1 I love--for Jehovah hears My voice, my supplications. 2 For He has bent His ear to me, And throughout my days will I call. 3 The cords of death ringed me round, And the narrows of Sheol found me, Distress and trouble did I find. 4 And on the name of Jehovah I called, "I beseech Thee, Jehovah, deliver my soul."
5 Gracious is Jehovah and righteous, And our God is compassionate. 6 The keeper of the simple is Jehovah, I was brought low and He saved me. 7 Return, my soul, to thy rest, For Jehovah has lavished good on thee. 8 For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, My eye from tears, My foot from stumbling. 9 I shall walk before Jehovah in the lands of the living.
10 I believed when I [thus] spake, "I am greatly afflicted." 11 I said in my agitation, "All men deceive." 12 What shall I return to Jehovah, [For] all His goodness lavished on me? 13 The cup of salvations will I lift, And on the name of Jehovah will I call. 14 My vows will I repay to Jehovah, Oh! may I [do it] before all His people!
15 Precious in the eyes of Jehovah Is the death of His favoured ones. 16 I beseech Thee, Jehovah--for I am Thy servant, I am Thy servant, the son of Thy handmaid, Thou hast loosed my bonds. 17 To Thee will I offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And on the name of Jehovah will I call. 18 My vows will I repay to Jehovah, Oh! may I [do it] before all His people! 19 In the courts of the house of Jehovah, In the midst of thee, Jerusalem. Hallelujah.
This psalm is intensely individual. "I," "me," or "my" occurs in every verse but two (vv. 5, 19). The singer is but recently delivered from some peril, and his song heaves with a ground-swell of emotion after the storm. Hupfeld takes offence at its "continual alternation of petition and recognition of the Divine beneficence and deliverance, or vows of thanksgiving," but surely that very blending is natural to one just rescued and still panting from his danger. Certain grammatical forms indicate a late date, and the frequent allusions to earlier psalms point in the same direction. The words of former psalmists were part of this singer's mental furniture, and came to his lips, when he brought his own thanksgivings. Hupfeld thinks it "strange" that "such a patched-up (_zusammengestoppelter_) psalm" has "imposed" upon commentators, who speak of its depth and tenderness; it is perhaps stranger that its use of older songs has imposed upon so good a critic and hid these characteristics from him. Four parts may be discerned, of which the first (vv. 1-4) mainly describes the psalmist's peril; the second (vv. 5-9), his deliverance; the third glances back to his alarm and thence draws reasons for his vow of praise (vv. 10-14); and the fourth bases the same vow on the remembrance of Jehovah's having loosed his bonds.
The early verses of Psalm xviii. obviously colour the psalmist's description of his distress. That psalm begins with an expression of love to Jehovah, which is echoed here, though a different word is employed. "I love" stands in ver. 1 without an object, just as "I will call" does in ver. 2, and "I believed" and "I spoke" in ver. 10. Probably "Thee" has fallen out, which would be the more easy, as the next word begins with the letter which stands for it in Hebrew. Cheyne follows Graetz in the conjectural adoption of the same beginning as in ver. 10, "I am confident." This change necessitates translating the following "for" as "that," whereas it is plainly to be taken, like the "for" at the beginning of ver. 2, as causal. Ver. 3 is moulded on Psalm xviii. 5, with a modification of the metaphors by the unusual expression "the narrows of Sheol." The word rendered _narrows_ may be employed simply as = distress or straits, but it is allowable to take it as picturing that gloomy realm as a confined gorge, like the throat of a pass, from which the psalmist could find no escape. He is like a creature caught in the toils of the hunter Death. The stern rocks of a dark defile have all but closed upon him, but, like a man from the bottom of a pit, he can send out one cry before the earth falls in and buries him. He cried to Jehovah, and the rocks flung his voice heavenwards. Sorrow is meant to drive to God. When cries become prayers, they are not in vain. The revealed character of Jehovah is the ground of a desperate man's hope. His own Name is a plea which Jehovah will certainly honour. Many words are needless when peril is sore and the suppliant is sure of God. To name Him and to cry for deliverance are enough. "I beseech Thee" represents a particle which is used frequently in this psalm, and by some peculiarities in its use here indicates a late date.