Deuteronomy 32:24

32:24 They will be starved by famine,

eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; ¹ 

I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,

along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.

Psalms 143:7

143:7 Answer me quickly, Lord!

My strength is fading. ² 

Do not reject me, ³ 

or I will join ⁴  those descending into the grave. ⁵ 

Proverbs 18:14

18:14 A person’s spirit ⁶  sustains him through sickness –

but who can bear ⁷  a crushed spirit? ⁸ 

Mark 14:33-34

14:33 He took Peter, James, ⁹  and John with him, and became very troubled and distressed. 14:34 He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death. Remain here and stay alert.”

Mark 15:34

15:34 Around three o’clock ¹⁰  Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ¹¹ 

¹ tn The Hebrew term קֶטֶב (qetev) is probably metaphorical here for the sting of a disease (HALOT 1091-92 s.v.).

² tn Heb “my spirit is failing.”

³ tn Heb “do not hide your face from me.” The idiom “hide the face” (1) can mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or (2) can carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 30:7; 88:14).

⁴ tn Heb “I will be equal with.”

⁵ tn Heb “the pit.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit; cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. See Ps 28:1.

⁶ tn Heb “the spirit of a man.” Because the verb of this clause is a masculine form, some have translated this line as “with spirit a man sustains,” but that is an unnecessary change.

⁷ sn This is a rhetorical question, asserting that very few can cope with depression.

⁸ sn The figure of a “crushed spirit” (ASV, NAB, NCV, NRSV “a broken spirit,” comparing depression to something smashed or crushed) suggests a broken will, a loss of vitality, despair, and emotional pain. In physical sickness one can fall back on the will to live; but in depression even the will to live is gone.

⁹ tn Grk “and James,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

¹⁰ tn The repetition of the phrase “three o’clock” preserves the author’s rougher, less elegant style (cf. Matt 27:45-46; Luke 23:44). Although such stylistic matters are frequently handled differently in the translation, because the issue of synoptic literary dependence is involved here, it was considered important to reflect some of the stylistic differences among the synoptics in the translation, so that the English reader can be aware of them.

¹¹ sn A quotation from Ps 22:1.