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 30:7-8

30:7 O Lord, in your good favor you made me secure. ⁴ 

Then you rejected me ⁵  and I was terrified.

30:8 To you, O Lord, I cried out;

I begged the Lord for mercy: ⁶ 

Psalms 50:15

50:15 Pray to me when you are in trouble! ⁷ 

I will deliver you, and you will honor me!” ⁸ 

Psalms 107:13

107:13 They cried out to the Lord in their distress;

he delivered them from their troubles.

Psalms 116:3-4

116:3 The ropes of death tightened around me, ⁹ 

the snares ¹⁰  of Sheol confronted me.

I was confronted ¹¹  with trouble and sorrow.

116:4 I called on the name of the Lord,

“Please Lord, rescue my life!”

Psalms 118:5

118:5 In my distress ¹²  I cried out to the Lord.

The Lord answered me and put me in a wide open place. ¹³ 

Isaiah 37:3-4

37:3 “This is what Hezekiah says: ¹⁴  ‘This is a day of distress, insults, ¹⁵  and humiliation, ¹⁶  as when a baby is ready to leave the birth canal, but the mother lacks the strength to push it through. ¹⁷  37:4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God. ¹⁸  When the Lord your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said. ¹⁹  So pray for this remnant that remains.’” ²⁰ 

Isaiah 37:14-20

37:14 Hezekiah took the letter ²¹  from the messengers and read it. ²²  Then Hezekiah went up to the Lord’s temple and spread it out before the Lord. 37:15 Hezekiah prayed before the Lord: 37:16 “O Lord who commands armies, O God of Israel, who is enthroned on the cherubim! ²³  You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the sky ²⁴  and the earth. 37:17 Pay attention, Lord, and hear! Open your eyes, Lord, and observe! Listen to this entire message Sennacherib sent and how he taunts the living God! ²⁵  37:18 It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations ²⁶  and their lands. 37:19 They have burned the gods of the nations, ²⁷  for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them. ²⁸  37:20 Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power, so all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.” ²⁹ 

Isaiah 38:2-5

38:2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 38:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ³⁰  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ³¹  and how I have carried out your will.” ³²  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ³³ 

38:4 The Lord told Isaiah, ³⁴  38:5 “Go and tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the Lord God of your ancestor ³⁵  David says: “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Look, I will add fifteen years to your life,

Jonah 2:2

2:2 and said,

“I ³⁶  called out to the Lord from my distress,

and he answered me; ³⁷ 

from the belly of Sheol ³⁸  I cried out for help,

and you heard my prayer. ³⁹ 

Luke 22:44

22:44 And in his anguish ⁴⁰  he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.] ⁴¹ 

Hebrews 5:7

5:7 During his earthly life ⁴²  Christ ⁴³  offered ⁴⁴  both requests and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death and he was heard because of his devotion.

[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.

[30:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “in your good favor you caused to stand for my mountain strength.” Apparently this means “you established strength for my mountain” (“mountain” in this case representing his rule, which would be centered on Mt. Zion) or “you established strength as my mountain” (“mountain” in this case being a metaphor for security).

[30:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “you hid your face.” The idiom “hide the face” can mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or, as here, carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Ps 88:14).

[30:8]  ⁶ tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 8 are probably preterites; the psalmist recalls that he prayed in his time of crisis.

[50:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “call [to] me in a day of trouble.”

[50:15]  ⁸ sn In vv. 7-15 the Lord makes it clear that he was not rebuking Israel because they had failed to offer sacrifices (v. 8a). On the contrary, they had been faithful in doing so (v. 8b). However, their understanding of the essence of their relationship with God was confused. Apparently they believed that he needed/desired such sacrifices and that offering them would ensure their prosperity. But the Lord owns all the animals of the world and did not need Israel’s meager sacrifices (vv. 9-13). Other aspects of the relationship were more important to the Lord. He desired Israel to be thankful for his blessings (v. 14a), to demonstrate gratitude for his intervention by repaying the vows they made to him (v. 14b), and to acknowledge their absolute dependence on him (v. 15a). Rather than viewing their sacrifices as somehow essential to God’s well-being, they needed to understand their dependence on him.

[116:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “surrounded me.”

[116:3]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew noun מצר (“straits; distress”) occurs only here, Ps 118:5 and Lam 1:3. If retained, it refers to Sheol as a place where one is confined or severely restricted (cf. BDB 865 s.v. מֵצַר, “the straits of Sheol”; NIV “the anguish of the grave”; NRSV “the pangs of Sheol”). However, HALOT 624 s.v. מֵצַר suggests an emendation to מְצָדֵי (mÿtsadey, “snares of”), a rare noun attested in Job 19:6 and Eccl 7:26. This proposal, which is reflected in the translation, produces better parallelism with “ropes” in the preceding line.

[116:3]  ¹¹ tn The translation assumes the prefixed verbal form is a preterite. The psalmist recalls the crisis from which the Lord delivered him.

[118:5]  ¹² tn Heb “from the distress.” The noun מֵצַר (metsar, “straits; distress”) occurs only here and in Lam 1:3. In Ps 116:3 מצר should probably be emended to מְצָדֵי (mÿtsadey, “snares of”).

[118:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “the Lord answered me in a wide open place.”

[37:3]  ¹⁴ tn In the Hebrew text this verse begins with “they said to him” (cf. NRSV).

[37:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or “rebuke” (KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV), or “correction.”

[37:3]  ¹⁶ tn Or “contempt”; NAB, NIV, NRSV “disgrace.”

[37:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “when sons come to the cervical opening and there is no strength to give birth.”

[37:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “all the words of the chief adviser whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God.”

[37:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and rebuke the words which the Lord your God hears.”

[37:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant that is found.”

[37:14]  ²¹ tc The Hebrew text has the plural, “letters.” The final mem (ם) may be dittographic (note the initial mem on the form that immediately follows). Some Greek and Aramaic witnesses have the singular. If so, one still has to deal with the yod that is part of the plural ending. J. N. Oswalt refers to various commentators who have suggested ways to understand the plural form (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:652).

[37:14]  ²² tn In the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:14 the verb has the plural suffix, “them,” but this probably reflects a later harmonization to the preceding textual corruption (of “letter” to “letters”).

[37:16]  ²³ sn Cherubim (singular “cherub”) refers to the images of winged angelic creatures that were above the ark of the covenant.

[37:16]  ²⁴ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[37:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Hear all the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God.”

[37:18]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew text here has “all the lands,” but the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:17 has “the nations.”

[37:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and they put their gods in the fire.”

[37:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “so they destroyed them” (NASB similar).

[37:20]  ²⁹ tn The parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:19 reads, “that you, Lord, are the only God.”

[38:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.

[38:3]  ³¹ tn Heb “and with a complete heart”; KJV, ASV “with a perfect heart.”

[38:3]  ³² tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

[38:3]  ³³ tn Heb “wept with great weeping”; NCV “cried loudly”; TEV “began to cry bitterly.”

[38:4]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, saying.”

[38:5]  ³⁵ tn Heb “father” (so KJV, NAB, NIV).

[2:2]  ³⁶ sn The eight verses of Jonah’s prayer in Hebrew contain twenty-seven first-person pronominal references to himself. There are fifteen second- or third-person references to the Lord.

[2:2]  ³⁷ tn Tg. Jonah 2:2 renders this interpretively: “and he heard my prayer.”

[2:2]  ³⁸ sn Sheol was a name for the place of residence of the dead, the underworld (see Job 7:9-10; Isa 38:17-18). Jonah pictures himself in the belly of Sheol, its very center – in other words he is as good as dead.

[2:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb “voice” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “my cry.” The term קוֹל (qol, “voice”) functions as a metonymy for the content of what is uttered: cry for help in prayer.

[22:44]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “And being in anguish.”

[22:44]  ⁴¹ tc Several important Greek mss (Ì⁷⁵ א¹ A B N T W 579 1071*) along with diverse and widespread versional witnesses lack 22:43-44. In addition, the verses are placed after Matt 26:39 by ˹³. Floating texts typically suggest both spuriousness and early scribal impulses to regard the verses as historically authentic. These verses are included in א*^,2 D L Θ Ψ 0171 ˹ Ï lat Ju Ir Hipp Eus. However, a number of mss mark the text with an asterisk or obelisk, indicating the scribe’s assessment of the verses as inauthentic. At the same time, these verses generally fit Luke’s style. Arguments can be given on both sides about whether scribes would tend to include or omit such comments about Jesus’ humanity and an angel’s help. But even if the verses are not literarily authentic, they are probably historically authentic. This is due to the fact that this text was well known in several different locales from a very early period. Since there are no synoptic parallels to this account and since there is no obvious reason for adding these words here, it is very likely that such verses recount a part of the actual suffering of our Lord. Nevertheless, because of the serious doubts as to these verses’ authenticity, they have been put in brackets. For an important discussion of this problem, see B. D. Ehrman and M. A. Plunkett, “The Angel and the Agony: The Textual Problem of Luke 22:43-44,” CBQ 45 (1983): 401-16.

[5:7]  ⁴² tn Grk “in the days of his flesh.”

[5:7]  ⁴³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:7]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “who…having offered,” continuing the description of Christ from Heb 5:5-6.