Psalms 18:35

18:35 You give me your protective shield; ¹ 

your right hand supports me; ² 

your willingness to help ³  enables me to prevail. ⁴ 

Psalms 41:3

41:3 The Lord supports ⁵  him on his sickbed;

you completely heal him from his illness. ⁶ 

Psalms 104:15

104:15 as well as wine that makes people feel so good, ⁷ 

and so they can have oil to make their faces shine, ⁸ 

as well as food that sustains people’s lives. ⁹ 

[18:35]  ¹ tn Heb “and you give to me the shield of your deliverance.”

[18:35]  ² tc 2 Sam 22:36 omits this line, perhaps due to homoioarcton. A scribe’s eye may have jumped from the vav (ו) prefixed to “your right hand” to the vav prefixed to the following “and your answer,” causing the copyist to omit by accident the intervening words (“your right hand supports me and”).

[18:35]  ³ tn The MT of Ps 18:35 appears to read, “your condescension,” apparently referring to God’s willingness to intervene (cf. NIV “you stoop down”). However, the noun עֲנָוָה (’anavah) elsewhere means “humility” and is used only here of God. The form עַנְוַתְךָ (’anvatÿkha) may be a fully written form of the suffixed infinitive construct of עָנָה (’anah, “to answer”; a defectively written form of the infinitive appears in 2 Sam 22:36). In this case the psalmist refers to God’s willingness to answer his prayer; one might translate, “your favorable response.”

[18:35]  ⁴ tn Heb “makes me great.”

[41:3]  ⁵ tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive, continuing the prayer of v. 2, but the parallel line in v. 3b employs the perfect, suggesting that the psalmist is again speaking in the indicative mood (see v. 1b). The imperfect can be understood as future or as generalizing (see v. 1).

[41:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “all his bed you turn in his illness.” The perfect is used here in a generalizing sense (see v. 1) or in a rhetorical manner to emphasize that the healing is as good as done.

[104:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “and wine [that] makes the heart of man happy.”

[104:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to make [the] face shine from oil.” The Hebrew verb צָהַל (tsahal, “to shine”) occurs only here in the OT. It appears to be an alternate form of צָהַר (tsahar), a derivative from צָהָרִים (tsaharim, “noon”).

[104:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and food [that] sustains the heart of man.”