Footnotes

1. Psalm 31:1 sn Psalm 31. The psalmist confidently asks the Lord to protect him. Enemies threaten him and even his friends have abandoned him, but he looks to the Lord for vindication. In vv. 19-24, which were apparently written after the Lord answered the prayer of vv. 1-18, the psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him.
2. Psalm 31:1 tn Heb “in your vindication rescue me.”
3. Psalm 31:2 tn Heb “turn toward me your ear.”
4. Psalm 31:2 tn Heb “become for me a rocky summit of refuge.”
5. Psalm 31:2 tn Heb “a house of strongholds to deliver me.”
6. Psalm 31:3 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.
7. Psalm 31:3 tn Heb “name.” The Hebrew term שֵׁם (shem, “name”) refers here to the Lord’s reputation. (The English term “name” is often used the same way.)
8. Psalm 31:3 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).
9. Psalm 31:4 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.”
10. Psalm 31:5 tn Heb “my spirit.” The noun רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) here refers to the animating spirit that gives the psalmist life.
11. Psalm 31:5 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.
12. Psalm 31:6 tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.
13. Psalm 31:7 tn Heb “you know the distresses of my life.”
14. Psalm 31:8 tn Heb “you cause my feet to stand.”
15. Psalm 31:9 tn Or perhaps, “are swollen.”
16. Psalm 31:9 tn Cf. Ps 6:7, which has a similar line.
17. Psalm 31:9 tn Heb “my breath and my stomach [grow weak].” Apparently the verb in the previous line (“grow dim, be weakened”) is to be understood here. The Hebrew term נפשׁ can mean “life,” or, more specifically, “throat, breath.” The psalmist seems to be lamenting that his breathing is impaired because of the physical and emotional suffering he is forced to endure.
18. Psalm 31:10 tn Heb “and my years in groaning.”
19. Psalm 31:10 tn Heb “stumbles in.”
20. Psalm 31:10 tn Heb “grow weak.”
21. Psalm 31:11 tn Heb “because of all my enemies I am a reproach.”
22. Psalm 31:11 tc Heb “and to my neighbors, exceedingly.” If the MT is retained, then these words probably go with what precedes. However the syntactical awkwardness of the text suggests a revision may be needed. P. C. Craigie (Psalms 1-50 [WBC], 258) suggests that the initial mem (מ) on מְאֹד (meʾod, “exceedingly”) be understood as an enclitic mem (ם) which was originally suffixed to the preceding form and then later misinterpreted. The resulting form אֵד (ʾed) can then be taken as a defectively written form of אֵיד (ʾed, “calamity”). If one follows this emendation, then the text reads literally, “and to my neighbors [I am one who experiences] calamity.” The noun פַחַד (fakhad, “[object of] horror”) occurs in the next line; אֵיד and פַחַד appear in parallelism elsewhere (see Prov 1:26-27).
23. Psalm 31:11 tn Heb “and [an object of ] horror to those known by me.”
24. Psalm 31:12 tn Heb “I am forgotten, like a dead man, from [the] heart.” The “heart” is here viewed as the center of one’s thoughts.
25. Psalm 31:12 tn Heb “I am like a broken jar.” One throws away a broken jar without a second thought because it is considered worthless and useless.
26. Psalm 31:13 tn Heb “the report of many.”
27. Psalm 31:13 tn Heb “the terror from all around.”
28. Psalm 31:15 tn Heb “in your hand [are] my times.”
29. Psalm 31:16 tn Heb “cause your face to shine.”
30. Psalm 31:17 tn The verb יִדְּמוּ (yidd^emu) is understood as a form of דָּמַם (damam, “wail, lament”). Another option is to take the verb from דָּמַם (“be quiet”; see BDB 198-99 s.v. I דָּמַם), in which case one might translate, “May they lie silent in the grave.”
31. Psalm 31:18 tn Heb “the [ones which].”
32. Psalm 31:18 tn Or “godly.”