Psalms 18:18-19

18:18 They confronted ¹  me in my day of calamity,

but the Lord helped me. ² 

18:19 He brought me out into a wide open place;

he delivered me because he was pleased with me. ³ 

Psalms 31:8

31:8 You do not deliver me over to the power of the enemy;

you enable me to stand ⁴  in a wide open place.

Psalms 40:1-3

Psalm 40 ⁵ 

For the music director; By David, a psalm.

40:1 I relied completely ⁶  on the Lord,

and he turned toward me

and heard my cry for help.

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ⁷ 

out of the slimy mud. ⁸ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ⁹ 

40:3 He gave me reason to sing a new song, ¹⁰ 

praising our God. ¹¹ 

May many see what God has done,

so that they might swear allegiance to him and trust in the Lord! ¹² 

Psalms 116:6

116:6 The Lord protects ¹³  the untrained; ¹⁴ 

I was in serious trouble ¹⁵  and he delivered me.

Psalms 116:16

116:16 Yes, Lord! I am indeed your servant;

I am your lowest slave. ¹⁶ 

You saved me from death. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 116:1

Psalm 116 ¹⁸ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ¹⁹ 

Psalms 17:1

Psalm 17 ²⁰ 

A prayer of David.

17:1 Lord, consider my just cause! ²¹ 

Pay attention to my cry for help!

Listen to the prayer

I sincerely offer! ²² 

Psalms 19:11-12

19:11 Yes, your servant finds moral guidance there; ²³ 

those who obey them receive a rich reward. ²⁴ 

19:12 Who can know all his errors? ²⁵ 

Please do not punish me for sins I am unaware of. ²⁶ 

Psalms 23:1

Psalm 23 ²⁷ 

A psalm of David.

23:1 The Lord is my shepherd, ²⁸ 

I lack nothing. ²⁹ 

Job 36:16

36:16 And surely, he drew you ³⁰  from the mouth of distress,

to a wide place, unrestricted, ³¹ 

and to the comfort ³²  of your table

filled with rich food. ³³ 

Job 36:2

36:2 “Be patient ³⁴  with me a little longer

and I will instruct you,

for I still have words to speak on God’s behalf. ³⁵ 

Colossians 1:8

1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Colossians 1:10

1:10 so that you may live ³⁶  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ³⁷  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

[18:18]  ¹ tn The same verb is translated “trapped” in v. 5. In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not imperfect.

[18:18]  ² tn Heb “became my support.”

[18:19]  ³ tn Or “delighted in me.”

[31:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “you cause my feet to stand.”

[40:1]  ⁵ sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).

[40:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “relying, I relied.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form to emphasize the verbal idea. The emphasis is reflected in the translation through the adverb “completely.” Another option is to translate, “I waited patiently” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[40:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).

[40:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[40:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[40:3]  ¹⁰ sn A new song was appropriate because the Lord had intervened in the psalmist’s experience in a fresh and exciting way.

[40:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he placed in my mouth a new song, praise to our God.”

[40:3]  ¹² tn Heb “may many see and fear and trust in the Lord.” The translation assumes that the initial prefixed verbal form is a jussive (“may many see”), rather than an imperfect (“many will see”). The following prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) conjunctive are taken as indicating purpose or result (“so that they might swear allegiance…and trust”) after the introductory jussive.

[116:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “guards.” The active participle indicates this is a characteristic of the Lord.

[116:6]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the [morally] naive,” that is, the one who is young and still in the process of learning right from wrong and distinguishing wisdom from folly. See Ps 19:7.

[116:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I was low.”

[116:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I am your servant, the son of your female servant.” The phrase “son of a female servant” (see also Ps 86:16) is used of a son born to a secondary wife or concubine (Exod 23:12). In some cases the child’s father is the master of the house (see Gen 21:10, 13; Judg 9:18). The use of the expression here certainly does not imply that the Lord has such a secondary wife or concubine! It is used metaphorically and idiomatically to emphasize the psalmist’s humility before the Lord and his status as the Lord’s servant.

[116:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you have loosed my bonds.” In this context the imagery refers to deliverance from death (see v. 3).

[116:1]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ 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).

[17:1]  ²⁰ sn Psalm 17. The psalmist asks God to intervene on his behalf because his life is threatened by dangerous enemies. He appeals to divine justice, for he is certain of his own innocence. Because he is innocent, he expects to encounter God and receive an assuring word.

[17:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “hear, Lord, what is just.”

[17:1]  ²² tn Heb “Listen to my prayer, [made] without lips of deceit.”

[19:11]  ²³ tn Heb “moreover your servant is warned by them.”

[19:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in the keeping of them [there is] a great reward.”

[19:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Errors who can discern?” This rhetorical question makes the point that perfect moral discernment is impossible to achieve. Consequently it is inevitable that even those with good intentions will sin on occasion.

[19:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “declare me innocent from hidden [things],” i.e., sins. In this context (see the preceding line) “hidden” sins are not sins committed in secret, but sins which are not recognized as such by the psalmist.

[23:1]  ²⁷ sn Psalm 23. In vv. 1-4 the psalmist pictures the Lord as a shepherd who provides for his needs and protects him from danger. The psalmist declares, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and then extends and develops that metaphor, speaking as if he were a sheep. In vv. 5-6 the metaphor changes as the psalmist depicts a great royal banquet hosted by the Lord. The psalmist is a guest of honor and recipient of divine favor, who enjoys unlimited access to the divine palace and the divine presence.

[23:1]  ²⁸ sn The LORD is my shepherd. The opening metaphor suggests the psalmist is assuming the role of a sheep. In vv. 1b-4 the psalmist extends the metaphor and explains exactly how the LORD is like a shepherd to him. At the surface level the language can be understood in terms of a shepherd’s relationship to his sheep. The translation of vv. 1-4 reflects this level. But, of course, each statement also points to an underlying reality.

[23:1]  ²⁹ tn The imperfect verbal form is best understood as generalizing; the psalmist highlights his typical or ongoing experience as a result of having the LORD as his shepherd (habitual present use). The next verse explains more specifically what he means by this statement.

[36:16]  ³⁰ tn The Hebrew verb means “to entice; to lure; to allure; to seduce,” but these have negative connotations. The English “to persuade; to draw” might work better. The verb is the Hiphil perfect of סוּת (sut). But the nuance of the verb is difficult. It can be equivalent to an English present expressing what God is doing (Peake). But the subject is contested as well. Since the verb usually has an evil connotation, there have been attempts to make the “plaza” the subject – “the wide place has led you astray” (Ewald).

[36:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “a broad place where there is no cramping beneath [or under] it.”

[36:16]  ³² tn The word נַחַת (nakhat) could be translated “set” if it is connected with the verb נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest,” but then “to lay to rest, to set”). Kissane translates it “comfort.” Dhorme thinks it could come from נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest”) or נָחַת (nakhat, “to descend”). But his conclusion is that it is a dittography after “under it” (p. 545).

[36:16]  ³³ tn Heb “filled with fat.”

[36:2]  ³⁴ tn The verb כָּתַּר (kattar) is the Piel imperative; in Hebrew the word means “to surround” and is related to the noun for crown. But in Syriac it means “to wait.” This section of the book of Job will have a few Aramaic words.

[36:2]  ³⁵ tn The Hebrew text simply has “for yet for God words.”

[1:10]  ³⁶ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ³⁷ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”