Psalms 18:11

18:11 He shrouded himself in darkness, ¹ 

in thick rain clouds. ² 

Psalms 18:28

18:28 Indeed, ³  you are my lamp, Lord. ⁴ 

My God ⁵  illuminates the darkness around me. ⁶ 

Psalms 104:20

104:20 You make it dark and night comes, ⁷ 

during which all the beasts of the forest prowl around.

Psalms 139:12

139:12 even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, ⁸ 

and the night is as bright as ⁹  day;

darkness and light are the same to you. ¹⁰ 

[18:11]  ¹ tc Heb “he made darkness his hiding place around him, his covering.” 2 Sam 22:12 reads, “he made darkness around him coverings,” omitting “his hiding place” and pluralizing “covering.” Ps 18:11 may include a conflation of synonyms (“his hiding place” and “his covering”) or 2 Sam 22:12 may be the result of haplography/homoioarcton. Note that three successive words in Ps 18:11 begin with the Hebrew letter samek: סִתְרוֹ סְבִיבוֹתָיו סֻכָּתוֹ (sitro sÿvivotayv sukkato).

[18:11]  ² tc Heb “darkness of water, clouds of clouds.” The noun “darkness” (חֶשְׁכַת, kheshkhat) is probably a corruption of an original reading חשׁרת, a form that is preserved in 2 Sam 22:12. The latter is a construct form of חַשְׁרָה (khashrah, “sieve”) which occurs only here in the OT. A cognate Ugaritic noun means “sieve,” and a related verb חָשַׁר (khashar, “to sift”) is attested in postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic. The phrase חַשְׁרַת מַיִם (khashrat mayim) means literally “a sieve of water.” It pictures the rain clouds as a sieve through which the rain falls to the ground (see F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry [SBLDS], 146, n. 33).

[18:28]  ³ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki)is asseverative here.

[18:28]  ⁴ tn Ps 18:28 reads literally, “you light my lamp, Lord.” 2 Sam 22:29 has, “you are my lamp, Lord.” The Ps 18 reading may preserve two variants, נֵרִי (neriy, “my lamp”) and אוֹרִי (’oriy, “my light”), cf. Ps 27:1. The verb תָּאִיר (ta’ir, “you light”) in Ps 18:28 would, in this case, be a corruption of the latter. See F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS), 150, n. 64. The metaphor, which likens the Lord to a lamp or light, pictures him as the psalmist’s source of life. For other examples of “lamp” used in this way, see Job 18:6; 21:17; Prov 13:9; 20:20; 24:20. For other examples of “light” as a symbol for life, see Job 3:20; 33:30; Ps 56:13.

[18:28]  ⁵ tn 2 Sam 22:29 repeats the name “Lord.”

[18:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “my darkness.”

[104:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “you make darkness, so that it might be night.”

[139:12]  ⁷ tn The words “to see” are supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

[139:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “shines like.”

[139:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “like darkness, like light.”