Psalms 109:26

109:26 Help me, O Lord my God!

Because you are faithful to me, deliver me! ¹ 

Psalms 119:88

119:88 Revive me with ²  your loyal love,

that I might keep ³  the rules you have revealed. ⁴ 

Psalms 119:124

119:124 Show your servant your loyal love! ⁵ 

Teach me your statutes!

Psalms 119:149

119:149 Listen to me ⁶  because of ⁷  your loyal love!

O Lord, revive me, as you typically do! ⁸ 

Psalms 119:159

119:159 See how I love your precepts!

O Lord, revive me with your loyal love!

Psalms 25:7

25:7 Do not hold against me ⁹  the sins of my youth ¹⁰  or my rebellious acts!

Because you are faithful to me, extend to me your favor, O Lord! ¹¹ 

Psalms 51:1

Psalm 51 ¹² 

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. ¹³ 

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of ¹⁴  your loyal love!

Because of ¹⁵  your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! ¹⁶ 

[109:26]  ¹ tn Heb “deliver me according to your faithfulness.”

[119:88]  ² tn Heb “according to.”

[119:88]  ³ tn The cohortative verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding imperative.

[119:88]  ⁴ tn Heb “of your mouth.”

[119:124]  ³ tn Heb “do with your servant according to your loyal love.”

[119:149]  ⁴ tn Heb “my voice.”

[119:149]  ⁵ tn Heb “according to.”

[119:149]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to your custom.”

[25:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “do not remember,” with the intention of punishing.

[25:7]  ⁶ sn That is, the sins characteristic of youths, who lack moral discretion and wisdom.

[25:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “according to your faithfulness, remember me, you, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord.”

[51:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. The exiles could relate to David’s experience, for they, like him, and had been forced to confront their sin. They appropriated David’s ancient prayer and applied it to their own circumstances.

[51:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”

[51:1]  ⁸ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁹ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ¹⁰ tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”