Twenty-two alphabetic stanzas delight in Torah: Resh stanza

Resh asks God to look at the affliction and to take the case

Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: for I do not forget thy law. Plead my cause, and deliver me: quicken me according to thy word. Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes. Great are thy tender mercies, O LORD: quicken me according to thy judgments.

Consider and plead my cause are courtroom and pastoral verbs together. Forgetting the law is denied as the reason for trouble. Salvation far from the wicked is explained by not seeking statutes, not by the speaker's taste. Tender mercies are great even while quickening must still be asked.

Many persecutors, grief at transgression, and a word true from the beginning

Many are my persecutors and mine enemies; yet do I not decline from thy testimonies. I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word. Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness. Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

Numbers of enemies do not justify declining. Grief at transgressors matches the pe stanza's tears: the moral response is grief. Consider how I love is offered as evidence for the plea to be made alive. True from the beginning—head, summit, starting-point—means the word's truth is not a late patch. Forever-enduring judgments close the letter.