Words matter. As a self-identified writer, I at least sometimes try to pick my words intentionally so that they create specific informational and emotional effects in the minds of my readers. The biblical authors of course did the same thing. Unlike me, they wrote in Hebrew and Greek, with at least the first of these two being a heavenly language. Their specific word choices in the original languages matter.
Sometimes, translators and translation committees being mere mortals, our English Bibles run roughshod over this principle. A particularly immoral example of this is committed by the NASB in the first five verses of Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but I have no rest.
Yet You are holy,
O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
In You our fathers trusted;
They trusted and You delivered them.
To You they cried out and were delivered;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed.
For some reason, despite the words underlying the bold “deliver” in these verses being three different words in Hebrew, the translators made them all “deliver(ance).” The ESV gets it better, translating them as “far from saving me,” “You delivered them,” and “were rescued.” (Compare NIV, “were saved,” conflating with their “saving me” in v. 1.) However, that final Hebrew word simply is not used to mean “was rescued” in the rest of Scripture; it actually has a non-passive nuance. Usually when this word comes up, it is translated as “they escaped.” CSB gets slightly closer to this (“They cried to you and were set free”), but not quite all the way. While the lexicons allows for this translation, this is the only passage in Scripture in which they allow for this passive translation of the verb. This suggests that David may have had something else in mind when he wrote Psalm 22.
The Hebrew verb (I will transliterate it as nimlatu) is used 96 times in the Bible. Almost every time it occurs in this form, especially in narrative, it is translated “escape” by the ESV. Nimlatu has the fundamental idea of getting away from danger. In particular, it describes how Lot escaped from Sodom, how David escaped with his life from Saul on numerous occasions, and how none of the worshippers of Baal escaped Jehu’s slaughter. Especially given how it is used to describe incidents in David’s life, it would be strange for him to use it in a different sense than that of escape.
In the context of Psalm 22, David describes Yahweh’s deliverance in the past of those who trusted in him. For him to use nimlatu then emphasizes that even when it looks like those who trust in Yahweh are fending for themselves and escaping, Yahweh is the agent who delivers his people. There is no need to translate nimlatu as “were rescued” or “were delivered;” that force of the verb arises from the context. Translating it closer to its usual lexical sense of escape emphasizes a different theological point: man is never truly responsible for his own deliverance.
In the biblical narratives, it may look like Lot saves himself from Sodom by fleeing. After all, his wife and sons-in-law failed to do the same! Similarly, it looks like David escapes from Saul on several occasions by his own resourcefulness and gumption. But by using the same verb, nimlatu, here in Psalm 22, David teaches that even when it looks like God’s people are fending for themselves, God is responsible for their deliverance and protection. David’s word choice matters; this profound piece of theological significance, uniting divine sovereignty with human responsibility, is conveyed through his choice of a specific synonym.
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