17:14 Lord, use your power to deliver me from these murderers, 1
from the murderers of this world! 2
They enjoy prosperity; 3
you overwhelm them with the riches they desire. 4
They have many children,
and leave their wealth to their offspring. 5
3:2 Many say about me,
“God will not deliver him.” 6 (Selah) 7
6:4 Relent, Lord, rescue me! 8
Deliver me because of your faithfulness! 9
25:17 Deliver me from my distress; 10
rescue me from my suffering! 11
31:16 Smile 12 on your servant!
Deliver me because of your faithfulness!
59:2 Deliver me from evildoers! 13
Rescue me from violent men! 14
71:2 Vindicate me by rescuing me! 15
Listen to me! 16 Deliver me! 17
118:25 Please Lord, deliver!
Please Lord, grant us success! 18
1 tc Heb “from men [by] your hand,
2 tn Heb “from men, from [the] world.” On the emendation of “men” to “murderers,” see the preceding note on the word “murderers.”
3 tn Heb “their portion, in life.”
4 tn Heb “and [with] your treasures you fill their belly.”
sn You overwhelm them with the riches they desire. The psalmist is not accusing God of being unjust; he is simply observing that the wicked often prosper and that God is the ultimate source of all blessings that human beings enjoy (see Matt 5:45). When the wicked are ungrateful for God’s blessings, they become even more culpable and deserving of judgment. So this description of the wicked actually supports the psalmist’s appeal for deliverance. God should rescue him because he is innocent (see vv. 3-5) and because the wicked, though blessed abundantly by God, still have the audacity to attack God’s people.
5 tn Heb “they are satisfied [with] sons and leave their abundance to their children.”
6 tn Heb “there is no deliverance for him in God.”
7 sn The function of the Hebrew term סֶלָה (selah), transliterated here “Selah,” is uncertain. It may be a musical direction of some kind.
8 tn Heb “my being,” or “my life.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.
9 sn Deliver me because of your faithfulness. Though the psalmist is experiencing divine discipline, he realizes that God has made a commitment to him in the past, so he appeals to God’s faithfulness in his request for help.
10 tc Heb “the distresses of my heart, they make wide.” The text makes little if any sense as it stands, unless this is an otherwise unattested intransitive use of the Hiphil of רָחַב (rakhav, “be wide”). It is preferable to emend the form הִרְחִיבוּ (hirkhivu; Hiphil perfect third plural “they make wide”) to הַרְחֵיב (harkhev; Hiphil imperative masculine singular “make wide”). (The final vav [ו] can be joined to the following word and taken as a conjunction.) In this case one can translate, “[in/from] the distresses of my heart, make wide [a place for me],” that is, “deliver me from the distress I am experiencing.” For the expression “make wide [a place for me],” see Ps 4:1.
11 tn Heb “from my distresses lead me out.”
12 tn Heb “cause your face to shine.”
13 tn Heb “from the workers of wickedness.”
14 tn Heb “from men of bloodshed.”
15 tn Heb “in your vindication rescue me and deliver me.” Ps 31:1 omits “and deliver me.”
16 tn Heb “turn toward me your ear.”
17 tn Ps 31:2 adds “quickly” before “deliver.”
18 sn A petition for deliverance and success seems odd in a psalm thanking God for deliverance, but it is not unique (see Ps 9:19-20). The people ask God to continue to intervene for them as he has for the psalmist.