▼116:4 Verses 1-4 tell us that the psalmist nearly died – but God saved him. In verse 1, the Hebrew Bible says, ‘he hears my voice and my cries.’ This tells us that the psalmist cried aloud when he prayed. And in verse 2, the Hebrew Bible says, ‘God turns his ear to me.’ This is a Hebrew way to say, ‘God listens to me.’ Hebrew is the language that the psalmist spoke. Sheol is in verse 3. Jews believed that they went to Sheol when they died. But the psalmist did not want to go to Sheol. He did not want to die. So he prayed, ‘LORD, please save me!’ (verse 4). ‘Save’ here means ‘save me from death.’ It is not the same ‘save’ as Christians now use. Christians mean ‘save me from hell when I die.’ Hell is a bad place where God sends bad people.

We can also translate the end of verse 4 as ‘LORD, save my soul.’

▼116:7 Verses 5-7 tell us about God. He loves people, and he is kind and good to them, (verse 5). He gives them help when they need it, (verse 6). ‘He saved me’ here means ‘saved from dying’, not ‘saved from hell.’ The words ‘me’ in verses 4 and 8, and ‘myself’ in verse 7, are all the same in Hebrew. It is the Hebrew word ‘nafeshi.’ It means ‘the part of me that stays alive when my body dies.’ Some people translate it ‘my soul.’ So another translation of the beginning of verse 7 is ‘My soul, go back to your rest.’ Before God saved him, the psalmist could not rest, or sleep at night. Now he can – he is safe!

▼116:11 Verses 8-11 tell us more about what God did. Again, we can translate the beginning of verse 8 as ‘Yes, you saved my soul from death.’ ‘LORD’ is not in the Hebrew Bible. It is there to give us help to understand the verse. ‘Serve’ in verse 9 means ‘do what God tells me to do.’ The psalmist can now be God’s servant on earth, not in Sheol. Again, Sheol is not in the Hebrew Bible. It gives us help to remember what God saved the psalmist from. But verses 10-11 tell us about the psalmist. God saved him when he was in much pain. God saved him when he thought that nobody told him what was true. This made him very sad. But that was when God saved him!

▼116:18 Verses 12-18 tell us what the psalmist promises to do. He asks what he can give (or pay) to God, (verse 12). His answer is in verses 13-18. He will offer a cup of wine to the LORD, (verse 13). He will say ‘thanks’ to the LORD in front of all the people, (verse 14). He will do this in the courts of the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, (verse 18). What does all this mean?

– The cup of wine. We can translate this ‘cup of safety.’ Safety means being in a safe place. This cup of safety was part of the Jewish Passover Dinner. The Passover was when they remembered that God saved them from Egypt. They drank several cups of wine at this special dinner, or feast. Wine is a drink with alcohol in it. The cup of safety was the fourth cup of wine at the Passover Dinner.

– The house of the LORD. This was the temple in Jerusalem. Only men from the tribe (or family) of Levi could go into the temple. Everyone else stayed in one of the yards (or courts) outside. There everybody would hear him say ‘thanks!’ to the LORD.