1I love the LORD, for He has heard
my voice, my supplications.
2For He has inclined His ear to me
3The cords of death encircled me—
and the straits of Sheol found me—
distress and sorrow did I find.
4And in the name of the LORD I called.
“LORD, pray, save my life.”
5Gracious the LORD and just,
and our God shows mercy.
6The LORD protects the simple.
I plunged down, but me He did rescue.
7Return, my being, to your calm,
for the LORD has requited you.
8For You freed me from death,
my eyes from tears,
my foot from slipping.
9I shall walk before the LORD
in the lands of the living.
10I trusted, though I did speak—
Oh, I was sorely afflicted—
11I in my rashness said,
“All humankind is false.”
12What can I give back to the LORD
for all He requited to me?
13The cup of rescue I lift
and in the name of the LORD I call.
14My vows to the LORD I shall pay
in the sight of all His people.
15Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of His faithful ones.
16I beseech You, LORD,
for I am Your servant.
I am Your servant, Your handmaiden’s son.
You have loosed my bonds.
17To You I shall offer a thanksgiving sacrifice
and in the name of the LORD I shall call.
18My vows to the LORD I shall pay
in the sight of all His people,
19in the courts of the house of the LORD,
Hallelujah.
PSALM 116 NOTES
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1. I love the LORD. The Hebrew syntax is a little odd because “the LORD,” YHWH, comes at the end of the verset. This word order makes possible a different construction, “I love when the LORD hears,” but that is not a characteristic sentiment of Psalms. In any case, the LORD’s hearing a plea announces this as a thanksgiving psalm.
2. when in my days I called. An emendation, warranted by one ancient translation, yields “on the day I called,” which sounds more idiomatic.
3. The cords of death encircled me. This line may be an indication that the speaker has recovered from a near fatal illness. But in Psalm 18:5, a similar formulation refers to danger in battle.
7. Return, my being, to your calm. The speaker seems to be exhorting himself to return to a condition of tranquillity after the agitation of the terrible dangers from which he has escaped.
9. I shall walk before the LORD. This idiom has a double meaning: to walk about and to perform service. The speaker, restored to life, will do both.
10. I trusted. The implied object of the verb is in all likelihood God. The seeming contradiction of the utterance is not difficult to follow: the speaker, in his moment of desperation, rashly declared that all men were false, but even then, he never entirely abandoned his trust in God’s goodness.
12. What can I give back to the LORD. There is no adequate return that he can offer God, but at least he can participate in the ritual of thanksgiving, which is spelled out in the next two verses.
13. The cup of rescue. Given the cultic setting, this in all likelihood refers to the cup from which libation is poured on the altar. It is a “cup of rescue” because the libation expresses the celebrant’s thanks for having been rescued by God.
14. My vows to the LORD I shall pay. These are vows to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice, as verse 17 makes clear.
19. in the courts of the house of the LORD. The reference, of course, is to the courts of the Temple that the worshipper enters to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice before the assembled people.
in the midst of. The suffix of the preposition could be either a poetic form of the construct state, indicating “of,” or a second-person singular feminine ending (“in your midst, O Jerusalem”). An apostrophe to the city does not seem characteristic of the rhetorical stance of this poem, or of Psalms in general, so the construct state is more likely.