Mazmur 17:1

Psalm 17 ¹ 

A prayer of David.

17:1 Lord, consider my just cause! ² 

Pay attention to my cry for help!

Listen to the prayer

I sincerely offer! ³ 

Mazmur 71:24

71:24 All day long my tongue will also tell about your justice,

for those who want to harm me ⁴  will be embarrassed and ashamed. ⁵ 

Mazmur 40:9

40:9 I have told the great assembly ⁶  about your justice. ⁷ 

Look! I spare no words! ⁸ 

O Lord, you know this is true.

[17:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 17. The psalmist asks God to intervene on his behalf because his life is threatened by dangerous enemies. He appeals to divine justice, for he is certain of his own innocence. Because he is innocent, he expects to encounter God and receive an assuring word.

[17:1]  ² tn Heb “hear, Lord, what is just.”

[17:1]  ³ tn Heb “Listen to my prayer, [made] without lips of deceit.”

[71:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “those who seek my harm.”

[71:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “will have become embarrassed and ashamed.” The perfect verbal forms function here as future perfects, indicating future actions which will precede chronologically the action expressed by the main verb in the preceding line.

[40:9]  ⁶ sn The great assembly is also mentioned in Pss 22:25 and 35:18.

[40:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “I proclaim justice in the great assembly.” Though “justice” appears without a pronoun here, the Lord’s just acts are in view (see v. 10). His “justice” (צֶדֶק, tsedeq) is here the deliverance that originates in his justice; he protects and vindicates the one whose cause is just.

[40:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “Look! My lips I do not restrain.”