345 RESCUED ALREADY ? THE SIGNIFICANCE yntyn[ OF certain. This would account for the confidence of the praise in vv. 22-32, and would make sense of the language in v. 25 to the effect that the Lord has heard the cry for help of the afflicted one. However it can plausibly be argued that the dynamic within the psalm is more complex than a move from unrelieved lament to unconstrained praise, and that the second half of the Psalm represents an extended vow to praise conditional on a rescue which has not yet been experienced. The claim that the second half of the psalm constitutes a vow to praise conditional on future rescue might seem problematic in view of the announcement of deliverance of the afflicted in v. 25. However it is a worth noting that the description of rescue in v. 25 is expressed in the third person, not in the first person, unlike much of the rest of the psalm. It may be therefore that this claim functions much like that made in vv. 5-6 : a declaration that God has showed himself in the past to be a faithful rescuer of those who cry out to him, giving grounds for authentic hope even if the Psalmist himself still awaits deliverance. There is no necessary link to a declaration of answer already received in the form of yntyi"ˆ in i : n[ v. 22. In view of this, the adoption of a reading reflecting the Septuagint, in which such a declaration of deliverance achieved is absent, does work in the wider context. Equally acceptable, however, is a precative reading of the MT text which reiterates the preceding plea for an answer. On this basis neither the MT nor the Septuagint reading can be confidently described as the lectio difficilior. If it was accepted that the second half of the Psalm reflects an answer that has already been received, then the Septuagint reading could be identified as the harder reading, but only in comparison with a past perfective reading of the MT 47. The factors that would make the Septuagint reading the lectio difficilior apply equally to the precative reading of the MT and so this criterion cannot be used to favour either text. Given the possibility of reading the second half of the Psalm as an implicitly conditional vow to praise, interpreting yityi"ˆ as perfect is an unnecessary accommodation to a supposedly n : n[ more “literal” understanding of the qatal form. Contextual skewing of the mood of qatal verbs (in the sense that the context Cf VILLANUEVA, Uncertainty, 88. 47