Psalms 31 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Traditionally the reign of David, roughly 1010 to 970 BC, during a stretch of illness, slander, and physical danger
Location
Jerusalem, using imagery of rock strongholds and fortified cities from the Judean hill country
Audience
Worshipping Israelites, and later anyone praying under sustained public hostility
Situation
A prayer that swings between terror and confidence, describing wasted eyes, failing bones, neighbours who avoid the singer in the street, and whispering that plots against his life. It includes the line committing his spirit into God's hands, and ends urging the whole community to be strong.
Key Background
The phrase into your hand I commit my spirit became a standard Jewish bedtime prayer, and Jesus speaks it from the cross in Luke's account, which is why this psalm carries unusual weight in Christian reading. Being forgotten like a dead man out of mind reflects the ancient assumption that a person survived socially through being remembered and named by family, so social abandonment was a kind of early death. The repeated image of God as a rock and a fortified stronghold comes from real Judean terrain, where cliff refuges and walled towns were the practical difference between surviving a raid and not.
In you, I have shelter. Never let me be put to shame. In your set me free.
Lean down and listen to me. Come quickly — rescue me. Be my rock-fortress, a stronghold where I am saved.
Yes, you are my rock and my fortress. For the sake of lead me and guide me.
Pull me free from the they have hidden for me, for you are my
Into your hands I place my spirit. You have me, Yahweh, of
I despise those who cling to idols, but I trust in Yahweh.
I will be glad and rejoice in your love, because you saw my suffering, you knew the anguish of my
You did not hand me over to my enemy. You set my feet in an
Show me your Yahweh, because I am in distress. My eyes are worn out from grief, my soul and my body wasting away.
My life is consumed by sorrow and my years by groaning. My strength fails because of my misery, and my are wasting away.
Because of all my enemies, I have become an object of scorn, especially to my neighbors. My friends are horrified by me. Those who see me on the street run from me.
I am forgotten, like someone who has died — gone from memory. I have become like a thrown away.
I hear the of many. Terror closes in on every side. They conspire together against me, plotting to take my life.
But I — I in you, Yahweh. I say, "You are my God."
My are in your hands. Rescue me from my enemies, from those who hunt me down.
Let your on your servant. Save me through your
Yahweh, do not let me be put to shame, for I have called out to you. Let the wicked be put to instead; let them fall silent in the
Let their lying lips be silenced — those that speak with arrogance against the just, with contempt and disdain.
How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who in of you, that you lavish on those who in you, right in front of everyone watching.
In the of you hide them from the schemes of men. You keep them safe in dwelling from accusing tongues.
Yahweh! His toward me was extraordinary when I was in a
In my I said, "I am from sight!" But you heard my desperate cry when I called out to you for help.
Love Yahweh, all of you who are to him. Yahweh protects the faithful but the arrogant in full.
Be strong and let your heart courage, all of you who with for Yahweh.