¹ Unto the end. May you not destroy. Of David, with the inscription of a title, when he fled from Saul into a cave.¹

1. 56:1Destroy not: Suffer me not to be destroyed.(Challoner)

² Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me. For my soul trusts in you. And I will hope in the shadow of your wings, until iniquity passes away.

³ I will cry out to God Most High, to God who has been kind to me.

⁴ He sent from heaven and freed me. He has surrendered into disgrace those who trampled me. God has sent his mercy and his truth.

⁵ And he has rescued my soul from the midst of the young lions. I slept troubled. The sons of men: their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword.

⁶ Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.

⁷ They prepared a snare for my feet, and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, yet they have fallen into it.

⁸ My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared. I will sing, and I will compose a psalm.¹

1. 56:8Again, ‘psalmum dicam’ could be translated as ‘recite a psalm.’ But, after all the great and merciful things that this and other psalms say that God has done, is the response of the Psalmist merely to recite a psalm. Is not the one who wrote this psalm a composer of psalms? So then, his response would not be merely to recite a memorized psalm, but to compose one. Psalms were composed in ancient times, not so much by sitting down and writing, but by speaking the psalm first, and writing it later.(Conte)

⁹ Rise up, my glory. Rise up, psaltery and harp. I will arise in early morning.

¹⁰ I will confess to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will compose a psalm to you among the nations.

¹¹ For your mercy has been magnified, even to the heavens, and your truth, even to the clouds.

¹² Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.