Psalms 40

World English Bible 89 include this book

1 I waited patiently for the LORD. He turned to me, and heard my cry.

2 He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand.

3 He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.

4 Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, and doesn’t respect the proud, nor such as turn away to lies.

5 Many, LORD, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They can’t be declared back to you. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be counted.

6 Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire. You have opened my ears. You have not required burnt offering and sin offering.

7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come. It is written about me in the book in the scroll.

8 I delight to do your will, my God. Yes, your law is within my heart.”

9 I have proclaimed glad news of righteousness in the great assembly. Behold, I will not seal my lips, LORD, you know.

10 I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have declared your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great assembly.

11 Don’t withhold your tender mercies from me, LORD. Let your loving kindness and your truth continually preserve me.

12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.

13 Be pleased, LORD, to deliver me. Hurry to help me, LORD.

14 Let them be disappointed and confounded together who seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt.

15 Let them be desolate by reason of their shame that tell me, “Aha! Aha!”

16 Let all those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let such as love your salvation say continually, “Let the LORD be exalted!”

17 But I am poor and needy. May the Lord think about me. You are my help and my deliverer. Don’t delay, my God.

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28 places named in this book — no place is named in this chapter, so the whole book is shown.

Where this was written

Jerusalem traditional Assembled for temple worship over several centuries.

When this was written

The traditions broadly agree on this one.

Broad agreement: 1010 BC–400 BC David and many others
The Psalter is a collection assembled over centuries; individual psalms range widely in date.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (1010 BC–400 BC).

1200 BC–1000 BC Iron working spreads in the Levant Levant
Iron gradually displaced bronze for tools and weapons across the eastern Mediterranean.
1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
776 BC First recorded Olympiad Greece
The traditional starting point of Greek historical chronology.
753 BC Traditional founding of Rome Rome
The legendary date of Rome's founding, later used as the anchor of the Roman calendar.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
620 BC–560 BC Coinage invented in Lydia Anatolia
Stamped electrum coins of guaranteed weight, an idea that spread across the ancient world within a century.

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