Psalms 116:8

116:8 Yes, ¹  Lord, ²  you rescued my life from death,

and kept my feet from stumbling.

Psalms 116:1

Psalm 116 ³ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ⁴ 

Psalms 2:9

2:9 You will break them ⁵  with an iron scepter; ⁶ 

you will smash them like a potter’s jar!’” ⁷ 

Romans 7:23-24

7:23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

[116:8]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[116:8]  ² tn “Lord” is supplied here in the translation for clarification.

[116:1]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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).

[2:9]  ⁵ tc The LXX reads “you will shepherd them.” This reading, quoted in the Greek text of the NT in Rev 2:27; 12:5; 19:15, assumes a different vocalization of the consonantal Hebrew text and understands the verb as רָעָה (ra’ah, “to shepherd”) rather than רָעָע (ra’a’, “to break”). But the presence of נָפַץ (nafats, “to smash”) in the next line strongly favors the MT vocalization.

[2:9]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term שֵׁבֶט (shevet) can refer to a “staff” or “rod,” but here it probably refers to the Davidic king’s royal scepter, symbolizing his sovereignty.

[2:9]  ⁷ sn Like a potter’s jar. Before the Davidic king’s awesome power, the rebellious nations are like fragile pottery.