Psalms 42:3

42:3 I cannot eat, I weep day and night; ¹ 

all day long they say to me, ²  “Where is your God?”

Psalms 42:10

42:10 My enemies’ taunts cut into me to the bone, ³ 

as they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ⁴ 

Psalms 79:10

79:10 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”

Before our very eyes may the shed blood of your servants

be avenged among the nations! ⁵ 

Psalms 115:2

115:2 Why should the nations say,

“Where is their God?”

Isaiah 37:10-11

37:10 “Tell King Hezekiah of Judah this: ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust mislead you when he says, “Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.” 37:11 Certainly you have heard how the kings of Assyria have annihilated all lands. ⁶  Do you really think you will be rescued? ⁷ 

Daniel 3:15

3:15 Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must bow down and pay homage to the statue that I had made. If you don’t pay homage to it, you will immediately be thrown into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. Now, who is that god who can rescue you from my power?” ⁸ 

Joel 2:17

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. ⁹ 

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb ¹⁰  among the nations.

Why should it be said ¹¹  among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

Matthew 27:43

27:43 He trusts in God – let God, if he wants to, deliver him now ¹²  because he said, ‘I am God’s Son’!”

¹ tn Heb “My tears have become my food day and night.”

² tn Heb “when [they] say to me all the day.” The suffixed third masculine plural pronoun may have been accidentally omitted from the infinitive בֶּאֱמֹר (be’ÿmor, “when [they] say”). Note the term בְּאָמְרָם (bÿ’omram, “when they say”) in v. 10.

³ tc Heb “with a shattering in my bones my enemies taunt me.” A few medieval Hebrew mss and Symmachus’ Greek version read “like” instead of “with.”

⁴ sn “Where is your God?” The enemies ask this same question in v. 3.

⁵ tn Heb “may it be known among the nations, to our eyes, the vengeance of the shed blood of your servants.”

⁶ tn Heb “Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, annihilating them.”

⁷ tn Heb “and will you be rescued?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No, of course not!”

⁸ tn Aram “hand.” So also in v. 17.

⁹ tn Heb “between the vestibule and the altar.” The vestibule was located at the entrance of the temple and the altar was located at the other end of the building. So “between the vestibule and the altar” is a merism referring to the entire structure. The priestly lament permeates the entire house of worship.

¹⁰ tn For the MT reading לִמְשָׁל (limshol, an infinitive, “to rule”), one should instead read לְמָשָׁל (lÿmashal, a noun, “to a byword”). While the consonantal Hebrew text permits either, the context suggests that the concern here is more one of not wanting to appear abandoned by God to ongoing economic depression rather than one of concern over potential political subjection of Israel (cf. v. 19). The possibility that the form in the MT is an infinitive construct of the denominative verb II מָשַׁל (mashal, “to utter a proverb”) does not seem likely because of the following preposition (Hebrew בְּ [bÿ], rather than עַל [’al]).

¹¹ tn Heb “Why will they say?”

¹² sn An allusion to Ps 22:8.