28:13 Mankind does not know its place; 4
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
27:13 Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience
the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? 5
116:9 I will serve 6 the Lord
in the land 7 of the living.
142:5 I cry out to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my shelter,
my security 8 in the land of the living.”
38:11 “I thought,
‘I will no longer see the Lord 9 in the land of the living,
I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. 10
11:19 Before this I had been like a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter.
I did not know they were making plans to kill me. 11
I did not know they were saying, 12
“Let’s destroy the tree along with its fruit! 13
Let’s remove Jeremiah 14 from the world of the living
so people will not even be reminded of him any more.” 15
1 tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”
2 tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).
3 tn Heb “and I will place beauty.” This reading makes little sense; many, following the lead of the LXX, emend the text to read “nor will you stand” with the negative particle before the preceding verb understood by ellipsis; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:73. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:47) offers another alternative, taking the apparent first person verb form as an archaic second feminine form and translating “nor radiate splendor.”
4 tc The LXX has “its way, apparently reading דַּרְכָה (darkhah) in place of עֶרְכָּהּ (’erkah, “place”). This is adopted by most modern commentators. But R. Gordis (Job, 308) shows that this change is not necessary, for עֶרֶךְ (’erekh) in the Bible means “order; row; disposition,” and here “place.” An alternate meaning would be “worth” (NIV, ESV).
5 tn In the Hebrew text the sentence is incomplete: “If I had not believed [I would] see the goodness of the
6 tn Heb “walk before” (see Ps 56:13). On the meaning of the Hebrew idiom, see the notes at 2 Kgs 20:3/Isa 38:3.
7 tn Heb “lands, regions.”
8 tn Heb “my portion.” The psalmist compares the
9 tn The Hebrew text has יָהּ יָהּ (yah yah, the abbreviated form of יְהוָה [yÿhvah] repeated), but this is probably a corruption of יְהוָה.
10 tc The Hebrew text has חָדֶל (khadel), which appears to be derived from a verbal root meaning “to cease, refrain.” But the form has probably suffered an error of transmission; the original form (attested in a few medieval Hebrew
11 tn Heb “against me.” The words “to kill me” are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarity.
12 tn The words “I did not know that they were saying” are not in the text. The quote is without formal introduction in the original. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.
13 tn This word and its pronoun (לַחְמוֹ, lakhmo, “its bread”) is often emended to read “in/with its sap” = “in its prime” (either לֵחוֹ [lekho] or לֵחְמוֹ [lekhÿmo]); the latter would be more likely and the מוֹ (mo) could be explained as a rare use of the old poetic third plural suffix for the third singular; cf. GKC 258 §91.l for general use and Ps 11:7 and Job 27:23 for third singular use. Though this fits the context nicely the emendation is probably unnecessary since the word “bread” is sometimes used of other foodstuff than grain or its products (cf. BDB 537 s.v. לֶחֶם 2.a).
14 tn Heb “cut it [or him] off.” The metaphor of the tree may be continued, though the verb “cut off” is used also of killing people. The rendering clarifies the meaning of the metaphor.
15 tn Heb “so that his name will not be remembered any more.”