Psalms 107:6

107:6 They cried out to the Lord in their distress;

he delivered them from their troubles.

Psalms 107:13

107:13 They cried out to the Lord in their distress;

he delivered them from their troubles.

Psalms 107:28

107:28 They cried out to the Lord in their distress;

he delivered them from their troubles.

Psalms 30:8-12

30:8 To you, O Lord, I cried out;

I begged the Lord for mercy: ¹ 

30:9 “What ²  profit is there in taking my life, ³ 

in my descending into the Pit? ⁴ 

Can the dust of the grave ⁵  praise you?

Can it declare your loyalty? ⁶ 

30:10 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me!

O Lord, deliver me!” ⁷ 

30:11 Then you turned my lament into dancing;

you removed my sackcloth and covered me with joy. ⁸ 

30:12 So now ⁹  my heart ¹⁰  will sing to you and not be silent;

O Lord my God, I will always ¹¹  give thanks to you.

Psalms 34:4-6

34:4 I sought the Lord’s help ¹²  and he answered me;

he delivered me from all my fears.

34:5 Those who look to him for help are happy;

their faces are not ashamed. ¹³ 

34:6 This oppressed man cried out and the Lord heard;

he saved him ¹⁴  from all his troubles.

Psalms 78:34-35

78:34 When he struck them down, ¹⁵  they sought his favor; ¹⁶ 

they turned back and longed for God.

78:35 They remembered that God was their protector, ¹⁷ 

and that the sovereign God was their deliverer. ¹⁸ 

Psalms 116:4-8

116:4 I called on the name of the Lord,

“Please Lord, rescue my life!”

116:5 The Lord is merciful and fair;

our God is compassionate.

116:6 The Lord protects ¹⁹  the untrained; ²⁰ 

I was in serious trouble ²¹  and he delivered me.

116:7 Rest once more, my soul, ²² 

for the Lord has vindicated you. ²³ 

116:8 Yes, ²⁴  Lord, ²⁵  you rescued my life from death,

and kept my feet from stumbling.

Jeremiah 33:3

33:3 ‘Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious ²⁶  things which you still do not know about.’

[30:8]  ¹ tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 8 are probably preterites; the psalmist recalls that he prayed in his time of crisis.

[30:9]  ² sn The following two verses (vv. 9-10) contain the prayer (or an excerpt of the prayer) that the psalmist offered to the Lord during his crisis.

[30:9]  ³ tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.

[30:9]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew term שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4).

[30:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[30:9]  ⁶ tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”

[30:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “be a helper to me.”

[30:11]  ⁸ sn Covered me with joy. “Joy” probably stands metonymically for festive attire here.

[30:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “so that”; or “in order that.”

[30:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “glory.” Some view כָבוֹד (khavod, “glory”) here as a metonymy for man’s inner being (see BDB 459 s.v. II כָּבוֹד 5), but it is preferable to emend the form to כְּבֵדִי (kÿvediy, “my liver”). Like the heart, the liver is viewed as the seat of one’s emotions. See also Pss 16:9; 57:9; 108:1, as well as H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 64, and M. Dahood, Psalms (AB), 1:90. For an Ugaritic example of the heart/liver as the source of joy, see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 47-48: “her [Anat’s] liver swelled with laughter, her heart was filled with joy, the liver of Anat with triumph.” “Heart” is used in the translation above for the sake of English idiom; the expression “my liver sings” would seem odd indeed to the modern reader.

[30:12]  ¹¹ tn Or “forever.”

[34:4]  ¹² tn Heb “I sought the Lord.”

[34:5]  ¹³ tc Heb “they look to him and are radiant and their faces are not ashamed.” The third person plural subject (“they”) is unidentified; there is no antecedent in the Hebrew text. For this reason some prefer to take the perfect verbal forms in the first line as imperatives, “look to him and be radiant” (cf. NEB, NRSV). Some medieval Hebrew mss and other ancient witnesses (Aquila, the Syriac, and Jerome) support an imperatival reading for the first verb. In the second line some (with support from the LXX and Syriac) change “their faces” to “your faces,” which allows one to retain more easily the jussive force of the verb (suggested by the preceding אַל [’al]): “do not let your faces be ashamed.” It is probable that the verbal construction in the second line is rhetorical, expressing the conviction that the action in view cannot or should not happen. See GKC 322 §109.e.

[34:6]  ¹⁴ tn The pronoun refers back to “this oppressed man,” namely, the psalmist.

[78:34]  ¹⁵ tn Or “killed them,” that is, killed large numbers of them.

[78:34]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they sought him.”

[78:35]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “my high rocky summit.”

[78:35]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and [that] God Most High [was] their redeemer.”

[116:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “guards.” The active participle indicates this is a characteristic of the Lord.

[116:6]  ²⁰ tn Or “the [morally] naive,” that is, the one who is young and still in the process of learning right from wrong and distinguishing wisdom from folly. See Ps 19:7.

[116:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “I was low.”

[116:7]  ²² tn Heb “return, my soul, to your place of rest.”

[116:7]  ²³ tn The Hebrew idiom גָּמַל עַל (gamal ’al) means “to repay,” here in a positive sense (cf. Ps 13:5).

[116:8]  ²⁴ tn Or “for.”

[116:8]  ²⁵ tn “Lord” is supplied here in the translation for clarification.

[33:3]  ²⁶ tn This passive participle or adjective is normally used to describe cities or walls as “fortified” or “inaccessible.” All the lexicons, however, agree in seeing it used here metaphorically of “secret” or “mysterious” things, things that Jeremiah could not know apart from the Lord’s revelation. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 170) make the interesting observation that the word is used here in a context in which the fortifications of Jerusalem are about to fall to the Babylonians; the fortified things in God’s secret counsel fall through answer to prayer.