An alphabetical acrostic: one letter of the alphabet opens each verse, in order, alef through tav. The order is not quite clean. No verse opens with vav and none with qof, resh opens two verses in a row, and a twenty-second verse beginning with pe stands outside the sequence altogether. Twenty-two verses of asking, with a block of teaching in the middle: verses 1 to 7 are petition, verses 8 to 15 turn to the third person and describe the kind of God this is, and then the petition resumes and closes on the whole nation rather than one man. In the Sephardic rite it is the psalm of nefilat apayim, said with the head lowered during weekday Tachanun. Watch two roots recur: the root for waiting and the root for being put to shame.
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1
לְדָוִד
אֵלֶיךָ יְהֹוָה נַפְשִׁי אֶשָּׂא
לְדָוִד
le-da-VID
of David
Of David.
אֵלֶיךָ
e-lei-CHA
to You
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
נַפְשִׁי
naf-SHI
my soul
אֶשָּׂא
e-SA
I lift up
To You, LORD, I lift up my soul.
The psalm opens with a gesture rather than a request. Lifting the soul is the same verb used for lifting the hands or the eyes, so the line is a posture before it is a sentence.
My God, in You I have trusted; let me not be put to shame.
אַל
al
let not
יַעַלְצוּ
ya-al-TZU
they exult
אוֹיְבַי
oi-VAI
my enemies
לִי
li
over me
Let my enemies not exult over me.
Shame here is public, not private: it is what happens when the thing you trusted fails in front of people who were watching. That is why the enemies appear in the same breath.
Indeed, none who wait for You will be put to shame.
יֵבֹשׁוּ
ye-vo-SHU
they will be put to shame
הַבּוֹגְדִים
ha-bog-DIM
the treacherous ones
רֵיקָם
rei-KAM
without cause
The treacherous will be put to shame, without cause.
The verb of shame is repeated across the two halves with the negative dropped, so the same fate lands on the other party. The private plea of verse 2 becomes a general rule.
The first thing actually asked for is not rescue but instruction. Both verbs carry the object suffix meaning me, and both objects belong to God: Your ways, Your paths.
Teach me arrives twice in two verses, the second time with the conjunction attached. Waiting is named for the first time, and the phrase all the day makes it a duration rather than a mood.
The sins of my youth and my rebellions, do not remember;
כְּחַסְדְּךָ
ke-chas-de-CHA
according to Your kindness
זְכׇר
ze-CHOR
remember
לִי
li
me
אַתָּה
a-TA
You
according to Your kindness, remember me, You,
לְמַעַן
le-ma-AN
for the sake of
טוּבְךָ
tuv-CHA
Your goodness
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
for the sake of Your goodness, LORD.
The same verb twice, once refused and once demanded, with the two objects swapped: do not remember those, remember me. The stated ground is God's goodness, not the speaker's.
The hinge of the psalm and its strangest logic. Goodness would seem to point away from sinners; the verse says it points toward them, and makes that the reason instruction is offered at all.
Lead and teach are the two verbs the speaker asked for in verses 4 and 5, now stated as what God does in general. The word for the humble repeats in both halves, the only word held across the parallel.
for those who keep His covenant and His testimonies.
Paths and truth come back from verses 4 and 5, but now they are described rather than requested. The second half attaches a condition, which the psalm will spend the rest of its length not meeting.
For the sake of Your name, LORD, forgive my guilt,
כִּי
ki
for
רַב
rav
great
הוּא
hu
it is
for it is great.
The size of the debt is offered as the reason to cancel it, which is not how debts work. The clause makes sense only if the name in the first half, and not the debtor, is what is at stake.
A question with no name in the answer, so the slot stays open for whoever is reading. The verb of instruction is the one from verse 8, now with an object suffix meaning him.
13
נַפְשׁוֹ בְּטוֹב תָּלִין
וְזַרְעוֹ יִירַשׁ אָרֶץ
נַפְשׁוֹ
naf-SHO
his soul
בְּטוֹב
be-TOV
in good
תָּלִין
ta-LIN
will lodge
His soul will rest in good,
וְזַרְעוֹ
ve-zar-O
and his seed
יִירַשׁ
yi-RASH
will inherit
אָרֶץ
A-retz
land
and his seed will inherit the land.
The verb is the one for spending the night somewhere, so the promise is lodging rather than possession. What is inherited is left to the next generation, not to the man himself.
14
סוֹד יְהֹוָה לִירֵאָיו
וּבְרִיתוֹ לְהוֹדִיעָם
סוֹד
sod
the close counsel of
יְהֹוָה
a-do-NAY
the LORD
לִירֵאָיו
li-re-AV
is for those who fear Him
The close counsel of the LORD is for those who fear Him,
וּבְרִיתוֹ
uv-ri-TO
and His covenant
לְהוֹדִיעָם
le-ho-di-AM
to make them know
and His covenant, to make it known to them.
The highest thing offered in the psalm is not protection but confidence, in the old sense: being admitted to the circle where the plan is discussed.
First person returns after seven verses of description, and the body comes with it: eyes at the top of the line, feet at the bottom, the net between them.
16
פְּנֵה אֵלַי וְחׇנֵּנִי
כִּי יָחִיד וְעָנִי אָנִי
פְּנֵה
pne
turn
אֵלַי
e-LAI
to me
וְחׇנֵּנִי
ve-cho-ne-NI
and be gracious to me
Turn to me and be gracious to me,
כִּי
ki
for
יָחִיד
ya-CHID
alone
וְעָנִי
ve-a-NI
and afflicted
אָנִי
a-NI
I am
for I am alone and afflicted.
The word for alone is the one used for an only child. After the general teaching of verses 8 to 14, the psalm narrows to one person with no one else in the frame.
The two halves run in opposite directions: trouble widening, and a request to be led out of a narrow place. The Hebrew for distress is built on a root meaning narrow, so the contrast is spatial.
18
רְאֵה עׇנְיִי וַעֲמָלִי
וְשָׂא לְכׇל חַטֹּאותָי
רְאֵה
re-E
see
עׇנְיִי
on-YI
my affliction
וַעֲמָלִי
va-a-ma-LI
and my toil
See my affliction and my toil,
וְשָׂא
ve-SA
and lift away
לְכׇל
le-CHOL
for all
חַטֹּאותָי
cha-to-VTAI
my sins
and lift away all my sins.
The verb of forgiveness is the same verb the psalm opened with, to lift. The speaker lifted his soul in verse 1; here he asks God to lift the weight the other way.
The same imperative opens this verse and the last one, which is where the acrostic slips. Two objects for one act of seeing: what he has done, and what is being done to him.
let me not be put to shame, for I have taken refuge in You.
The plea of verse 2 comes back almost word for word, with trust replaced by refuge. My soul returns too, so the closing loops back to the first line.
21
תֹּם וָיֹשֶׁר יִצְּרוּנִי
כִּי קִוִּיתִיךָ
תֹּם
tom
integrity
וָיֹשֶׁר
va-YO-sher
and uprightness
יִצְּרוּנִי
yitz-ru-NI
let them guard me
Let integrity and uprightness guard me,
כִּי
ki
for
קִוִּיתִיךָ
ki-vi-ti-CHA
I have waited for You
for I have waited for You.
Uprightness was God's attribute in verse 8; here it is asked to stand guard. The final word closes the root of waiting that ran through verses 3 and 5, now with You attached directly to the verb.
22
פְּדֵה אֱלֹהִים אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל
מִכֹּל צָרוֹתָיו
פְּדֵה
pe-DE
redeem
אֱלֹהִים
e-lo-HIM
God
אֶת
et
the object marker
יִשְׂרָאֵל
yis-ra-EL
Israel
Redeem Israel, God,
מִכֹּל
mi-KOL
from all
צָרוֹתָיו
tza-ro-TAV
his troubles
out of all his troubles.
The one verse in the psalm with no first person in it. Everything asked for a single life is asked again for a nation, and the word for troubles is the one from verse 17.
♦ PARDES analysis: פרדס
The four levels of Jewish reading of the sacred text: פשט Peshat (literal meaning), רמז Remez (symbolic allusion), דרש Drash (midrashic interpretation), סוד Sod (mystical meaning). The word פרדס means "orchard", each level is a fruit.
פשט · Peshat: literal meaning
Three movements. Verses 1 to 7 ask, and what they ask for first is instruction, not rescue: make known, teach, lead. Verses 8 to 15 stop addressing God and describe Him instead, in the third person, and every verb the speaker had requested comes back as something God simply does. Then verses 16 to 21 return to the first person and to the concrete situation, which turns out to be loneliness, guilt, a net, and enemies. Verse 22 stands apart: no I, no me, only Israel. The teaching block in the middle is not a digression. It is the answer the speaker gives himself before asking again.
רמז · Remez: allusion
The acrostic is the frame and its faults are the interesting part. One letter opens each verse in sequence, though in the first two verses the letter sits on the second word rather than the first. No verse begins with vav, and none with qof: רְאֵה (re-e, v.18) takes the resh slot, and רְאֵה (re-e, v.19) repeats resh where qof should have stood. Then פְּדֵה (pe-de, v.22) adds a twenty-third line beginning with pe after tav has already closed the alphabet. Readers have long noticed that the three verses standing outside the strict run, the alef of אֵלֶיךָ (e-lei-cha, v.1), the lamed of לְמַעַן (le-ma-an, v.11), and the pe of פְּדֵה (pe-de, v.22), spell the name of the first letter, which is also the root of a verb meaning to teach. Psalm 34 shows the same missing vav and the same extra pe verse. Whether that is design or the residue of transmission is argued and not settled. Two roots also carry across the psalm: waiting, at קֹוֶיךָ (ko-vei-cha, v.3), קִוִּיתִי (ki-vi-ti, v.5) and קִוִּיתִיךָ (ki-vi-ti-cha, v.21), and being put to shame, at אֵבוֹשָׁה (e-vo-sha, v.2) and אֵבוֹשׁ (e-vosh, v.20). Note also רֵיקָם (rei-kam, v.3), an adverb that can mean either without cause or empty-handed, and the ambiguity changes who is being described.
דרש · Drash: midrashic reading
Verse 8 is read as the ground of repentance itself: the object of the instruction is sinners, not the righteous, and the verse gives God's own goodness as the reason. On that reading the door is open before anyone knocks. Verse 11 is read the same way, as a claim made on the name rather than on merit, since a debt that is called great is not thereby easier to cancel. The request of תִּזְכֹּר (tiz-kor, v.7), not to remember the sins of youth, has been read not as a plea for erasure but as a plea about timing: not that they be undone, but that they not be brought forward now. And the psalm's use in Tachanun rests on פְּדֵה (pe-de, v.22), which turns twenty-one verses of one man's trouble into a communal prayer without changing a word of what came before.
סוד · Sod: mystical reading
The word at סוֹד (sod, v.14) is the one later Jewish mysticism takes as its own name, the fourth level of reading. In this verse it does not yet mean a secret doctrine. It means the close circle where a decision is discussed before it is announced, and the psalm says that circle is open to those who fear Him. The second half of the verse is the point: the covenant is there to make it known to them, so the secret is a thing transmitted rather than withheld. Read this way the psalm's opening line is already the whole method. Lifting the soul, at אֶשָּׂא (e-sa, v.1), is the raising of what is lowest toward what is highest, and everything asked for afterward, the ways, the paths, the truth, is the route by which the lifted thing is meant to come back down again with something in its hands.
Hebrew text: Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), after the Aleppo Codex, via Sefaria, CC BY-SA. English: The Holy Scriptures, a New Translation (JPS 1917), via Sefaria, public domain. Transliteration generated by this site's own engine (assets/translit.js).