Psalm 31
World English Bible
For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.
31 In you, Yahweh, I take refuge.
Let me never be disappointed.
Deliver me in your righteousness.
2 Bow down your ear to me.
Deliver me speedily.
Be to me a strong rock,
a house of defense to save me.
3 For you are my rock and my fortress,
therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.
4 Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me,
for you are my stronghold.
5 Into your hand I commend my spirit.
You redeem me, Yahweh, God of truth.
6 I hate those who regard lying vanities,
but I trust in Yahweh.
7 I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness,
for you have seen my affliction.
You have known my soul in adversities.
8 You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy.
You have set my feet in a large place.
9 Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am in distress.
My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow,
my years with sighing.
My strength fails because of my iniquity.
My bones are wasted away.
11 Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors,
a horror to my acquaintances.
Those who saw me on the street fled from me.
12 I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man.
I am like broken pottery.
13 For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side,
while they conspire together against me,
they plot to take away my life.
14 But I trust in you, Yahweh.
I said, “You are my God.”
15 My times are in your hand.
Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.
16 Make your face to shine on your servant.
Save me in your loving kindness.
17 Let me not be disappointed, Yahweh, for I have called on you.
Let the wicked be disappointed.
Let them be silent in Sheol.[a]
18 Let the lying lips be mute,
which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
19 Oh how great is your goodness,
which you have laid up for those who fear you,
which you have worked for those who take refuge in you,
before the sons of men!
20 In the shelter of your presence you will hide them from the plotting of man.
You will keep them secretly in a dwelling away from the strife of tongues.
21 Praise be to Yahweh,
for he has shown me his marvelous loving kindness in a strong city.
22 As for me, I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before your eyes.”
Nevertheless you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you.
23 Oh love Yahweh, all you his saints!
Yahweh preserves the faithful,
and fully recompenses him who behaves arrogantly.
24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who hope in Yahweh.
Footnotes
- 31:17 Sheol is the place of the dead.
Psalm 31
New English Translation
Psalm 31[a]
For the music director, a psalm of David.
31 In you, O Lord, I have taken shelter.
Never let me be humiliated.
Vindicate me by rescuing me.[b]
2 Listen to me.[c]
Quickly deliver me.
Be my protector and refuge,[d]
a stronghold where I can be safe.[e]
3 For you are my high ridge[f] and my stronghold;
for the sake of your own reputation[g] you lead me and guide me.[h]
4 You will free me[i] from the net they hid for me,
for you are my place of refuge.
5 Into your hand I entrust my life;[j]
you will rescue[k] me, O Lord, the faithful God.
6 I hate those who serve worthless idols,[l]
but I trust in the Lord.
7 I will be happy and rejoice in your faithfulness,
because you notice my pain
and you are aware of how distressed I am.[m]
8 You do not deliver me over to the power of the enemy;
you enable me to stand[n] in a wide open place.
9 Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress!
My eyes grow dim[o] from suffering.[p]
I have lost my strength.[q]
10 For my life nears its end in pain;
my years draw to a close as I groan.[r]
My strength fails me because of[s] my sin,
and my bones become brittle.[t]
11 Because of all my enemies, people disdain me;[u]
my neighbors are appalled by my suffering[v]—
those who know me are horrified by my condition;[w]
those who see me in the street run away from me.
12 I am forgotten, like a dead man no one thinks about;[x]
I am regarded as worthless, like a broken jar.[y]
13 For I hear what so many are saying,[z]
the terrifying news that comes from every direction.[aa]
When they plot together against me,
they figure out how they can take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O Lord!
I declare, “You are my God!”
15 You determine my destiny.[ab]
Rescue me from the power of my enemies and those who chase me.
16 Smile[ac] on your servant.
Deliver me because of your faithfulness.
17 O Lord, do not let me be humiliated,
for I call out to you.
May evil men be humiliated.
May they go wailing to the grave.[ad]
18 May lying lips be silenced—
lips[ae] that speak defiantly against the innocent[af]
with arrogance and contempt.
19 How great is your favor,[ag]
which you store up for your loyal followers.[ah]
In plain sight of everyone you bestow it on those who take shelter[ai] in you.[aj]
20 You hide them with you, where they are safe from the attacks[ak] of men;[al]
you conceal them in a shelter, where they are safe from slanderous attacks.[am]
21 The Lord deserves praise[an]
for he demonstrated his amazing faithfulness to me when I was besieged by enemies.[ao]
22 I jumped to conclusions and said,[ap]
“I am cut off from your presence!”[aq]
But you heard my plea for mercy when I cried out to you for help.
23 Love the Lord, all you faithful followers[ar] of his!
The Lord protects those who have integrity,
but he pays back in full the one who acts arrogantly.[as]
24 Be strong and confident,[at]
all you who wait on the Lord.
Footnotes
- 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.
- Psalm 31:1 tn Heb “in your vindication rescue me.”
- Psalm 31:2 tn Heb “turn toward me your ear.”
- Psalm 31:2 tn Heb “become for me a rocky summit of refuge.”
- Psalm 31:2 tn Heb “a house of strongholds to deliver me.”
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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).
- 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.”
- Psalm 31:5 tn Heb “my spirit.” The noun רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) here refers to the animating spirit that gives the psalmist life.
- 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.
- Psalm 31:6 tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.
- Psalm 31:7 tn Heb “you know the distresses of my life.”
- Psalm 31:8 tn Heb “you cause my feet to stand.”
- Psalm 31:9 tn Or perhaps, “are swollen.”
- Psalm 31:9 tn Cf. Ps 6:7, which has a similar line.
- 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.
- Psalm 31:10 tn Heb “and my years in groaning.”
- Psalm 31:10 tn Heb “stumbles in.”
- Psalm 31:10 tn Heb “grow weak.”
- Psalm 31:11 tn Heb “because of all my enemies I am a reproach.”
- 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).
- Psalm 31:11 tn Heb “and [an object of ] horror to those known by me.”
- 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.
- 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.
- Psalm 31:13 tn Heb “the report of many.”
- Psalm 31:13 tn Heb “the terror from all around.”
- Psalm 31:15 tn Heb “in your hand [are] my times.”
- Psalm 31:16 tn Heb “cause your face to shine.”
- Psalm 31:17 tn The verb יִדְּמוּ (yiddemu) 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.”
- Psalm 31:18 tn Heb “the [ones which].”
- Psalm 31:18 tn Or “godly.”
- Psalm 31:19 tn Or “How abundant are your blessings!”
- Psalm 31:19 tn Heb “for those who fear you.”
- Psalm 31:19 tn “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 2:12; 5:11-12; 34:21-22).
- Psalm 31:19 tn Heb “you work [your favor] for the ones seeking shelter in you before the sons of men.”
- Psalm 31:20 tn The noun רֹכֶס (rokhes) occurs only here. Its meaning is debated; some suggest “snare,” while others propose “slander” or “conspiracy.”
- Psalm 31:20 tn Heb “you hide them in the hiding place of your face from the attacks of man.” The imperfect verbal forms in this verse draw attention to God’s typical treatment of the faithful.
- Psalm 31:20 tn Heb “you conceal them in a shelter from the strife of tongues.”
- Psalm 31:21 tn Heb “blessed [be] the Lord.”
- Psalm 31:21 tn Heb “for he caused his faithfulness to be amazing to me in a besieged city.” The psalmist probably speaks figuratively here. He compares his crisis to being trapped in a besieged city, but the Lord answered his prayer for help. Verses 19-24 were apparently written after the Lord answered the prayer of vv. 1-18.
- Psalm 31:22 tn Heb “and I, I said in my haste.”
- Psalm 31:22 tn Heb “from before your eyes.”
- Psalm 31:23 tn A “faithful follower” (חָסִיד, khasid) is one who does what is right in God’s eyes and remains faithful to God (see Pss 4:3; 12:1; 16:10; 31:23; 37:28; 86:2; 97:10).
- Psalm 31:23 tn The participial forms in the second and third lines characterize the Lord as one who typically protects the faithful and judges the proud.
- Psalm 31:24 tn Heb “be strong and let your heart[s] be confident.”
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