Psalms 18:6

18:6 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I cried out to my God. ¹ 

From his heavenly temple ²  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ³ 

Psalms 22:24

22:24 For he did not despise or detest the suffering ⁴  of the oppressed; ⁵ 

he did not ignore him; ⁶ 

when he cried out to him, he responded. ⁷ 

Psalms 31:22

31:22 I jumped to conclusions and said, ⁸ 

“I am cut off from your presence!” ⁹ 

But you heard my plea for mercy when I cried out to you for help.

[18:6]  ¹ tn In this poetic narrative context the four prefixed verbal forms in v. 6 are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects.

[18:6]  ² tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly temple is in view, not the earthly one.

[18:6]  ³ tc Heb “and my cry for help before him came into his ears.” 2 Sam 22:7 has a shorter reading, “my cry for help, in his ears.” It is likely that Ps 18:6 MT as it now stands represents a conflation of two readings: (1) “my cry for help came before him,” (2) “my cry for help came into his ears.” See F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS), 144, n. 13.

[22:24]  ⁴ tn Or “affliction”; or “need.”

[22:24]  ⁵ sn In this verse the psalmist refers to himself in the third person and characterizes himself as oppressed.

[22:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “he did not hide his face from him.” For other uses of the idiom “hide the face” meaning “ignore,” see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9. Sometimes the idiom carries the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 27:9; 88:14).

[22:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “heard.”

[31:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “and I, I said in my haste.”

[31:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “from before your eyes.”