the dead, the underworld (see Job 7:9-10; Isa 38:17-18). Jonah pictures himself in the belly of Sheol, its very center – in other words he is as good as dead.

[2:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “voice” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “my cry.” The term קוֹל (qol, “voice”) functions as a metonymy for the content of what is uttered: cry for help in prayer.

[2:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “my soul.” The term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul”) is often used as a metonymy for the life and the animating vitality in the body: “my life” (BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 3.c).

[2:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fainting away from me.” The verb הִתְעַטֵּף (hit’attef, “to faint away”) is used elsewhere to describe (1) the onset of death when a person’s life begins to slip away (Lam 2:12), (2) the loss of one’s senses due to turmoil (Ps 107:5), and (3) the loss of all hope of surviving calamity (Pss 77:4; 142:4; 143:4; BDB 742 s.v. עַטֵף). All three options are reflected in various English versions: “when my life was ebbing away” (JPS, NJPS), “when my life was slipping away” (CEV), “when I felt my life slipping away” (TEV), “as my senses failed me” (NEB), and “when I had lost all hope” (NLT).

[2:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “remembered.” The verb זָכַר (zakhar) usually means “to remember, to call to mind” but it can also mean “to call out” (e.g., Nah 2:6) as in the related Akkadian verb zikaru, “to name, to mention.” The idiom “to remember the Lord” here encompasses calling to mind his character and past actions and appealing to him for help (Deut 8:18-19; Ps 42:6-8; Isa 64:4-5; Zech 10:9). Tg. Jonah 2:7 glosses the verb as “I remembered the worship of the Lord,” which somewhat misses the point.

[2:7]  ²⁰ sn For similar ideas see 2 Chr 30:27; Pss 77:3; 142:3; 143:4-5.

[15:15]  ²¹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark the shift from the Lord speaking to Jerusalem, to Jeremiah speaking to God.

[15:15]  ²² tn The words “how I suffer” are not in the text but are implicit from the continuation. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. Jeremiah is not saying “you are all knowing.”