Psalms 18:33

18:33 He gives me the agility of a deer; ¹ 

he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. ² 

Psalms 40:2

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ³ 

out of the slimy mud. ⁴ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ⁵ 

Psalms 61:2

61:2 From the most remote place on earth ⁶ 

I call out to you in my despair. ⁷ 

Lead me ⁸  up to an inaccessible rocky summit! ⁹ 

Habakkuk 3:18-19

3:18 I will rejoice because of ¹⁰  the Lord;

I will be happy because of the God who delivers me!

3:19 The sovereign Lord is my source of strength. ¹¹ 

He gives me the agility of a deer; ¹² 

he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. ¹³ 

(This prayer is for the song leader. It is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.) ¹⁴ 

Matthew 7:24-25

Hearing and Doing

7:24 “Everyone ¹⁵  who hears these words of mine and does them is like ¹⁶  a wise man ¹⁷  who built his house on rock. 7:25 The rain fell, the flood ¹⁸  came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock.

Matthew 16:16-18

16:16 Simon Peter answered, ¹⁹  “You are the Christ, ²⁰  the Son of the living God.” 16:17 And Jesus answered him, ²¹  “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood ²²  did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven! 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades ²³  will not overpower it.

[18:33]  ¹ tn Heb “[the one who] makes my feet like [those of ] a deer.”

[18:33]  ² tn Heb “and on my high places he makes me walk.” The imperfect verbal form emphasizes God’s characteristic provision. The psalmist compares his agility in battle to the ability of a deer to negotiate rugged, high terrain without falling or being injured.

[40:2]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[61:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “from the end of the earth.” This may indicate (1) the psalmist is exiled in a distant land, or (2) it may be hyperbolic (the psalmist feels alienated from God’s presence, as if he were in a distant land).

[61:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “while my heart faints.”

[61:2]  ⁷ tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s wish or prayer.

[61:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “on to a rocky summit [that] is higher than I.”

[3:18]  ⁷ tn Or “in.”

[3:19]  ⁹ tn Or perhaps, “is my wall,” that is, “my protector.”

[3:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he makes my feet like those of deer.”

[3:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he makes me walk on my high places.”

[3:19]  ¹² tn Heb “For the leader, on my stringed instruments.”

[7:24]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Therefore everyone.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

[7:24]  ¹² tn Grk “will be like.” The same phrase occurs in v. 26.

[7:24]  ¹³ tn Here and in v. 26 the Greek text reads ἀνήρ (anhr), while the parallel account in Luke 6:47-49 uses ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") in vv. 48 and 49.

[7:25]  ¹³ tn Grk “the rivers.”

[16:16]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “And answering, Simon Peter said.”

[16:16]  ¹⁶ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[16:17]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “answering, Jesus said to him.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the syntax of this phrase has been modified for clarity.

[16:17]  ¹⁸ tn The expression “flesh and blood” could refer to “any human being” (so TEV, NLT; cf. NIV “man”), but it could also refer to Peter himself (i.e., his own intuition; cf. CEV “You didn’t discover this on your own”). Because of the ambiguity of the referent, the phrase “flesh and blood” has been retained in the translation.

[16:18]  ¹⁹ tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).