Psalms 51:12

51:12 Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance!

Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey! ¹ 

Psalms 18:35

18:35 You give me your protective shield; ² 

your right hand supports me; ³ 

your willingness to help ⁴  enables me to prevail. ⁵ 

Psalms 69:13

69:13 O Lord, may you hear my prayer and be favorably disposed to me! ⁶ 

O God, because of your great loyal love,

answer me with your faithful deliverance! ⁷ 

[51:12]  ¹ tn Heb “and [with] a willing spirit sustain me.” The psalmist asks that God make him the kind of person who willingly obeys the divine commandments. The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[18:35]  ² tn Heb “and you give to me the shield of your deliverance.”

[18:35]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “makes me great.”

[69:13]  ³ tn Heb “as for me, [may] my prayer be to you, O Lord, [in] a time of favor.”

[69:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “O God, in the abundance of your loyal love, answer me in the faithfulness of your deliverance.”