Psalms 56:3
When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.
BSB
ASV
What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee.
KJV
What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
In the day that I was afraid, etc. In the Hebrew, the words run in the future tense, but they must be resolved into the praeterite. He acknowledges his weakness, in so far as he was sensible of fear, but denies having yielded to it.
What time I am afraid. David was no braggart, he does not claim never to be afraid, and he was no brutish Stoic free from fear because of the lack of tenderness. David's intelligence deprived him of the stupid heedlessness of ignorance, he saw the imminence of his peril, and was afraid. We are men, and therefore liable to overthrow; we are feeble, and therefore unable to prevent it; we are sinful men, and therefore deserving it, and for all these reasons we are afraid.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 34:4I sought the LORD, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.
leads to
In my distress I called upon the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry for His help reached His ears.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.
I love the LORD, for He has heard my voice— my appeal for mercy.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.
Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.”
Through
1 Samuel 30:6And David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of every man grieved for his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God.
leads to
When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.
in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him.