31:3 For you are my high ridge 1 and my stronghold;
for the sake of your own reputation 2 you lead me and guide me. 3
31:4 You will free me 4 from the net they hid for me,
for you are my place of refuge.
31:5 Into your hand I entrust my life; 5
you will rescue 6 me, O Lord, the faithful God.
31:6 I hate those who serve worthless idols, 7
but I trust in the Lord.
1 sn The metaphor of the high ridge pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28.
2 tn Heb “name.” The Hebrew term שֵׁם (shem, “name”) refers here to the
3 tn The present translation assumes that the imperfect verbal forms are generalizing, “you lead me and guide me.” Other options are to take them as an expression of confidence about the future, “you will lead me and guide me” (cf. NASB), or as expressing a prayer, “lead me and guide me” (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV).
4 tn Heb “bring me out.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form expresses the psalmist’s confidence about the future. Another option is to take the form as expressing a prayer, “free me.”
5 tn Heb “my spirit.” The noun רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) here refers to the animating spirit that gives the psalmist life.
6 tn Or “redeem.” The perfect verbal form is understood here as anticipatory, indicating rhetorically the psalmist’s certitude and confidence that God will intervene. The psalmist is so confident of God’s positive response to his prayer that he can describe his deliverance as if it had already happened. Another option is to take the perfect as precative, expressing a wish or request (“rescue me”; cf. NIV). See IBHS 494-95 §30.5.4c, d. However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew.
7 tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.