Psalms 18:23

18:23 I was innocent before him,

and kept myself from sinning. ¹ 

Psalms 18:1

Psalm 18 ² 

For the music director; by the Lord’s servant David, who sang ³  to the Lord the words of this song when ⁴  the Lord rescued him from the power ⁵  of all his enemies, including Saul. ⁶ 

18:1 He said: ⁷ 

“I love ⁸  you, Lord, my source of strength! ⁹ 

Psalms 10:13-14

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ¹⁰ 

He says to himself, ¹¹  “You ¹²  will not hold me accountable.” ¹³ 

10:14 You have taken notice, ¹⁴ 

for ¹⁵  you always see ¹⁶  one who inflicts pain and suffering. ¹⁷ 

The unfortunate victim entrusts his cause to you; ¹⁸ 

you deliver ¹⁹  the fatherless. ²⁰ 

[18:23]  ¹ tn Heb “from my sin,” that is, from making it my own in any way.

[18:1]  ² sn Psalm 18. In this long song of thanks, the psalmist (a Davidic king, traditionally understood as David himself) affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. The psalmist’s experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the psalm appears in 2 Sam 22:1-51.

[18:1]  ³ tn Heb “spoke.”

[18:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[18:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “hand.”

[18:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[18:1]  ⁷ tn A number of translations (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV) assign the words “he said” to the superscription, in which case the entire psalm is in first person. Other translations (e.g., NAB) include the introductory “he said” at the beginning of v. 1.

[18:1]  ⁸ tn The verb רָחַם (rakham) elsewhere appears in the Piel (or Pual) verbal stem with the basic meaning, “have compassion.” The verb occurs only here in the basic (Qal) stem. The basic stem of the verbal root also occurs in Aramaic with the meaning “love” (see DNWSI 2:1068-69; Jastrow 1467 s.v. רָחַם; G. Schmuttermayr, “rhm: eine lexikalische Studie,” Bib 51 [1970]: 515-21). Since this introductory statement does not appear in the parallel version in 2 Sam 22:1-51, it is possible that it is a later addition to the psalm, made when the poem was revised for use in worship.

[18:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “my strength.” “Strength” is metonymic here, referring to the Lord as the one who bestows strength to the psalmist; thus the translation “my source of strength.”

[10:13]  ¹⁰ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ¹² tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”

[10:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “you see.” One could translate the perfect as generalizing, “you do take notice.”

[10:14]  ¹⁵ tn If the preceding perfect is taken as generalizing, then one might understand כִּי (ki) as asseverative: “indeed, certainly.”

[10:14]  ¹⁶ tn Here the imperfect emphasizes God’s typical behavior.

[10:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “destruction and suffering,” which here refers metonymically to the wicked, who dish out pain and suffering to their victims.

[10:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to give into your hand, upon you, he abandons, [the] unfortunate [one].” The syntax is awkward and the meaning unclear. It is uncertain who or what is being given into God’s hand. Elsewhere the idiom “give into the hand” means to deliver into one’s possession. If “to give” goes with what precedes (as the accentuation of the Hebrew text suggests), then this may refer to the wicked man being delivered over to God for judgment. The present translation assumes that “to give” goes with what follows (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV). The verb יַעֲזֹב (ya’azov) here has the nuance “entrust” (see Gen 39:6; Job 39:11); the direct object (“[his] cause”) is implied.

[10:14]  ¹⁹ tn Or “help.”

[10:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “[for] one who is fatherless, you are a deliverer.” The noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9).