14:3 Everyone rejects God; 1
they are all morally corrupt. 2
None of them does what is right, 3
not even one!
53:3 Everyone rejects God; 4
they are all morally corrupt. 5
None of them does what is right, 6
not even one!
62:11 God has declared one principle;
two principles I have heard: 7
God is strong, 8
139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. 9
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence. 10
1 tn Heb “everyone turns aside.”
2 tn Heb “together they are corrupt.”
3 tn Heb “there is none that does good.”
4 tn Heb “all of it turns away.” Ps 14:1 has הָכֹּל (hakkol) instead of כֻּלּוֹ, and סָר (sar, “turn aside”) instead of סָג (sag, “turn away”).
5 tn Heb “together they are corrupt.”
6 tn Heb “there is none that does good.”
7 tn Heb “one God spoke, two which I heard.” This is a numerical saying utilizing the “x” followed by “x + 1” pattern to facilitate poetic parallelism. (See W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament [VTSup], 55-56.) As is typical in such sayings, a list corresponding to the second number (in this case “two”) follows. Another option is to translate, “God has spoken once, twice [he has spoken] that which I have heard.” The terms אַחַת (’akhat, “one; once”) and שְׁתַּיִם (shÿtayim, “two; twice”) are also juxtaposed in 2 Kgs 6:10 (where they refer to an action that was done more than “once or twice”) and in Job 33:14 (where they refer to God speaking “one way” and then in “another manner”).
8 tn Heb “that strength [belongs] to God.”
10 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.
11 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).