David’s Prayer for Deliverance

This apocryphal psalm is found only in the Syriac Peshitta, although its original language likely was Hebrew. The date is uncertain, but it can be tentatively traced to the first or second century BCE. The superscription “Spoken by David after fighting against the lion and the wolf that took sheep from his flocks” is found in one of the Syriac manuscripts and refers to a legendary elaboration of the biblical depiction of David as a shepherd boy. While most of the psalm refers to this narrative situation, the last line, with its reference to a redeemer and the “gaping abyss,” seems more generic.