1For the lead player, for David, a psalm.
2I urgently hoped for the LORD.
He bent down toward me and heard my voice,
3and He brought me up from the roiling pit,
And He set my feet on a crag,
made my steps firm.
4And He put in my mouth a new song—
praise to our God.
May many see and fear
and trust in the LORD.
5Happy the man who puts
in the LORD his trust
and does not turn to the sea monster gods
6Many things You have done—You,
O LORD our God—Your wonders!
And Your plans for us—
none can match You,
I would tell and I would speak:
they are too numerous to recount.
7Sacrifice and grain offering You do not desire.
for burnt offering and offense offering You do not ask.
8Then did I think: Look, I come
with the scroll of the book written for me.
9To do what pleases You, my God, I desire,
and Your teaching is deep within me.
10I heralded justice in a great assembly.
Look, I will not seal my lips.
LORD, You Yourself know.
11Your justice I concealed not in my heart.
Your faithfulness and Your rescue I spoke.
I withheld not from the great assembly Your steadfast truth.
12You, LORD, will not hold back
Your mercies from me.
Your steadfast truth
shall always guard me.
13For evils drew round me
beyond count.
and I could not see—
more numerous than the hairs of my head—
and my heart forsook me.
14Show favor, O LORD, to save me.
LORD, to my help, hasten.
15May they be shamed and abased one and all,
who seek my life to destroy it,
may they fall back and be disgraced,
who desire my harm.
16Let them be devastated on the heels of their shame,
who say of me, “Hurrah! Hurrah!”
17Let all who seek You
exult and rejoice in You.
May they always say, “God is great!”—
those who love Your rescue.
18As for me, I am lowly and needy.
May the Master account it for me.
My help, he who frees me You are.
My God, do not delay.
PSALM 40 NOTES
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2. He bent down toward me and heard my voice. Generically, this psalm is a hybrid. These opening words, signaling a prayer already answered, are the gesture of a thanksgiving psalm. Verses 13–18 are the urgent plea of a psalm of supplication. In verses 7–11, the speaker assumes a stance resembling that of the prophets. Indeed, the idea that God wants not sacrifices but truth and adherence to His teaching (verses 7 and 8) is reminiscent of certain famous passages in Isaiah and Micah.
3. the roiling pit. Literally, “the pit of noise.” Most interpreters conclude that the noise is the rushing sound of the confluent waters of the abyss.
the thickest mire. The Hebrew is tit hayawen. On the assumption that the obscure yawen is a synonym of tit, which clearly means “mud” or “mire,” the conjunction of two synonyms in construct form would indicate a superlative or an intensification of meaning.
5. the sea monster gods. The noun rahav (here in plural form) is one of the designations of the primordial sea beast of Canaanite mythology.
false idols. The noun here, satey, is anomalous, and the common claim that it means “those who turn [to falsehood]” rests on scant philological evidence. This translation, strictly on the basis of the poetic parallel with rehavim, “sea monster gods,” conjectures that the reference is to false gods or idols.
7. You opened ears for me. The phrase literally means, “You dug open ears for [or to]”—that is, vouchsafed me a new acute power of listening to the divine truth. In later Hebrew, this idiom karah ʾozen comes to mean “listen attentively.” It is also possible to construe this—because “ears” is not declined in the possessive—as God’s listening attentively to the speaker.
offense offering. This is the “sin offering” of the traditional translations.
8. I come / with the scroll of the book written for me. Some claim that the book is the book of the Torah, which spells out what God requires of man. It is equally possible, however, that this scroll of the book is a kind of personal-prophetic emblem, a miniature vision of how God dictates His will to the speaker.
9. deep within me. Literally, “within my bowels.”
13. crimes overtook me . . . / more numerous than the hairs of my head. There is a counterpoint between God’s wonders, too numerous to count, and the speaker’s misdeeds, so numerous that they literally overwhelm him, blind him, make him lose heart. In both instances, the same verb for being numerous, ʿatsmu, is used in the same form.
18. As for me, I am lowly and needy. The speaker, having just conjured up an image of God’s rejoicing celebrants who proclaim His greatness, suddenly remembers that he himself is in a far more unhappy condition, miserable and needy, desperately requiring God’s help.
May the Master account it for me. The root ḥashav means to plan or to devise (as in verse 6), or to account, to take into consideration. Those who opt for the first meaning here are obliged to imagine a merely implied object of the verb, such as “deliverance,” “rescue.” Without such strain, one can understand this clause, logically consequent to the preceding clause, to mean: may God take into account my desperate plight of neediness and hasten to my rescue.