Psalms 41 WEB
Summary: Psalm 41 opens with a beatitude for those who consider the poor, promising God's care in their own time of illness (v. 1-3), before turning to lament the psalmist's own sickbed, where enemies visit only to gather material for slander. Its most piercing line describes betrayal by an intimate, "even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me" (v. 9), words Jesus applies to Judas in John 13. It closes both the psalm and Book I of the Psalter with a doxology: "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen" (v. 13).
1Blessed is he who considers the poor. Yahweh will deliver him in the day of evil.
2Yahweh will preserve him, and keep him alive. He shall be blessed on the earth, and he will not surrender him to the will of his enemies.
3Yahweh will sustain him on his sickbed, and restore him from his bed of illness.
4I said, “Yahweh, have mercy on me! Heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
5My enemies speak evil against me: “When will he die, and his name perish?”
6If he comes to see me, he speaks falsehood. His heart gathers iniquity to itself. When he goes abroad, he tells it.
7All who hate me whisper together against me. They imagine the worst for me.
8“An evil disease”, they say, “has afflicted him. Now that he lies he shall rise up no more.”
9Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.
10But you, Yahweh, have mercy on me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.
11By this I know that you delight in me, because my enemy doesn’t triumph over me.
12As for me, you uphold me in my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.
13Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting! Amen and amen.
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