6:9 The Lord has heard my appeal for mercy;
the Lord has accepted 1 my prayer.
19:3 There is no actual speech or word,
nor is its 2 voice literally heard.
28:6 The Lord deserves praise, 3
for he has heard my plea for mercy! 4
34:6 This oppressed man cried out and the Lord heard;
he saved him 5 from all his troubles.
62:11 God has declared one principle;
two principles I have heard: 6
God is strong, 7
78:3 What we have heard and learned 8 –
that which our ancestors 9 have told us –
106:44 Yet he took notice of their distress,
when he heard their cry for help.
116:1 I love the Lord
because he heard my plea for mercy, 11
132:6 Look, we heard about it 12 in Ephrathah, 13
we found it in the territory of Jaar. 14
1 tn The prefixed verbal form is probably a preterite here; it is parallel to a perfect and refers to the fact that the
2 tn Heb “their.” The antecedent of the plural pronoun is “heavens” (v. 1).
3 tn Heb “blessed [be] the
4 sn He has heard my plea for mercy. The psalmist’s mood abruptly changes at this point, because the Lord responded positively to his petition and assured him that he would deliver him.
5 tn The pronoun refers back to “this oppressed man,” namely, the psalmist.
6 tn Heb “one God spoke, two which I heard.” This is a numerical saying utilizing the “x” followed by “x + 1” pattern to facilitate poetic parallelism. (See W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament [VTSup], 55-56.) As is typical in such sayings, a list corresponding to the second number (in this case “two”) follows. Another option is to translate, “God has spoken once, twice [he has spoken] that which I have heard.” The terms אַחַת (’akhat, “one; once”) and שְׁתַּיִם (shÿtayim, “two; twice”) are also juxtaposed in 2 Kgs 6:10 (where they refer to an action that was done more than “once or twice”) and in Job 33:14 (where they refer to God speaking “one way” and then in “another manner”).
7 tn Heb “that strength [belongs] to God.”
8 tn Or “known.”
9 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 8, 12, 57).
10 sn Psalm 116. The psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him from a life threatening crisis and promises to tell the entire covenant community what God has done for him.
11 tn Heb “I love because the
12 tn Rather than having an antecedent, the third feminine singular pronominal suffix here (and in the next line) appears to refer to the ark of the covenant, mentioned in v. 8. (The Hebrew term אָרוֹן [’aron, “ark”] is sometimes construed as grammatically feminine. See 1 Sam 4:17; 2 Chr 8:11.)
13 sn Some understand Ephrathah as a reference to Kiriath-jearim because of the apparent allusion to this site in the next line (see the note on “Jaar”). The ark was kept in Kiriath-jearim after the Philistines released it (see 1 Sam 6:21-7:2). However, the switch in verbs from “heard about” to “found” suggests that Ephrathah not be equated with Jair. The group who is speaking heard about the ark while they were in Ephrath. They then went to retrieve it from Kiriath-jearim (“Jaar”). It is more likely that Ephrathah refers to a site near Bethel (Gen 35:16, 19; 48:7) or to Bethlehem (Ruth 4:11; Mic 5:2).
14 tn Heb “fields of the forest.” The Hebrew term יָעַר (ya’ad, “forest”) is apparently a shortened alternative name for קִרְיַת יְעָרִים (qiryat yÿ’arim, “Kiriath-jearim”), the place where the ark was kept after it was released by the Philistines and from which David and his men retrieved it (see 1 Chr 13:6).