35:14 How much less, then,
when you say that you do not perceive him,
that the case is before him
and you are waiting for him! 1
35:15 And further, 2 when you say
that his anger does not punish, 3
and that he does not know transgression! 4
6:4 Relent, Lord, rescue me! 5
Deliver me because of your faithfulness! 6
6:5 For no one remembers you in the realm of death, 7
In Sheol who gives you thanks? 8
27:13 Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience
the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? 9
31:22 I jumped to conclusions and said, 10
“I am cut off from your presence!” 11
But you heard my plea for mercy when I cried out to you for help.
116:8 Yes, 12 Lord, 13 you rescued my life from death,
and kept my feet from stumbling.
116:9 I will serve 14 the Lord
in the land 15 of the living.
9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything;
they have no further reward – and even the memory of them disappears. 16
9:6 What they loved, 17 as well as what they hated 18 and envied, 19 perished long ago,
and they no longer have a part in anything that happens on earth. 20
1 sn The point is that if God does not listen to those who do not turn to him, how much less likely is he to turn to one who complains against him.
2 tn The expression “and now” introduces a new complaint of Elihu – in addition to the preceding. Here the verb of v. 14, “you say,” is understood after the temporal ki (כִּי).
3 tn The verb פָקַד (paqad) means “to visit” (also “to appoint; to muster; to number”). When God visits, it means that he intervenes in one’s life for blessing or cursing (punishing, destroying).
4 tn The word פַּשׁ (pash) is a hapax legomenon. K&D 12:275 derived it from an Arabic word meaning “belch,” leading to the idea of “overflow.” BDB 832 s.v. defines it as “folly.” Several define it as “transgression” on the basis of the versions (Theodotion, Symmachus, Vulgate). The RSV took it as “greatly heed,” but that is not exactly “greatly know,” when the text beyond that requires “not know at all.” The NIV has “he does not take the least notice of wickedness.”
5 tn Heb “my being,” or “my life.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.
6 sn Deliver me because of your faithfulness. Though the psalmist is experiencing divine discipline, he realizes that God has made a commitment to him in the past, so he appeals to God’s faithfulness in his request for help.
7 tn Heb “for there is not in death your remembrance.” The Hebrew noun זֵכֶר (zekher, “remembrance”) here refers to the name of the Lord as invoked in liturgy and praise. Cf. Pss 30:4; 97:12. “Death” here refers to the realm of death where the dead reside. See the reference to Sheol in the next line.
8 tn The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “no one.”
9 tn In the Hebrew text the sentence is incomplete: “If I had not believed [I would] see the goodness of the
10 tn Heb “and I, I said in my haste.”
11 tn Heb “from before your eyes.”
12 tn Or “for.”
13 tn “
14 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.
15 tn Heb “lands, regions.”
16 tn Heb “for their memory is forgotten.” The pronominal suffix is an objective genitive, “memory of them.”
17 tn Heb “their love.”
18 tn Heb “their hatred.”
19 tn Heb “their envy.”
20 tn Heb “under the sun.”