Psalms 143:7-8

143:7 Answer me quickly, Lord!

My strength is fading. ¹ 

Do not reject me, ² 

or I will join ³  those descending into the grave. ⁴ 

143:8 May I hear about your loyal love in the morning, ⁵ 

for I trust in you.

Show me the way I should go, ⁶ 

because I long for you. ⁷ 

Revelation 22:20

22:20 The one who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!

[143:7]  ¹ tn Heb “my spirit is failing.”

[143:7]  ² tn Heb “do not hide your face from me.” The idiom “hide the face” (1) can mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or (2) can carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 30:7; 88:14).

[143:7]  ³ tn Heb “I will be equal with.”

[143:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “the pit.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit; cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. See Ps 28:1.

[143:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “cause me to hear in the morning your loyal love.” Here “loyal love” probably stands metonymically for an oracle of assurance promising God’s intervention as an expression of his loyal love.

[143:8]  ⁶ sn The way probably refers here to God’s moral and ethical standards and requirements (see v. 10).

[143:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “for to you I lift up my life.” The Hebrew expression נָאָשׂ נֶפֶשׁ (na’as nefesh, “to lift up [one’s] life”) means “to desire; to long for” (see Deut 24:15; Prov 19:18; Jer 22:27; 44:14; Hos 4:8, as well as H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 16).