Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.
Parallel translations
- WEB Save, Yahweh! Let the King answer us when we call!
- BSB O LORD, save the king. Answer us on the day we call.
- NKJV Save, Lord! May the King answer us when we call.
- NASB Save, Lord; May the King answer us on the day we call.
- NLT Give victory to our king, O Lord! Answer our cry for help.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The psalm closes with a plea: 'Save, Yahweh!' and a call for the King to answer when they pray. It is a final cry for God's saving response.
Overview
The congregation ends as it began, in prayer, asking God to save and to answer in the day they call. The reference to 'the King' may address God himself or, by extension, point to his anointed. The cry anticipates the salvation God grants through his appointed King, fully answered in the Messiah.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ps 5:2Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
- Ps 118:25–26Save now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.
- Ps 44:4Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.
- Matt 21:15And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased,
- Ps 74:12For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
- Ps 17:6I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.
- Matt 21:9And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.
- Ps 24:7Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
- Ps 2:6–10Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
- Ps 3:7Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 20:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.