O LORD, do not withhold Your mercy from me; Your loving devotion and faithfulness will always guard me.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t withhold your tender mercies from me, Yahweh. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me.
- KJV Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
- NKJV Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.
- NASB ¶You, Lord, will not withhold Your compassion from me; Your mercy and Your truth will continually watch over me.
- NLT Lord, don’t hold back your tender mercies from me. Let your unfailing love and faithfulness always protect me.
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
David asks God not to withhold mercy but to let His love and truth preserve him continually. He depends on God's steadfast care for ongoing protection.
Overview
The psalm now turns from praise to petition, leaning on the very attributes just confessed. David trusts God's lovingkindness and truth to keep him. The believer rests in the same covenant faithfulness now fully displayed in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 23:6Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
- Ps 43:3Send out Your light and Your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, and to the place where You dwell.
- Ps 57:3He reaches down from heaven and saves me; He rebukes those who trample me. Selah God sends forth His loving devotion and His truth.
- Prov 20:28Loving devotion and faithfulness preserve a king; by these he maintains his throne.
- Ps 69:16Answer me, O LORD, for Your loving devotion is good; turn to me in keeping with Your great compassion.
- Ps 61:7May he sit enthroned in God’s presence forever; appoint Your loving devotion and Your faithfulness to guard him.
- Ps 69:13But my prayer to You, O LORD, is for a time of favor. In Your abundant loving devotion, O God, answer me with Your sure salvation.
- Ps 85:10Loving devotion and faithfulness have joined together; righteousness and peace have kissed.
- Heb 5:7During the days of Jesus’ earthly life, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 40:11 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.