Discovery BoxPsalms 18:6 
Context18:6 In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried out to my God. 1
From his heavenly temple 2 he heard my voice;
he listened to my cry for help. 3
Psalms 22:1
ContextFor the music director; according to the tune “Morning Doe;” 5 a psalm of David.
22:1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? 6
I groan in prayer, but help seems far away. 7
Psalms 39:12
Context39:12 Hear my prayer, O Lord!
Listen to my cry for help!
Do not ignore my sobbing! 8
For I am dependent on you, like one residing outside his native land;
I am at your mercy, just as all my ancestors were. 9
Psalms 77:1
ContextFor the music director, Jeduthun; a psalm of Asaph.
77:1 I will cry out to God 11 and call for help!
I will cry out to God and he will pay attention 12 to me.
Psalms 102:1
ContextThe prayer of an oppressed man, as he grows faint and pours out his lament before the Lord.
102:1 O Lord, hear my prayer!
Pay attention to my cry for help! 14
1 tn In this poetic narrative context the four prefixed verbal forms in v. 6 are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects.
2 tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly temple is in view, not the earthly one.
3 tc Heb “and my cry for help before him came into his ears.” 2 Sam 22:7 has a shorter reading, “my cry for help, in his ears.” It is likely that Ps 18:6 MT as it now stands represents a conflation of two readings: (1) “my cry for help came before him,” (2) “my cry for help came into his ears.” See F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS), 144, n. 13.
4 sn Psalm 22. The psalmist cries out to the Lord for deliverance from his dangerous enemies, who have surrounded him and threaten his life. Confident that the Lord will intervene, he then vows to thank the Lord publicly for his help and anticipates a time when all people will recognize the Lord’s greatness and worship him.
5 tn Heb “according to the doe of the dawn.” Apparently this refers to a particular musical tune or style.
6 sn From the psalmist’s perspective it seems that God has abandoned him, for he fails to answer his cry for help (vv. 1b-2).
7 tn Heb “far from my deliverance [are] the words of my groaning.” The Hebrew noun שְׁאָגָה (shÿ’agah) and its related verb שָׁאַג (sha’ag) are sometimes used of a lion’s roar, but they can also describe human groaning (see Job 3:24 and Pss 32:3 and 38:8.
8 tn Heb “do not be deaf to my tears.”
9 tn Heb “For a resident alien [am] I with you, a sojourner like all my fathers.”
sn Resident aliens were dependent on the mercy and goodwill of others. The Lord was concerned that resident aliens be treated properly. See Deut 24:17-22, Ps 146:9.
10 sn Psalm 77. The psalmist recalls how he suffered through a time of doubt, but tells how he found encouragement and hope as he recalled the way in which God delivered Israel at the Red Sea.
11 tn Heb “my voice to God.” The Hebrew verb קָרָא (qara’, “to call out; to cry out”) should probably be understood by ellipsis (see Ps 3:4) both here and in the following (parallel) line.
12 tn The perfect with vav (ו) consecutive is best taken as future here (although some translations render this as a past tense; cf. NEB, NIV). The psalmist expresses his confidence that God will respond to his prayer. This mood of confidence seems premature (see vv. 3-4), but v. 1 probably reflects the psalmist’s attitude at the end of the prayer (see vv. 13-20). Having opened with an affirmation of confidence, he then retraces how he gained confidence during his trial (see vv. 2-12).
13 sn Psalm 102. The psalmist laments his oppressed state, but longs for a day when the Lord will restore Jerusalem and vindicate his suffering people.
14 tn Heb “and may my cry for help come to you.”
