15:14 What is man that he should be pure,
or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
25:4 How then can a human being be righteous before God?
How can one born of a woman be pure? 1
51:5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth,
a sinner the moment my mother conceived me. 2
11:11 “I tell you the truth, 3 among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least 4 in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.
1 sn Bildad here does not come up with new expressions; rather, he simply uses what Eliphaz had said (see Job 4:17-19 and 15:14-16).
2 tn Heb “Look, in wrongdoing I was brought forth, and in sin my mother conceived me.” The prefixed verbal form in the second line is probably a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive), stating a simple historical fact. The psalmist is not suggesting that he was conceived through an inappropriate sexual relationship (although the verse has sometimes been understood to mean that, or even that all sexual relationships are sinful). The psalmist’s point is that he has been a sinner from the very moment his personal existence began. By going back beyond the time of birth to the moment of conception, the psalmist makes his point more emphatically in the second line than in the first.
3 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”
4 sn After John comes a shift of eras. The new era is so great that the lowest member of it (the one who is least in the kingdom of God) is greater than the greatest one of the previous era.