Psalms 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ¹ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ² 

Malachi 3:16

3:16 Then those who respected ³  the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord took notice. ⁴  A scroll ⁵  was prepared before him in which were recorded the names of those who respected the Lord and honored his name.

Matthew 10:30

10:30 Even all the hairs on your head are numbered.

Revelation 20:12

20:12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then ⁶  books were opened, and another book was opened – the book of life. ⁷  So ⁸  the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. ⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.

² tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).

³ tn Or “fear” (so NAB); NRSV “revered”; NCV “honored.”

⁴ tn Heb “heard and listened”; NAB “listened attentively.”

⁵ sn The scroll mentioned here is a “memory book” (סֵפֶר זִכָּרוֹן, sefer zikkaron) in which the Lord keeps an ongoing record of the names of all the redeemed (see Exod 32:32; Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1; Rev 20:12-15).

⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

⁷ tn Grk “another book was opened, which is of life.”

⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the books being opened.

⁹ tn Grk “from the things written in the books according to their works.”