119:155 The wicked have no chance for deliverance, 1
for they do not seek your statutes.
21:14 So they say to God, ‘Turn away from us!
We do not want to 2 know your ways. 3
21:15 Who is the Almighty, that 4 we should serve him?
What would we gain
if we were to pray 5 to him?’ 6
29:13 The sovereign master 7 says,
“These people say they are loyal to me; 8
they say wonderful things about me, 9
but they are not really loyal to me. 10
Their worship consists of
nothing but man-made ritual. 11
12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. 12
They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. 13
They always talk about you,
but they really care nothing about you. 14
15:8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart 15 is far from me,
1 tn Heb “far from the wicked [is] deliverance.”
2 tn The absence of the preposition before the complement adds greater vividness to the statement: “and knowing your ways – we do not desire.”
3 sn Contrast Ps 25:4, which affirms that walking in God’s ways means to obey God’s will – the Torah.
3 tn The interrogative clause is followed by ki, similar to Exod 5:2, “Who is Yahweh, that I should obey him?”
4 tn The verb פָּגַע (paga’) means “to encounter; to meet,” but also “to meet with request; to intercede; to interpose.” The latter meaning is a derived meaning by usage.
5 tn The verse is not present in the LXX. It may be that it was considered too blasphemous and therefore omitted.
4 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).
5 tn Heb “Because these people draw near to me with their mouth.”
6 tn Heb “and with their lips they honor me.”
7 tn Heb “but their heart is far from me.” The heart is viewed here as the seat of the will, from which genuine loyalty derives.
8 tn Heb “their fear of me is a commandment of men that has been taught.”
5 tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”
6 tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.
7 tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”
6 tn The term “heart” is a collective singular in the Greek text.
7 tn Or “have come near in the blood of Christ.”