¹ sn Psalm 25. The psalmist asks for divine protection, guidance and forgiveness as he affirms his loyalty to and trust in the Lord. This psalm is an acrostic; every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, except for v. 18, which, like v. 19, begins with ר (resh) instead of the expected ק (qof). The final verse, which begins with פ (pe), stands outside the acrostic scheme.

² tn Heb “to you, O Lord, my life I lift up.” To “lift up” one’s “life” to the Lord means to express one’s trust in him through prayer. See Pss 86:4; 143:8.

³ tn Or “redeem.”

⁴ tn Heb “his distresses.”

sn O God, rescue Israel from all their distress. It is possible that the psalmist speaks on behalf of the nation throughout this entire psalm. Another option is that v. 22 is a later addition to the psalm which applies an original individual lament to the covenant community. If so, it may reflect an exilic setting.

⁵ tn Heb “hurry to my help.” See Ps 22:19.

⁶ tn Heb “sit” (i.e., sit enthroned, see Ps 9:7). The imperfect verbal form highlights the generalization.

⁷ tn Heb “and your remembrance [is] for a generation and a generation.”

⁸ tn Heb “[are] blessed.”

⁹ tn Heb “I remember your regulations from of old.” The prepositional phrase “from of old” apparently modifies “your regulations,” alluding to the fact that God revealed them to Israel in the distant past. Another option is to understand the prepositional phrase as modifying the verb, in which case one might translate, “I have long remembered your regulations.”

¹⁰ tn Or “find comfort.”

¹¹ tn Or “were.”

¹² sn Psalm 146. The psalmist urges his audience not to trust in men, but in the Lord, the just king of the world who cares for the needy.