Job 27:8-9

27:8 For what hope does the godless have when he is cut off, ¹ 

when God takes away his life? ² 

27:9 Does God listen to his cry

when distress overtakes him?

Job 35:12

35:12 Then ³  they cry out – but he does not answer –

because of the arrogance of the wicked.

Job 42:8

42:8 So now take ⁴  seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will intercede ⁵  for you, and I will respect him, ⁶  so that I do not deal with you ⁷  according to your folly, ⁸  because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has.” ⁹ 

Psalms 18:41

18:41 They cry out, but there is no one to help them; ¹⁰ 

they cry out to the Lord, ¹¹  but he does not answer them.

Psalms 34:15

34:15 The Lord pays attention to the godly

and hears their cry for help. ¹² 

Psalms 66:18-20

66:18 If I had harbored sin in my heart, ¹³ 

the Lord would not have listened.

66:19 However, God heard;

he listened to my prayer.

66:20 God deserves praise, ¹⁴ 

for ¹⁵  he did not reject my prayer

or abandon his love for me! ¹⁶ 

Proverbs 1:28-29

1:28 Then they will call to me, but I will not answer;

they will diligently seek ¹⁷  me, but they will not find me.

1:29 Because ¹⁸  they hated moral knowledge, ¹⁹ 

and did not choose to fear the Lord, ²⁰ 

Proverbs 15:29

15:29 The Lord is far ²¹  from the wicked,

but he hears ²²  the prayer of the righteous. ²³ 

Proverbs 21:13

21:13 The one who shuts his ears ²⁴  to the cry ²⁵  of the poor,

he too will cry out and will not be answered. ²⁶ 

Proverbs 28:9

28:9 The one who turns away his ear ²⁷  from hearing the law,

even his prayer ²⁸  is an abomination. ²⁹ 

Isaiah 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ³⁰ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ³¹ 

Isaiah 58:9

58:9 Then you will call out, and the Lord will respond;

you will cry out, and he will reply, ‘Here I am.’

You must ³²  remove the burdensome yoke from among you

and stop pointing fingers and speaking sinfully.

Jeremiah 11:11

11:11 So I, the Lord, say this: ³³  ‘I will soon bring disaster on them which they will not be able to escape! When they cry out to me for help, I will not listen to them.

Jeremiah 14:12

14:12 Even if they fast, I will not hear their cries for help. Even if they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. ³⁴  Instead, I will kill them through wars, famines, and plagues.” ³⁵ 

Ezekiel 8:18

8:18 Therefore I will act with fury! My eye will not pity them nor will I spare ³⁶  them. When they have shouted in my ears, I will not listen to them.”

Micah 3:4

3:4 Someday these sinners will cry to the Lord for help, ³⁷ 

but he will not answer them.

He will hide his face from them at that time,

because they have done such wicked deeds.”

Zechariah 7:13

7:13 “‘It then came about that just as I ³⁸  cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,’ the Lord Lord who rules over all had said.

[27:8]  ¹ tn The verb יִבְצָע (yivtsa’) means “to cut off.” It could be translated transitively or intransitively – the latter is better here (“when he is cut off”). Since the next line speaks of prayer, some have thought this verse should be about prayer. Mandelkern, in his concordance (p. 228b), suggested the verb should be “when he prays” (reading יִפְגַּע [yifga’] in place of יִבְצָע [yivtsa’]).

[27:8]  ² tn The verb יֵשֶׁל (yeshel) is found only here. It has been related spoils [or sheaves]”); שָׁאַל (sha’al, “to ask”); נָשָׂא (nasa’, “to lift up” [i.e., pray]); and a host of others.

[35:12]  ³ tn The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) connects this verse to v. 11. “There” can be locative or temporal – and here it is temporal (= “then”).

[42:8]  ⁴ tn The imperatives in this verse are plural, so all three had to do this together.

[42:8]  ⁵ tn The verb “pray” is the Hitpael from the root פָּלַל (palal). That root has the main idea of arbitration; so in this stem it means “to seek arbitration [for oneself],” or “to pray,” or “to intercede.”

[42:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will lift up his face,” meaning, “I will regard him.”

[42:8]  ⁷ tn This clause is a result clause, using the negated infinitive construct.

[42:8]  ⁸ tn The word “folly” can also be taken in the sense of “disgrace.” If the latter is chosen, the word serves as the direct object. If the former, then it is an adverbial accusative.

[42:8]  ⁹ sn The difference between what they said and what Job said, therefore, has to do with truth. Job was honest, spoke the truth, poured out his complaints, but never blasphemed God. For his words God said he told the truth. He did so with incomplete understanding, and with all the impatience and frustration one might expect. Now the friends, however, did not tell what was right about God. They were not honest; rather, they were self-righteous and condescending. They were saying what they thought should be said, but it was wrong.

[18:41]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “but there is no deliverer.”

[18:41]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to the Lord.” The words “they cry out” are supplied in the translation because they are understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).

[34:15]  ¹² tn Heb “the eyes of the Lord [are] toward the godly, and his ears [are] toward their cry for help.”

[66:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “sin if I had seen in my heart.”

[66:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “blessed [be] God.”

[66:20]  ¹⁵ tn Or “who.” In a blessing formula after בָּרוּךְ (barukh, “blessed be”) the form אֲשֶׁר (’asher), whether taken as a relative pronoun or causal particle, introduces the basis for the blessing/praise.

[66:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “did not turn aside my prayer and his loyal love with me.”

[1:28]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “look to.” The verb שָׁחַר (shakhar, “to look”) is used figuratively of intensely looking (=seeking) for deliverance out of trouble (W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 366); cf. NLT “anxiously search for.” It is used elsewhere in parallelism with בָּקַשׁ (baqash, “to seek rescue”; Hos 5:15). It does not mean “to seek early” (cf. KJV) as is popularly taught due to etymological connections with the noun שַׁחַר (shakhar, “dawn”; so BDB 1007 s.v. שָׁחַר).

[1:29]  ¹⁸ tn The causal particle תַּחַת כִּי (takhat ki, “for the reason that”) introduces a second accusation of sin and reason for punishment.

[1:29]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “knowledge.” The noun דָעַת (da’at, “knowledge”) refers to moral knowledge. See note on 1:7.

[1:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the fear of the Lord.” The noun is an objective genitive; the Lord is to be the object of fear. See note on 1:7.

[15:29]  ²¹ sn To say that the Lord is “far” from the wicked is to say that he has made himself unavailable to their appeal – he does not answer them. This motif is used by David throughout Psalm 22 for the problem of unanswered prayer – “Why are you far off?”

[15:29]  ²² sn The verb “hear” (שָׁמַע, shama’) has more of the sense of “respond to” in this context. If one “listens to the voice of the Lord,” for example, it means that he obeys the Lord. If one wishes God to “hear his prayer,” it means he wishes God to answer it.

[15:29]  ²³ sn God’s response to prayer is determined by the righteousness of the one who prays. A prayer of repentance by the wicked is an exception, for by it they would become the righteous (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 316).

[21:13]  ²⁴ sn The imagery means “pay no attention to” the cry for help or “refuse to help,” so it is a metonymy of cause for the effect.

[21:13]  ²⁵ sn “Cry” here would be a metonymy of effect for the cause, the cause being the great needs of the poor.

[21:13]  ²⁶ sn The proverb is teaching that those who show mercy will receive mercy. It involves the principle of talionic justice – those who refuse the needs of others will themselves be refused when they need help (so Luke 16:19-31).

[28:9]  ²⁷ sn The expression “turn away the ear from hearing” uses a metonymy to mean that this individual will not listen – it indicates a deliberate refusal to follow the instruction of the law.

[28:9]  ²⁸ sn It is hard to imagine how someone who willfully refuses to obey the law of God would pray according to the will of God. Such a person is more apt to pray for some physical thing or make demands on God. (Of course a prayer of repentance would be an exception and would not be an abomination to the Lord.)

[28:9]  ²⁹ sn C. H. Toy says, “If a man, on his part, is deaf to instruction, then God, on his part, is deaf to prayer” (Proverbs [ICC], 499). And W. McKane observes that one who fails to attend to God’s law is a wicked person, even if he is a man of prayer (Proverbs [OTL], 623).

[1:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ³¹ sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[58:9]  ³² tn Heb “if you.” In the Hebrew text vv. 9b-10 are one long conditional sentence. The protasis (“if” clauses appear in vv. 9b-10a), with the apodosis (“then” clause) appearing in v. 10b.

[11:11]  ³³ tn Heb “Therefore, thus, says the Lord.” The person has been shifted in the translation in accordance with the difference between Hebrew and English style.

[14:12]  ³⁴ sn See 6:16-20 for parallels.

[14:12]  ³⁵ tn Heb “through sword, starvation, and plague.”

[8:18]  ³⁶ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[3:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “then they will cry out to the Lord.” The words “Someday these sinners” have been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[7:13]  ³⁸ tn Heb “he.” Since the third person pronoun refers to the Lord, it has been translated as a first person pronoun (“I”) to accommodate English style, which typically does not exhibit switches between persons of pronouns in the same immediate context as Hebrew does.