◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous) / Psalm 13 (Will you forget me forever?); Micah 7:18-20 (God’s faithfulness to Jacob Abraham); Galatians 5:2-6 (The nature of Christian freedom) (New English Translation)

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June 29, 2023

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 13

Psalm 13^[a]

For the music director, a psalm of David.

13 How long, Lord, will you continue to ignore me?^[b]
How long will you pay no attention to me?^[c]
²How long must I worry,^[d]
and suffer in broad daylight?^[e]
How long will my enemy gloat over me?^[f]
³Look at me!^[g] Answer me, O Lord my God!
Revive me,^[h] or else I will die.^[i]
⁴Then^[j] my enemy will say, “I have defeated him.”
Then^[k] my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
⁵But I^[l] trust in your faithfulness.
May I rejoice because of your deliverance.^[m]
⁶I will sing praises^[n] to the Lord
when he vindicates me.^[o]

Footnotes

Psalm 13:1 sn Psalm 13. The psalmist, who is close to death, desperately pleads for God’s deliverance and affirms his trust in God’s faithfulness.
Psalm 13:1 tn Heb “will you forget me continually.”
Psalm 13:1 tn Heb “will you hide your face from me.”
Psalm 13:2 tn Heb “How long will I put counsel in my being?”
Psalm 13:2 tn Heb “[with] grief in my heart by day.”
Psalm 13:2 tn Heb “be exalted over me.” Perhaps one could translate, “How long will my enemy defeat me?”
Psalm 13:3 tn Heb “see.”
Psalm 13:3 tn Heb “Give light [to] my eyes.” The Hiphil of אוּר (ʾur), when used elsewhere with “eyes” as object, refers to the law of God giving moral enlightenment (Ps 19:8), to God the creator giving literal eyesight to all people (Prov 29:13), and to God giving encouragement to his people (Ezra 9:8). Here the psalmist pictures himself as being on the verge of death. His eyes are falling shut and, if God does not intervene soon, he will “fall asleep” for good.
Psalm 13:3 tn Heb “or else I will sleep [in?] the death.” Perhaps the statement is elliptical, “I will sleep [the sleep] of death,” or “I will sleep [with the sleepers in] death.”
Psalm 13:4 tn Heb “or else.”
Psalm 13:4 tn Heb “or else.”
Psalm 13:5 tn The grammatical construction used here (conjunction with independent pronoun) highlights the contrast between the psalmist’s defeated condition envisioned in v. 4 and confident attitude he displays in v. 5.
Psalm 13:5 tn Heb “may my heart rejoice in your deliverance.” The verb form is jussive. Having expressed his trust in God’s faithful character and promises, the psalmist prays that his confidence will prove to be well-placed. “Heart” is used here of the seat of the emotions.
Psalm 13:6 tn The verb form is cohortative, indicating the psalmist’s resolve (or vow) to praise the Lord when deliverance arrives.
Psalm 13:6 tn Or “for he will have vindicated me.” The verb form indicates a future perfect here. The idiom גָמַל עַל (gamal ʿal) means “to repay,” here in a positive sense.

Micah 7:18-20

¹⁸Who is a God like you?^[a]
Who^[b] forgives sin
and pardons^[c] the rebellion
of those who remain among his people?^[d]
Who does not stay angry forever,
but delights in showing loyal love?
¹⁹Who^[e] will once again^[f] have mercy on us?
Who will conquer^[g] our evil deeds?
Who will hurl^[h] all our^[i] sins into the depths of the sea?^[j]
²⁰You will be loyal to Jacob
and extend your loyal love to Abraham,^[k]
which you promised on oath to our ancestors^[l] in ancient times.^[m]

Footnotes

Micah 7:18 sn The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!” The claim is supported by the following description.
Micah 7:18 tn Heb “one who,” a substantival participle. The descriptions in the rest of vv. 18-19 fill out the rhetorical question, “Who is a God like you?” That is, they provide descriptions of God as reasons that make him without equal. This context uses two participles, e.g. “who forgives” and “who pardons,” and then independent clauses with third person verbs. A similar construction occurs in Ps 113:5-9, with participles and a third person finite verb in v. 7. Here, making the two participles grammatically dependent on the rhetorical question and then switching to the third person is confusing English style. It masks that all these descriptions are serving the same function as a list of unique qualities of God, who is addressed in the second person. To tie these together in English, all the descriptions can be made into second person statements (so NIV), though this does not clarify the distinction of when the original text deliberately switches back to second person in v. 20. Another approach would be to translate the third person clauses as indefinite and dependent, e.g. “Who is…like you, someone who does X, someone who does Y?” Or the interrogative force can be be extended, e.g. “Who is the one who does not stay angry?”
Micah 7:18 tn Heb “passes over.”
Micah 7:18 tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”
Micah 7:19 tn The interrogative force of the previous verse is continued here, part of a list of attributes reinforcing the question, “Who is like God?”
Micah 7:19 tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.
Micah 7:19 tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.
Micah 7:19 tc The MT reads וְתַשְׁלִיך (v^etashlik, “and you will throw”), while the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate read “he will throw,” implying וְהַשְׁלִיך (v^ehashlik). Being conceptually tied to the previous verb, this one should be part of the list begun in v. 18, so the third person form is expected. Also the vav plus perfect consecutive is more typical than vav plus imperfect in this setting.
Micah 7:19 tc Heb “their sins.” The LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate read “our sins.” The shape of the letters in the first person plural suffix נו (nun and vav) look very much like ם (a final mem), which makes the third person plural suffix. Confusing the two is not an uncommon copying error. It may also be an enclitic ם rather than a pronominal suffix. In that case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.
Micah 7:19 sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).
Micah 7:20 tn More literally, “You will extend loyalty to Jacob, and loyal love to Abraham.”
Micah 7:20 tn Heb “our fathers,” meaning “our forefathers.”
Micah 7:20 tn Heb “from days of old.”

Galatians 5:2-6

²Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all! ³And I testify again to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey^[a] the whole law. ⁴You who are trying to be declared righteous^[b] by the law have been alienated^[c] from Christ; you have fallen away from grace! ⁵For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait expectantly for the hope of righteousness. ⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight—the only thing that matters is faith working through love.^[d]

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 13[a]

For the music director, a psalm of David.

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes

Psalm 13^[a]