Psalms 6:4
Turn, O LORD, and deliver my soul; save me because of Your loving devotion.
BSB
ASV
Return, O Jehovah, deliver my soul: Save me for thy lovingkindness’ sake.
KJV
Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies’ sake.
Return, O Lord - Once I had the light of thy countenance, by sin I have forfeited this; I have provoked thee to depart: O Lord, return! It is an awful thing to be obliged to say, Return, O Lord, for this supposes backsliding; and yet what a mercy it is that a backslider may Return to God, with the expectation that God will return to him!
The pleas with which he enforces his petitions, not to move God (he knows our cause and the true merits of it better than we can state them), but to move himself. He pleads God's mercy; and thence we take some of our best encouragements in prayer: Save me, for thy mercies' sake.
"Return, O Lord; deliver my soul." As God's absence was the main cause of his misery, so his return would be enough to deliver him from his trouble. "Oh save me for thy mercies' sake." He knows where to look, and what arm to lay hold upon. He does not lay hold on God's left hand of justice, but on his right hand of mercy. He knew his iniquity too well to think of merit, or appeal to anything but the grace of God. "For thy mercies' sake." What a plea that is! How prevalent it is with God!
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
Malachi 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…
leads to
So tell the people that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Return to Me, declares the LORD of Hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Hosts.’
But as for Israel he says: “All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
When I have brought them into the land that I swore to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. Then they will turn to…
Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Through
Psalms 116:4Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, deliver my soul!”
leads to
In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered and set me free.
Through
Daniel 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…
leads to
Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God.
Perhaps they will bring their petition before the LORD, and each one will turn from his wicked way; for great are the anger and fury that the LORD has pronounced against this people.”