69:3 I am exhausted from shouting for help;
my throat is sore; 1
my eyes grow tired of looking for my God. 2
119:176 I have wandered off like a lost sheep. 3
Come looking for your servant,
for I do not forget your commands.
141:8 Surely I am looking to you, 4 O sovereign Lord.
In you I take shelter.
Do not expose me to danger! 5
1 tn Or perhaps “raw”; Heb “burned; enflamed.”
2 tn Heb “my eyes fail from waiting for my God.” The psalmist has intently kept his eyes open, looking for God to intervene, but now his eyes are watery and bloodshot, impairing his vision.
3 tn Heb “I stray like a lost sheep.” It is possible that the point of the metaphor is vulnerability: The psalmist, who is threatened by his enemies, feels as vulnerable as a straying, lost sheep. This would not suggest, however, that he has wandered from God’s path (see the second half of the verse, as well as v. 110).
4 tn Heb “my eyes [are] toward you.”
5 tn Heb “do not lay bare my life.” Only here is the Piel form of the verb collocated with the term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “life”). In Isa 53:12 the Lord’s servant “lays bare (the Hiphil form of the verb is used) his life to death.”