18:36 You widen my path; 1
my feet 2 do not slip.
25:17 Deliver me from my distress; 3
rescue me from my suffering! 4
25:18 See my pain and suffering!
Forgive all my sins! 5
51:2 Wash away my wrongdoing! 6
Cleanse me of my sin! 7
89:30 If his sons reject my law
and disobey my regulations,
119:139 My zeal 8 consumes 9 me,
for my enemies forget your instructions. 10
1 tn Heb “you make wide my step under me.” “Step” probably refers metonymically to the path upon which the psalmist walks. Another option is to translate, “you widen my stride.” This would suggest that God gives the psalmist the capacity to run quickly.
2 tn Heb “lower legs.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun, which occurs only here, see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 112. A cognate Akkadian noun means “lower leg.”
3 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.
4 tn Heb “from my distresses lead me out.”
5 tn Heb “lift up all my sins.”
6 tn Heb “Thoroughly wash me from my wrongdoing.”
7 sn In vv. 1b-2 the psalmist uses three different words to emphasize the multifaceted character and degree of his sin. Whatever one wants to call it (“rebellious acts,” “wrongdoing,” “sin”), he has done it and stands morally polluted in God’s sight. The same three words appear in Exod 34:7, which emphasizes that God is willing to forgive sin in all of its many dimensions. In v. 2 the psalmist compares forgiveness and restoration to physical cleansing. Perhaps he likens spiritual cleansing to the purification rites of priestly law.
8 tn or “zeal.”
9 tn Heb “destroys,” in a hyperbolic sense.
10 tn Heb “your words.”