Psalms 13:3

13:3 Look at me! ¹  Answer me, O Lord my God!

Revive me, ²  or else I will die! ³ 

Psalms 25:15

25:15 I continually look to the Lord for help, ⁴ 

for he will free my feet from the enemy’s net. ⁵ 

Psalms 31:9

31:9 Have mercy on me, for I am in distress!

My eyes grow dim ⁶  from suffering. ⁷ 

I have lost my strength. ⁸ 

Psalms 38:10

38:10 My heart beats quickly;

my strength leaves me;

I can hardly see. ⁹ 

Psalms 69:3

69:3 I am exhausted from shouting for help;

my throat is sore; ¹⁰ 

my eyes grow tired of looking for my God. ¹¹ 

Psalms 88:9

88:9 My eyes grow weak because of oppression.

I call out to you, O Lord, all day long;

I spread out my hands in prayer to you. ¹² 

Psalms 92:11

92:11 I gloat in triumph over those who tried to ambush me; ¹³ 

I hear the defeated cries of the evil foes who attacked me. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 101:3

101:3 I will not even consider doing what is dishonest. ¹⁵ 

I hate doing evil; ¹⁶ 

I will have no part of it. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 101:6-7

101:6 I will favor the honest people of the land, ¹⁸ 

and allow them to live with me. ¹⁹ 

Those who walk in the way of integrity will attend me. ²⁰ 

101:7 Deceitful people will not live in my palace. ²¹ 

Liars will not be welcome in my presence. ²² 

Psalms 116:8

116:8 Yes, ²³  Lord, ²⁴  you rescued my life from death,

and kept my feet from stumbling.

Psalms 121:1

Psalm 121 ²⁵ 

A song of ascents. ²⁶ 

121:1 I look up ²⁷  toward the hills.

From where ²⁸  does my help come?

Psalms 141:8

141:8 Surely I am looking to you, ²⁹  O sovereign Lord.

In you I take shelter.

Do not expose me to danger! ³⁰ 

Psalms 145:15

145:15 Everything looks to you in anticipation, ³¹ 

and you provide them with food on a regular basis. ³² 

[13:3]  ¹ tn Heb “see.”

[13:3]  ² tn Heb “Give light [to] my eyes.” The Hiphil of אוּר (’ur), when used elsewhere with “eyes” as object, refers to the law of God giving moral enlightenment (Ps 19:8), to God the creator giving literal eyesight to all people (Prov 29:13), and to God giving encouragement to his people (Ezra 9:8). Here the psalmist pictures himself as being on the verge of death. His eyes are falling shut and, if God does not intervene soon, he will “fall asleep” for good.

[13:3]  ³ tn Heb “or else I will sleep [in?] the death.” Perhaps the statement is elliptical, “I will sleep [the sleep] of death,” or “I will sleep [with the sleepers in] death.”

[25:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “my eyes continually [are] toward the Lord.”

[25:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “for he will bring out from a net my feet.” The hostility of the psalmist’s enemies is probably in view (see v. 19).

[31:9]  ⁷ tn Or perhaps, “are swollen.”

[31:9]  ⁸ tn Cf. Ps 6:7, which has a similar line.

[31:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “my breath and my stomach [grow weak].” Apparently the verb in the previous line (“grow dim, be weakened”) is to be understood here. The Hebrew term נפשׁ can mean “life,” or, more specifically, “throat, breath.” The psalmist seems to be lamenting that his breathing is impaired because of the physical and emotional suffering he is forced to endure.

[38:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and the light of my eyes, even they, there is not with me.” The “light of the eyes” may refer to physical energy (see 1 Sam 14:27, 29), life itself (Ps 13:3), or the ability to see (Prov 29:23).

[69:3]  ¹³ tn Or perhaps “raw”; Heb “burned; enflamed.”

[69:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “my eyes fail from waiting for my God.” The psalmist has intently kept his eyes open, looking for God to intervene, but now his eyes are watery and bloodshot, impairing his vision.

[88:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I spread out my hands to you.” Spreading out the hands toward God was a prayer gesture (see Exod 9:29, 33; 1 Kgs 8:22, 38; 2 Chr 6:12-13, 29; Ezra 9:15; Job 11:13; Isa 1:15). The words “in prayer” have been supplied in the translation to clarify this.

[92:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “my eye gazes upon those who watch me [with evil intent].” See also Pss 5:8; 27:11; 56:2. The form שׁוּרָי (shuray) should be emended to שׁוֹרְרָי (shorÿray).

[92:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “those who rise up against me, evil [foes], my ears hear.”

[101:3]  ²² tn Heb “I will not set before my eyes a thing of worthlessness.”

[101:3]  ²³ tn Heb “the doing of swerving [deeds] I hate.” The Hebrew term סֵטִים (setim) is probably an alternate spelling of שֵׂטִים (setim), which appears in many medieval Hebrew mss. The form appears to be derived from a verbal root שׂוּט (sut, “to fall away; to swerve”; see Ps 40:4).

[101:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “it [i.e., the doing of evil deeds] does not cling to me.”

[101:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “my eyes [are] on the faithful of the land.”

[101:6]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew text simply reads, “in order to live with me.”

[101:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “one who walks in the way of integrity, he will minister to me.”

[101:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he will not live in the midst of my house, one who does deceit.”

[101:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “one who speaks lies will not be established before my eyes.”

[116:8]  ³¹ tn Or “for.”

[116:8]  ³² tn “Lord” is supplied here in the translation for clarification.

[121:1]  ³⁴ sn Psalm 121. The psalm affirms that the Lord protects his people Israel. Unless the psalmist addresses an observer (note the second person singular forms in vv. 3-8), it appears there are two or three speakers represented in the psalm, depending on how one takes v. 3. The translation assumes that speaker one talks in vv. 1-2, that speaker two responds to him with a prayer in v. 3 (this assumes the verbs are true jussives of prayer), and that speaker three responds with words of assurance in vv. 4-8. If the verbs in v. 3 are taken as a rhetorical use of the jussive, then there are two speakers. Verses 3-8 are speaker two’s response to the words of speaker one. See the note on the word “sleep” at the end of v. 3.

[121:1]  ³⁵ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[121:1]  ³⁶ tn Heb “I lift my eyes.”

[121:1]  ³⁷ tn The Hebrew term מֵאַיִן (me’ayin) is interrogative, not relative, in function. Rather than directly stating that his source of help descends from the hills, the psalmist is asking, “From where does my help come?” Nevertheless, the first line does indicate that he is looking toward the hills for help, probably indicating that he is looking up toward the sky in anticipation of supernatural intervention. The psalmist assumes the dramatic role of one needing help. He answers his own question in v. 2.

[141:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “my eyes [are] toward you.”

[141:8]  ³⁸ tn Heb “do not lay bare my life.” Only here is the Piel form of the verb collocated with the term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “life”). In Isa 53:12 the Lord’s servant “lays bare (the Hiphil form of the verb is used) his life to death.”

[145:15]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the eyes of all wait for you.”

[145:15]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and you give to them their food in its season” (see Ps 104:27).