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 44:1
ContextFor the music director; by the Korahites, a well-written song. 5
44:1 O God, we have clearly heard; 6
our ancestors 7 have told us
what you did 8 in their days,
in ancient times. 9
Psalms 48:8
Context48:8 We heard about God’s mighty deeds, now we have seen them, 10
in the city of the Lord, the invincible Warrior, 11
in the city of our God.
God makes it permanently secure. 12 (Selah)
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 44. The speakers in this psalm (the worshiping community within the nation Israel) were disappointed with God. The psalm begins on a positive note, praising God for leading Israel to past military victories. Verses 1-8 appear to be a song of confidence and petition which the people recited prior to battle. But suddenly the mood changes as the nation laments a recent defeat. The stark contrast between the present and the past only heightens the nation’s confusion. Israel trusted in God for victory, but the Lord rejected them and allowed them to be humiliated in battle. If Israel had been unfaithful to God, their defeat would make sense, but the nation was loyal to the Lord. Comparing the Lord to a careless shepherd, the nation urges God to wake up and to extend his compassion to his suffering people.
5 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. See the note on the phrase “well-written song” in the superscription of Ps 42.
6 tn Heb “with our ears we have heard.”
7 tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 2; the same Hebrew word may be translated either “fathers” or “ancestors” depending on the context.
8 tn Heb “the work you worked.”
9 tn Heb “in the days of old.” This refers specifically to the days of Joshua, during Israel’s conquest of the land, as vv. 2-3 indicate.
10 tn Heb “As we have heard, so we have seen.” The community had heard about God’s mighty deeds in the nation’s history. Having personally witnessed his saving power with their own eyes, they could now affirm that the tradition was not exaggerated or inaccurate.
11 tn Heb “the
12 tn Or “God makes it secure forever.” The imperfect highlights the characteristic nature of the generalizing statement.
