1 (א) Unto Thee, Jehovah, I uplift my soul; [On Thee I wait all the day, O my God!]. 2 (ב) On Thee I hang: let me not be put to shame; Let not my enemies exult over me. 3 (ג) Yea, all who wait on Thee shall not be put to shame; Put to shame shall they be who faithlessly forsake Thee without cause. 4 (ד) Thy ways, Jehovah, make me to know, Thy paths teach Thou me. 5 (ה) Make me walk in Thy troth, and teach me, For Thou art the God of my salvation. 6 (ז) Remember Thy compassions, Jehovah, and Thy loving-kindnesses, For from of old are they. 7 (ח) Sins of my youth and my transgression remember not; According to Thy loving-kindness remember me, For Thy goodness' sake, Jehovah. 8 (ט) Good and upright is Jehovah; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. 9 (י) He will cause the meek to walk in that which is right, And will teach the meek His way.
10 (כ) All the paths of Jehovah are loving-kindness and troth To keepers of His covenant and His testimonies. 11 (ל) For Thy name's sake, Jehovah, Pardon my iniquity, for great is it. 12 (מ) Who, then, is the man who fears Jehovah? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. 13 (נ) Himself shall dwell in prosperity, And his seed shall possess the land. 14 (ס) The secret of Jehovah is [told] to them that fear Him, And His covenant He makes them know. 15 (ע) My eyes are continually toward Jehovah, For He, He shall bring out my feet from the net. 16 (פ) Turn Thee unto me, and be gracious to me, For solitary and afflicted am I. 17 (צ) The straits of my heart do Thou enlarge (?), And from my distresses bring me out. 18 (ר) Look on my affliction and my travail, And lift away all my sins. 19 (ר) Look on my enemies, for they are many, And they hate me with cruel hate. 20 (ש) Keep my soul and deliver me; Let me not be put to shame, for I have taken refuge in Thee. 21 (ת) Let integrity and uprightness guard me, For I wait on Thee. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, From all his straits.
The recurrence of the phrase "lift up the soul" may have determined the place of this psalm next to Psalm xxiv. It is acrostic, but with irregularities. As the text now stands, the second, not the first, word in ver. 2 begins with Beth; Vav is omitted or represented in the "and teach me" of the He verse (ver. 5); Qoph is also omitted, and its place taken by a supernumerary Resh, which letter has thus two verses (18, 19); and ver. 22 begins with Pe, and is outside the scheme of the psalm, both as regards alphabetic structure and subject. The same peculiarities of deficient Vav and superfluous Pe verses reappear in another acrostic psalm (xxxiv.), in which the initial word of the last verse is, as here, "redeem." Possibly the two psalms are connected.
The fetters of the acrostic structure forbid freedom and progress of thought, and almost compel repetition. It is fitted for meditative reiteration of favourite emotions or familiar axioms, and results in a loosely twined wreath rather than in a column with base, shaft, and capital. A slight trace of consecution of parts may be noticed in the division of the verses (excluding ver. 22) into three sevens, of which the first is prayer, the second meditation on the Divine character and the blessings secured by covenant to them who fear Him, and the third is bent round, wreath-like, to meet the first, and is again prayer. Such alternation of petition and contemplation is like the heart's beat of the religious life, now expanding in desire, now closing in possession. The psalm has no marks of occasion or period. It deals with the permanent elements in a devout man's relation to God.