Jeremiah 49:10

49:10 But I will strip everything away from Esau’s descendants.

I will uncover their hiding places so they cannot hide.

Their children, relatives, and neighbors will all be destroyed.

Not one of them will be left!

Genesis 16:13

16:13 So Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me,” ¹  for she said, “Here I have seen one who sees me!” ² 

Job 22:13-14

22:13 But you have said, ‘What does God know?

Does he judge through such deep darkness? ³ 

22:14 Thick clouds are a veil for him, so he does not see us, ⁴ 

as he goes back and forth

in the vault ⁵  of heaven.’ ⁶ 

Job 24:13-16

24:13 There are those ⁷  who rebel against the light;

they do not know its ways

and they do not stay on its paths.

24:14 Before daybreak ⁸  the murderer rises up;

he kills the poor and the needy;

in the night he is ⁹  like a thief. ¹⁰ 

24:15 And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight,

thinking, ¹¹  ‘No eye can see me,’

and covers his face with a mask.

24:16 In the dark the robber ¹²  breaks into houses, ¹³ 

but by day they shut themselves in; ¹⁴ 

they do not know the light. ¹⁵ 

Psalms 10:11

10:11 He says to himself, ¹⁶ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ¹⁷ 

Psalms 90:8

90:8 You are aware of our sins; ¹⁸ 

you even know about our hidden sins. ¹⁹ 

Psalms 139:7

139:7 Where can I go to escape your spirit?

Where can I flee to escape your presence? ²⁰ 

Psalms 139:11-16

139:11 If I were to say, “Certainly the darkness will cover me, ²¹ 

and the light will turn to night all around me,” ²² 

139:12 even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, ²³ 

and the night is as bright as ²⁴  day;

darkness and light are the same to you. ²⁵ 

139:13 Certainly ²⁶  you made my mind and heart; ²⁷ 

you wove me together ²⁸  in my mother’s womb.

139:14 I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. ²⁹ 

You knew me thoroughly; ³⁰ 

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,

when ³¹  I was made in secret

and sewed together in the depths of the earth. ³² 

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ³³ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ³⁴ 

Proverbs 15:3

15:3 The eyes of the Lord ³⁵  are in every place,

keeping watch ³⁶  on those who are evil and those who are good.

Isaiah 29:15

29:15 Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead, ³⁷ 

who do their work in secret and boast, ³⁸ 

“Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?” ³⁹ 

Ezekiel 8:12

8:12 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ⁴⁰  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

Ezekiel 9:9

9:9 He said to me, “The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of murder, and the city is full of corruption, ⁴¹  for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land, and the Lord does not see!’ ⁴² 

Amos 9:2-3

9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, ⁴³ 

my hand would pull them up from there.

Even if they could climb up to heaven,

I would drag them down from there.

9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,

I would hunt them down and take them from there.

Even if they tried to hide from me ⁴⁴  at the bottom of the sea,

from there ⁴⁵  I would command the Sea Serpent ⁴⁶  to bite them.

[16:13]  ¹ tn Heb “God of my seeing.” The pronominal suffix may be understood either as objective (“who sees me,” as in the translation) or subjective (“whom I see”).

[16:13]  ² tn Heb “after one who sees me.”

[22:13]  ³ sn Eliphaz is giving to Job the thoughts and words of the pagans, for they say, “How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?” (see Ps 73:11; 94:11).

[22:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he does not see.” The implied object is “us.”

[22:14]  ⁵ sn The word is “circle; dome”; here it is the dome that covers the earth, beyond which God sits enthroned. A. B. Davidson (Job, 165) suggests “on the arch of heaven” that covers the earth.

[22:14]  ⁶ sn The idea suggested here is that God is not only far off, but he is unconcerned as he strolls around heaven – this is what Eliphaz says Job means.

[24:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “They are among those who.”

[24:14]  ⁸ tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (la’or, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.

[24:14]  ⁹ tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).

[24:14]  ¹⁰ sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.

[24:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “saying.”

[24:16]  ¹² tn The phrase “the robber” has been supplied in the English translation for clarification.

[24:16]  ¹³ tc This is not the idea of the adulterer, but of the thief. So some commentators reverse the order and put this verse after v. 14.

[24:16]  ¹⁴ tc The verb חִתְּמוּ (khittÿmu) is the Piel from the verb חָתַם (khatam, “to seal”). The verb is now in the plural, covering all the groups mentioned that work under the cover of darkness. The suggestion that they “seal,” i.e., “mark” the house they will rob, goes against the meaning of the word “seal.”

[24:16]  ¹⁵ tc Some commentators join this very short colon to the beginning of v. 17: “they do not know the light. For together…” becomes “for together they have not known the light.”

[10:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[90:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you set our sins in front of you.”

[90:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “what we have hidden to the light of your face.” God’s face is compared to a light or lamp that exposes the darkness around it.

[139:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Where can I go from your spirit, and where from your face can I flee?” God’s “spirit” may refer here (1) to his presence (note the parallel term, “your face,” and see Ps 104:29-30, where God’s “face” is his presence and his “spirit” is the life-giving breath he imparts) or (2) to his personal Spirit (see Ps 51:10).

[139:11]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew verb שׁוּף (shuf), which means “to crush; to wound,” in Gen 3:15 and Job 9:17, is problematic here. For a discussion of attempts to relate the verb to Arabic roots, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 251. Many emend the form to יְשׂוּכֵּנִי (yesukkeniy), from the root שׂכך (“to cover,” an alternate form of סכך), a reading assumed in the present translation.

[139:11]  ²² tn Heb “and night, light, around me.”

[139:12]  ²³ tn The words “to see” are supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

[139:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “shines like.”

[139:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “like darkness, like light.”

[139:13]  ²⁶ tn Or “for.”

[139:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “my kidneys.” The kidneys were sometimes viewed as the seat of one’s emotions and moral character (cf. Pss 7:9; 26:2). A number of translations, recognizing that “kidneys” does not communicate this idea to the modern reader, have generalized the concept: “inmost being” (NAB, NIV); “inward parts” (NASB, NRSV); “the delicate, inner parts of my body” (NLT). In the last instance, the focus is almost entirely on the physical body rather than the emotions or moral character. The present translation, by using a hendiadys (one concept expressed through two terms), links the concepts of emotion (heart) and moral character (mind).

[139:13]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew verb סָכַךְ (sakhakh, “to weave together”) is an alternate form of שָׂכַךְ (sakhakh, “to weave”) used in Job 10:11.

[139:14]  ²⁹ tc Heb “because awesome things, I am distinct, amazing [are] your works.” The text as it stands is syntactically problematic and makes little, if any, sense. The Niphal of פָּלָה (pala’) occurs elsewhere only in Exod 33:16. Many take the form from פָלָא (pala’; see GKC 216 §75.qq), which in the Niphal perfect means “to be amazing” (see 2 Sam 1:26; Ps 118:23; Prov 30:18). Some, following the LXX and some other ancient witnesses, also prefer to emend the verb from first to second person, “you are amazing” (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 249, 251). The present translation assumes the text conflates two variants: נפלאים, the otherwise unattested masculine plural participle of פָלָא, and נִפְלָאוֹת (nifla’ot), the usual (feminine) plural form of the Niphal participle. The latter has been changed to a verb by later scribes in an attempt to accommodate it syntactically. The original text likely read, נוראות נפלאותים מעשׂיך (“your works [are] awesome [and] amazing”).

[139:14]  ³⁰ tc Heb “and my being knows very much.” Better parallelism is achieved (see v. 15a) if one emends יֹדַעַת (yoda’at), a Qal active participle, feminine singular form, to יָדַעְתָּ (yada’ta), a Qal perfect second masculine singular perfect. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252.

[139:15]  ³¹ tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (ka’asher, “when”). The kaf (כ) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).

[139:15]  ³² sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.

[139:16]  ³³ tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.

[139:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).

[15:3]  ³⁵ sn The proverb uses anthropomorphic language to describe God’s exacting and evaluating knowledge of all people.

[15:3]  ³⁶ tn The form צֹפוֹת (tsofot, “watching”) is a feminine plural participle agreeing with “eyes.” God’s watching eyes comfort good people but convict evil.

[29:15]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who deeply hide counsel from the Lord.” This probably alludes to political alliances made without seeking the Lord’s guidance. See 30:1-2 and 31:1.

[29:15]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and their works are in darkness and they say.”

[29:15]  ³⁹ tn The rhetorical questions suggest the answer, “no one.” They are confident that their deeds are hidden from others, including God.

[8:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:9]  ⁴¹ tn Or “lawlessness” (NAB); “perversity” (NRSV). The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT, and its meaning is uncertain. The similar phrase in 7:23 has a common word for “violence.”

[9:9]  ⁴² sn The saying is virtually identical to that of the elders in Ezek 8:12.

[9:2]  ⁴³ tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”

[9:3]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “from before my eyes.”

[9:3]  ⁴⁵ tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).

[9:3]  ⁴⁶ sn If the article indicates a definite serpent, then the mythological Sea Serpent, symbolic of the world’s chaotic forces, is probably in view. See Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 (where it is also called Leviathan). Elsewhere in the OT this serpent is depicted as opposing the Lord, but this text implies that even this powerful enemy of God is ultimately subject to his sovereign will.