Turn, O LORD, and deliver my soul; save me because of Your loving devotion.
Parallel translations
- WEB Return, Yahweh. Deliver my soul, and save me for your loving kindness’ sake.
- KJV Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies’ sake.
- NKJV Return, O Lord, deliver me! Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake!
- NASB ¶Return, Lord, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your mercy.
- NLT Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love.
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 to turn back to him and deliver him for the sake of His steadfast love. He appeals to God's mercy, not his own merit.
Overview
David pleads for God to 'return,' as if the Lord had withdrawn, and to rescue him on the basis of 'loving kindness'—God's covenant faithfulness. The ground of his hope is not what he deserves but what God is. This steadfast love is the same mercy that reaches its fullest expression in the salvation accomplished by Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Dan 9:18Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.
- Ps 17:13Arise, O LORD, confront them! Bring them to their knees; deliver me from the wicked by Your sword,
- Ps 116:4Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, deliver my soul!”
- Eph 2:7–8in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
- Ps 22:20Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of wild dogs.
- Ps 90:13Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
- Ps 121:7The LORD will guard you from all evil; He will preserve your soul.
- Ps 80:14Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine—
- Mal 3:7Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts. “But you ask, ‘How can we return?’
- Ps 116:8For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
- Ps 86:13For great is Your loving devotion to me; You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol.
- Ps 120:2Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.
- Ps 25:7Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my rebellious acts; remember me according to Your loving devotion, because of Your goodness, O LORD.
- Eph 1:6to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.
- Ps 79:8–9Do not hold past sins against us; let Your compassion come quickly, for we are brought low.
- Isa 38:17Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.
- 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.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 6:4 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.