Psalm 6

Introduction

Welcome back everyone to Torah Today Ministries in our series, Tehillim Talks, as we make our way through the Psalms. And today we find ourselves in Psalm number six. This Psalm has often been thought of as being a Psalm that should be prayed by someone who is ill.

And it’s believed that David was very ill as he composed this Psalm. And you’ll see allusions to illness, and also regret and repentance. In Jewish thought, illness and repentance and sin often are very much interwoven.

This does not mean that if you’re sick, it’s because you sinned, and if you sinned, you’ll immediately get sick. Yeshua himself let us know that sometimes ailments and handicaps are not due to anyone’s sin. It’s just part of the human condition.

But I found in my own experience, if I am ill and I find myself in bed sick with a fever or some other illness, it really becomes a time for me to take inventory of my life, to check and see, Lord, is there something in my life that is also ill, and that I’m experiencing in my body something that is taking place also in my soul, in my mind, in my will and emotions. And I’ve often found that after coming out of sickness, I could look back on it and think it was good. It was a blessed time.

It was a way God got my attention and brought some serious soul correction and healing to my soul. So I invite you as well, the next time you find yourself under the weather, maybe with COVID or some other ailment and you’re in bed, to really do some inventory on your soul and ask God, is there something I need to change in my life as well? And I always pray God accomplish your purpose in my life and through my life with this illness that I am experiencing.

The Sheminit – The Eighth

So let’s get on with the psalm. Now this psalm is one of two that has this particular attribution. It says, 

“to the choir master, with stringed instruments according to the sheminit, a Psalm of David.”

What is sheminit (שְׁמִינִית)? There are two psalms, Psalm 6 and Psalm 12. And often these two psalms are studied together because of this shared word, ha-sheminit (הַשְּׁמִינִית), the sheminit.

What is the sheminit? Well, the word sheminit comes from the word shemonah (שְׁמוֹנָה), which means eight. Maybe you pray the Shemoneh Esrei (שְׁמוֹנֶה עֶשְׂרֵה), the 18 faceted blessing that is part of the daily liturgy in Jewish prayer.

So, shemonah means eight. And it’s believed that the sheminit is the eight-stringed harp. Now, I’m not sure how the Jewish sages have arrived at this, but in the Babylonian Talmud, it tells us that the harp used in the temple had seven strings.

But in the Messianic era, when Messiah comes, they will use a harp with eight strings. And then in the world to come, after that, the new heavens, new earth, they will use a harp with 10 strings. You can make of that what you will.

I think it’s interesting, something to think about. But we do know that the word shemini (שְׁמִינִי), as I said, means eight. And God’s name, Yud Hei Vav Hei (יהוה), is found eight times in this psalm.

In fact, ha-shemini (הַשְּׁמִינִי), the eight, or the eight strings, if you look at the first three letters, it spells the word HaShem (הַשֵּׁם), which is shorthand for the name, Yud Hei Vav Hei. Eight is also the number of life, of new life, of resurrection, of a new beginning. And that is the goal of this psalm, to pray that God would have mercy, God would bring healing to this disease, and I will start anew, I’ll be healthy, and I will then step into life wiser, more cautious, more repentant, a pure and better prepared soul to serve you.

Psalm 6:1-3 – Rebuke and Discipline

So let’s get right into the psalm. What does it have to say to us?

“Adonai, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.” (Psalm 6:1)

Let’s pause there for a moment. Rebuke and discipline are two things God finds very important in dealing with us. And David is not asking that God not rebuke him or discipline him, he’s just asking that God not do it in his anger and in his wrath. So apparently David has done something.

There are all kinds of theories and ideas about what sin David had committed, that he’s now going through this illness and this suffering. And so he’s asking God recognize that I am a faulty, weak human being, and don’t be too angry with me, but help me, rebuke me, but not in anger. Discipline me, but not in your wrath.

The Word “Rebuke” – Yakhach (יָכַח)

And this word for rebuke is a word that’s yakhach (יָכַח), and it’s used over in Proverbs where it says that God, Adonai reproves, he yakhach him whom he loves. He reproves, he rebukes whom he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights. Sometimes a father rebukes his son with anger, but David’s asking, please don’t be angry.

Grace in the Old Testament – Chen (חֵן)

“Have mercy on me. Be gracious to me, Adonai, for I am worn out. Heal me, Adonai, for my bones are troubled.”(Psalm 6:2)

And he says, be gracious to me. Now, I hear people say, not so much anymore, but I still hear them say, grace is in the New Testament. There’s just no grace in the Old Testament. It’s like if they ever read it, because there are constant calls for grace, and we even see that Noah found chen (חֵן), he found grace in the eyes of Adonai. And that’s the word being used here.

Be gracious to me, have grace toward me, Adonai. For I am worn out. Your translation will say something different.

I can guarantee that. But as I study this word, I think the best translation is I’m just worn out. I’m strung out.

I’m coming unraveled. Heal me, Adonai, for my bones are troubled. That part of my body which is the source of my strength that allows me to stand.

“My soul, my nephesh also is greatly troubled.” (Psalm 6:3a)

That part of me is even shaken and troubled. My soul, my nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ) also is greatly troubled. So we see the word troubled twice here.

And it’s the same word in Hebrew. And spoiler alert, you’re gonna see the same word again down in verse 10. But in verse 10, it’s gonna be David’s enemies who are troubled.

So he’s experiencing trouble now. They’re gonna be experiencing trouble later. And I find this fascinating.

The Feminine Address – Va’at (וְאַתְּ)

Now, even if you look in a Hebrew copy of the Psalms, most of them are going to try to be helpful. They’ll actually change the word in the Hebrew. But if you get an annotated version of the Psalms, or a Psalms a little more analytical, it’s going to tell you exactly what is written without making changes to it.

“But you, Adonai, ad-matai (how long, until when)?” (Psalm 6:3b)

And it’s right here. It says, but you, Adonai, ad-matai (עַד־מָתַי), how long, until when? In other words, I’m begging you to act.

I need you to act. I’m desperate. No one else can help me but you.

How long? When are you gonna come? When are you gonna show up?

When is the cavalry going to ride over the ridge and rescue me? Ad-matai. But look at this, but you.

In Hebrew, it’s the word va’at (וְאַתְּ). But it should be va’atah (וְאַתָּה), because va’atah is masculine, va’at is feminine. Atah (אַתָּה) is the Hebrew word for you if you’re talking to a male.

We often say, Baruch atah Adonai, blessed are you Adonai. But here it’s at (אַתְּ), it’s feminine. That’s the way it’s written.

And as I said, many Hebrew copies of the Psalms, just go ahead and just fix it, if you will. But in the original, it’s just va’at without the additional hey on the end. Why did David write va’at?

Va’at. Why is he addressing God in the feminine? I don’t know.

Scholars have wondered about this for centuries. But it’s almost as if David is crying out to God to behave towards him as a gentle, loving, forgiving mother. Now we know that God is masculine and masculine prepositions are used with him throughout scripture.

But femininity, the entire idea of womanhood and the female comes from God. He invented it. And there are times when he expresses himself as a hen who desires to gather her chicks.

And he will express almost a motherly tenderness towards his children. And I think David here is appealing to that. He’s appealing to God, not to discipline him as a father, but as a gentle mother.

Just a thought. You think about it and you decide.

Psalm 6:4-5 – Turn, Save, and Sheol

And then we come on down to verses four and five.

“Turn, Adonai. Deliver my soul. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. For in death, there’s no remembrance of you in sheol. In sheol, who will give you praise?” (Psalm 6:4-5)

The Word “Turn” – Shuv (שׁוּב)

Turn, Adonai. Now the word turn is shuv (שׁוּב). We often translate that word repent.

Repent is a religious word, but the word repent, shuv, simply means turn around. Instead of going this way, go this way. That’s all it means.

So he’s saying turn, Adonai. It’s almost as if God, he feels like God has turned his back on him. And he’s saying turn around and face me again.

Deliver my soul. Save me for the sake of your steadfast love. You could put loving kindness.

And we’re gonna talk about this Hebrew word behind steadfast love in just a moment. For in death, there’s no remembrance of you in sheol. In sheol, who will give you praise?

You see there are three words or phrases here I put in bold red. Save, steadfast love, and sheol. And I don’t want to overburden you with new Hebrew terms and getting too deep into the Hebrew, but these are three items that really deserve a second look.

The Word “Save” – Yasha (יָשַׁע)

So, deliver my soul. Save me, for the sake of your steadfast love. In other words, save me for your steadfast love means as it befits your steadfast love. So people will see what you do in my life and they’ll recognize what a loving and merciful God you are. And then we want to talk about this word sheol, which some translations will translate hell.

What a horrible mistranslation that is. So save, steadfast love, and sheol. Let’s take a look at these one at a time.

There is the Hebrew word for save, the word yasha (יָשַׁע). And if you think that sounds like Yeshua, you’re correct because this is the root of Yeshua’s name. And remember how Yeshua got his name.

The angel appeared to Joseph before Yeshua was born and said to him, you shall call his name Yeshua, for he shall yasha his people from their sins. So name him salvation because he will save his people from their sins. So save or rescue is a more lay term for this.

I like to use the word rescue. Save often has a religious connotation to it, but there was no religious connotations to this word back in the day. Simply meant to rescue someone.

They’re drowning. They need rescued. And with that said, Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch, this Torah genius from a century ago, points out that the word for save or rescue, yasha, begins with the letters Yud (י) and Shin (ש), which is the Hebrew word yesh (יֵשׁ).

And yesh means there is. If you want to say there is a picture on the wall, yesh, picture on the wall, or there’s a yard sale tomorrow, yesh, yard sale tomorrow, there is. It’s simply a word that states that something exists.

And the rabbis bring out that this word yasha, to be saved, to be rescued, means to restore our existence, to bring us back into existence, to continue our existence. And isn’t that exactly what Yeshua came to do? He came to assure our continued existence.

He is Yeshua because he will yasha us and people will look at us and say, yesh, there he is, there she is, she’s still going.

The Word “Chesed” (חֶסֶד) – Loving Kindness

And then the word for loving kindness. A wonderful word. It’s a word we find many, many, many times through the Psalms and throughout the scriptures. And that’s the word chesed (חֶסֶד). We simply do not have an English equivalent for the word chesed.

And I brought a book in to show you. It’s called Inexpressible. I’m gonna put it up here in front of camera too.

This is a wonderful book. My sister-in-law gave me this. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I plan to reread it. And it’s written by Michael Card, the musician and a great writer. It’s called Inexpressible, Chesed and the Mystery of God’s Loving-Kindness.

Now I’ve put this book in the notes. You can get the title and the printer and so on. You could order your own copy.

But to give you an example about how inexpressible chesed is, I want to read you the title of the preface. Michael Card’s preface is entitled The Untranslatable Defining the Inexpressible.

The Untranslatable Defining the Inexpressible. In other words, we have a word we can’t translate and that word expresses something that you really can’t even express. That’s what chesed is. But I like the definition.

I love the definition he gives for this word because I think it comes the closest to capturing what chesed truly is. And this is the definition: When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.

Let me try that one more time. When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything. Everything.

That, my friends, is what God does for us. That is what Yeshua accomplished for us. We don’t have a right to expect anything from God or from Messiah.

And yet, he gives us everything. That’s what chesed is. Unfortunately, our translations, they do the best they can.

They’ll translate this loving kindness, or sometimes just love, sometimes just kindness. But whenever you encounter any of those words, do a little homework, find out if chesed is the word that is behind that. And then conjure up this meaning.

When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything. That’s what chesed is.

The Word “Sheol” (שְׁאוֹל) – The Grave

And then that word is sheol (שְׁאוֹל). Sheol. Well, now in the verse, I capitalize Sheol simply because that’s how we normally see it. I don’t plan to ever do that again in the future.

So when we encounter this word again in Psalms, I’m not gonna capitalize it because it’s not really a place. Sheol is simply a Hebrew word that means grave. It means there’s a dead body in a grave.

And when we see this word sheol, that’s how we should translate it. There are some different words in Hebrew. There’s the word bor (בּוֹר), which means a pit, and you could put bodies in a pit.

There’s also a kever (קֶבֶר), which is a tomb, but they all basically mean the same sort of thing, but sheol is especially focusing on the fact that the person is dead. Now let me share something with you here. The psalm says there is no praise of you in sheol.

In the grave, there’s no praise of you. So don’t let me die because when I’m dead, I can’t praise you. But then you might think, well, wait a minute, but the soul goes on, can’t the soul praise God?

Yeah, but what David is saying is that there’s no remembrance of you in sheol. Who will give you praise? Because if you put your ear to a grave, you’re not going to hear any praise coming up out of the ground.

Because in the grave is a dead body. And here’s the thing I want you to understand. In Hebraic thought, in Biblical thought, when a soul leaves a body, even the soul may continue to live, be conscious and walk among other souls and walk in God’s presence, the person is still dead.

He is not considered alive. Even though the soul is conscious. Until that soul once again enters that body, the body is resurrected, that person is dead.

And David, I’m sure realizes that my soul can continue to praise you. But when my soul and body are separated, I am no longer a human being. I am dead.

And you want praise to come to you, not just from the heavenlies, but you want praise to come to you from earth. I can’t do that when my body’s in a grave. So if you restore my soul, if you heal me of this disease, and I can arise from my sickbed and walk again, I am going to praise you in this world.

I’m going to praise you here the way they praise you above. I can’t do that if I’m dead. So we must understand that for a human being to be a human being, and that’s what God wants us to be, we have to be alive in these bodies.

We must get rid of this notion that when we die, we just go to be to heaven to be with God for eternity. No, God is going to resurrect these bodies. First Corinthians chapter 15 is Paul trying to emphasize the importance of the resurrection.

We have to be resurrected into new bodies, physical solid bodies. Yeah, they’re called spiritual bodies, but they’re real, they’re solid. They walk, they talk, they eat.

And that is the kind of human being God wants us to be, where spirit, soul and body are completely reunited forever, never to die again. So David is saying, don’t let me die yet. I have more praising I want to do of you in this world.

I want to serve you more in this world, because once I leave this body, I can’t serve you anymore. I can’t bring knowledge to you, to the world around me. I can’t fulfill your commandments.

I can’t do the work you’ve given me to do. So let me live a while longer, so I can accomplish and finish your purpose in my life.

Psalm 6:6-7 – Weeping and Anger

“I am weary with my moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears. I drench my couch with my weeping.” (Psalm 6:6)

David is pretty depressed. And this is an amazing psalm to read if you ever have a brush with depression. And being ill could make you depressed. I had COVID, I had a terrible case of COVID. Of my wife and daughter and myself, I had it the worst way back in October, about eight months ago.

And Robin every once in a while will remind me of the things I did and said when I was sick, things I have no memory of. She says, you were so depressed. I don’t remember being depressed.

And she shared things. It’s like, are you making this up? But when you’re ill, you can tend to be depressed.

That’s kind of natural. And this Psalm addresses both the depression and healing. Now, I mentioned that Psalm 6 and Psalm 12 kind of go together, and they do.

They’re very similar. They have many parallels. Psalm 6, though, is more about my personal experience going through depression and illness.

Whereas Psalm 12 is more about a national depression and illness, where the whole nation of Israel is going through a very difficult time. So, 6 and 12 are both written to be performed on ha-shemini, on the eight-stringed harp, because eight is the number of new life, new beginnings. And God’s saying, I want you to sing this sad song accompanied by something that promises life, something that has eight strings on it.

But anyways, I’m digressing. I’m weary with my moaning. Every night I flood my bed with tears.

I drench my couch with my weeping.

The Word “Anger” – Ka’as (כַּעַס)

“My eye wastes away because of anger.” (Psalm 6:7)

My eye wastes away because of anger. Your translation, like most, probably says grief. That is not the word being used here. Some translations do get it correct. But the word here is ka’as (כַּעַס), anger.

There’s several words in Scripture for anger. In fact, there are a couple other ones right here where David asked God not to rebuke him in his anger and in his wrath. But this is the other word for anger, the word ka’as, the most common word just for human anger.

And he says, my eye wastes away because of anger. Who is he angry at? Well, it seems there might be two entities he’s angry at.

He’s angry, first of all, at himself because he has sinned. If you read between the lines, it’s obvious he’s done something wrong. And he’s angry at himself because of his failure.

He’s angry that his sin seems to have brought this illness upon him, this illness, which is meant to correct him and discipline him, to rebuke him, but also he’s angry at his enemies because it’s almost like they’re like vultures hovering around, is he going to die? We hope he dies. And they’re just waiting for something horrible to happen, for this to not have a good outcome, so they can gloat over him.

There are other Psalms where he expressed the same kind of sentiment. But the point I want you to look at here is that it says, my eye wastes away. It becomes dim and weak because of anger.

Anger Damages Our Perceptions

There’s a profound principle here, and it is this. Anger damages our perceptions. Anger blinds us.

Show me an angry man, and I’ll show you a man who’s not seen straight. Anger is one of the most caustic and cancerous kinds of attitudes we can have on our soul. It will eat away at us and destroy us.

I think of all the emotions, anger by far is the most damaging. It does the most damage the quickest, almost like fire. There are other very negative emotions.

Greed, lust, pride, these are all horrible things. But anger somehow is the most dangerous because it so quickly can take us from doing well to all of a sudden just destroying our lives, shipwrecking our lives. You know, the scriptures say be angry, but sin not.

It doesn’t say lust, but sin not, or be proud, but sin not. It’s talk about anger, because the dangerous thing about anger is that anger sometimes does, on rare occasions, have a justifiable cause, and it needs to be expressed very, very carefully, very precisely, but it’s almost impossible to do that. Because every time we get angry, it’s like we come right up to the brink of a cliff, and it’s almost impossible without iron will to keep yourself from going too far and stepping off the edge.

Messiah is only one, and as his father, who could be angry and say what needs to be said, but never cross the line, never cross the line. And there’s a saying in Judaism that the angry man has no God. So you can take a person who’s a devout believer, but when they lose their temper, it’s almost like they become God.

And they’ll say things and do things they would never do, never do, if they had self-composure. And then when they come down from their anger, oh, the embarrassment, the shame they have, because they realize they acted like someone who doesn’t even believe in God. And I’ve seen this in my own life.

People who become angry will say and do things like God doesn’t even exist, like God, get out of my way. I’m gonna be God right now, and I am going to exert my will. So if you have an issue with anger, deal with that.

For you, that is job number one. And then it says, it grows weak because of all my foes.

Psalm 6:8-9 – Truth Breaks Through

“Depart from me, all you workers of evil. For Adonai has heard the sound of my weeping. Adonai has heard my plea. Adonai accepts my prayer.” (Psalm 6:8-9)

Now what in the world happened between verse seven and verse eight? Whatever happened, it’s like truth kicked in. Suddenly, David came to the end of his depression, the end of his messing around, of laying in bed, and he once again gets a hold of truth, remembers God’s promises, something happens here, and I have found in my own life, when I go through this long period, or what seems long to me, of just wallowing in self-pity and regret and whatever accompanying illness may come with that, it seems like at some point, I reach this place where all of a sudden I wake up and think, what am I doing here?

It’s like Yeshua coming to the paralytic and ask him, do you want to be well? Do you want to be healed? And truth begins to shine light and that little bit of truth makes me wake up and I can begin to live again.

And David says, depart from me, all you workers of evil. And that’s what Yeshua quotes over Matthew 7. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I’ll let you look that up. It’s Matthew 7 and verse 23, I believe.

Yes, verse 23. He’s quoting Psalm 6 and verse 8. For Adonai has heard the sound of my weeping.

Adonai has heard my plea. The weeping is something that’s external, something physical you do, but there’s something deep and internal and that’s that plea. So he hears the sound that I’m making physically as I cry, but he also hears this deep plea within me.

Maybe it’s something I can’t even put into words. God hears them both. Adonai accepts my prayer.

Psalm 6:10 – Enemies Troubled

And then we come to the conclusion, verse 10.

“All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled. They shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.”(Psalm 6:10)

All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled. There’s that third occurrence of the word trouble. They’re gonna be troubled. And this word for troubled is the word, they’re gonna be shaken up. They’re gonna be dismayed.

They’re gonna be suddenly disoriented because of what’s happening. The first time you find that word troubled is back in Genesis when Jacob discovers that his son Joseph is dead, or at least he thinks he is. He sees the coat of many colors that’s dipped in blood and begins to mourn and grieve.

And it says that his children came around him to comfort him. It says, but his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m looking at a different story.

I’m thinking of when Jacob was dismayed and he said, I will go down to sheol to my son Joseph. The word troubled is in Genesis 45:3, when Joseph tells his brothers, he reveals his identity, he says, I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?

But his brothers could not answer him, for they were behal (בָּהַל), they were troubled, they were dismayed at his presence. They were shaken up. That’s the first appearance.

I apologize for getting the two verses mixed up. But this is the first appearance of this word behal, which means troubled. It really means to be shaken up.

His brothers were not in trouble, but they were shaken, they were dismayed, they were disoriented by the sudden change in their circumstances. So this is what David is saying here. All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled, greatly shaken up.

Repentance and Shame – Yashuvu, Yevoshu (יָשֻׁבוּ יֵבֹשׁוּ)

They shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment. Now those words in red, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine English words translate just two Hebrew words. And there they are below.

And the words are yashuvu, yevoshu (יָשֻׁבוּ יֵבֹשׁוּ). Yashuvu, yevoshu. And you’ll notice something interesting here.

The two words, yashuvu, they shall turn back. There’s that word shuv (שׁוּב) again to turn around. And then bosh (בּוֹשׁ), the two middle letters here are the words that mean shame.

And with a yud in the front and the vav at the end makes it into a verb. They shall be ashamed. They shall turn around and be ashamed.

But notice that the two words consist of the same four letters. They both end in, or begin in yud. Both end in vav.

And the two middle letters are shin, beit, and here beit, shin. Just reverse the two middle letters. So the two words are almost identical, spelled with the same letters.

And the rabbis see in this that repentance and shame often go hand in hand. Sometimes repentance comes first and then we feel the shame fully for what we’ve done. Sometimes the shame comes first and that contributes to us turning around and repenting of what we’ve done.

But I think there is a profound picture, a profound lesson here concerning shame and repentance. One of the things that we try to avoid in US law is that punishment should not be cruel and unusual. We want to avoid shaming the person being punished. And that sounds good.

And there is truth in that. Don’t get me wrong. But I remember reading a science fiction book, believe it or not, many years ago by Robert Heinlein.

And he makes this deep philosophical insight. He says, if punishment is not a little cruel and unusual, then it is not punishment. And he’s talking in the future about how things are in the future and where shame is a very important part of bringing correction to people.

If they don’t feel shame for what they’ve done, they may not correct their behavior. How do we bring shame as a society to those who deserve it without ourselves in return becoming shameful in our behavior? It’s a very delicate balance, but it’s something worth thinking about.

I know in the early days of the 13 colonies and the early days of the United States, they would take someone who deserved punishment and they would punish them publicly. They would punish them in a way that wouldn’t cause permanent damage. They might put them in the stocks with their head in the holes and their hands here and just put them on display in the town square for a while. That would cause a lot of shame, wouldn’t it?

And I doubt if you’d ever do that wrong deed again after that. So it’s just something to think about. But here we see that shame and repentance go closely hand in hand.

Conclusion

Anyways, my purpose for this study is to give you some tools so you can go back to the Psalm and pray with more depth, with more understanding, and that you will see a bit more of what David is expressing in his own experience, which is the same as our experiences in so many ways. And I want, but that’s a part you have to do. That’s a part I can’t do for you in this study.

I just want to give you the tools, allow you to look a little more deeply in some of the words and expressions. But only you can make the Psalm yours. Only you can use it to express what you want to express to the Lord.

And I hope that the next time, God forbid you should be ill or depressed. I hope you’ll resort to Psalm 6 to help put words to what you’re experiencing in your soul, in your mind, in your body. And may God hear your cry as he heard David’s and bring healing and restoration and raise you from that sickbed.

God bless. I’ll see you next time as we look into Psalm 7. Shalom.

Links 

Primary Scripture References

1. Psalm 6 (Full Text) – ESV
2. All Supporting Verses (ESV)

Hebrew Text Resources

1. Psalm 6 – Hebrew Text with Vowel Points
2. Psalm 12 – Hebrew Text 
3. Babylonian Talmud – References to Temple Harps Verse 11

Strong’s Concordance – Hebrew Word Studies

1. H3198 – Yakhach (יָכַח) – “To rebuke/reprove”
2. H2580 – Chen (חֵן) – “Grace/favor”
3. H5315 – Nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ) – “Soul/life”
4. H7725 – Shuv (שׁוּב) – “To turn/return/repent”
5. H3467 – Yasha (יָשַׁע) – “To save/deliver”
6. H3426 – Yesh (יֵשׁ) – “There is/existence”
7. H2617 – Chesed (חֶסֶד) – “Steadfast love/lovingkindness”
8. H7585 – Sheol (שְׁאוֹל) – “Grave/place of the dead”
9. H1164 – Bor (בּוֹר) – “Pit”
10. H6913 – Kever (קֶבֶר) – “Grave/tomb”
11. H3707 – Ka’as (כַּעַס) – “Anger/vexation”
12. H926 – Bahal (בָּהַל) – “To be troubled/dismayed”
13. H954 – Bosh (בּוֹשׁ) – “To be ashamed”