Psalms 3:2

3:2 Many say about me,

“God will not deliver him.” ¹  (Selah) ² 

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 71:10-11

71:10 For my enemies talk about me;

those waiting for a chance to kill me plot my demise. ⁵ 

71:11 They say, ⁶  “God has abandoned him.

Run and seize him, for there is no one who will rescue him!”

Psalms 109:25

109:25 I am disdained by them. ⁷ 

When they see me, they shake their heads. ⁸ 

Matthew 27:40-43

27:40 and saying, “You who can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! ⁹  If you are God’s Son, come down ¹⁰  from the cross!” 27:41 In ¹¹  the same way even the chief priests – together with the experts in the law ¹²  and elders ¹³  – were mocking him: ¹⁴  27:42 “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! He is the king of Israel! If he comes down ¹⁵  now from the cross, we will believe in him! 27:43 He trusts in God – let God, if he wants to, deliver him now ¹⁶  because he said, ‘I am God’s Son’!”

Matthew 27:63

27:63 and said, “Sir, we remember that while that deceiver was still alive he said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’

¹ tn Heb “there is no deliverance for him in God.”

² sn The function of the Hebrew term סֶלָה (selah), transliterated here “Selah,” is uncertain. It may be a musical direction of some kind.

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 “those who watch for my life consult together.”

⁶ tn Heb “saying.”

⁷ tn Heb “as for me, I am a reproach to them.”

⁸ sn They shake their heads. Apparently shaking the head was a taunting gesture. See also Job 16:4; Ps 22:7; Lam 2:15.

⁹ sn There is rich irony in the statements of those who were passing by, “save yourself!” and “come down from the cross!” In summary, they wanted Jesus to come down from the cross and save his physical life, but it was indeed his staying on the cross and giving his physical life that led to the fact that they could experience a resurrection from death to life.

¹⁰ tc ‡ Many important witnesses (א* A D pc it sy^[s],p) read καί (kai, here with the force of “then”) before κατάβηθι (katabhqi, “come down”). The shorter reading may well be due to homoioarcton, but judging by the diverse external evidence (א² B L W Θ 0250 Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat) it is equally possible that the shorter reading is original (and is so considered for this translation). NA²⁷ puts the καί in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

¹¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

¹² tn Or “with the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

¹³ tn Only “chief priests” is in the nominative case; this sentence structure attempts to capture this emphasis.

¹⁴ tn Grk “Mocking him, the chief priests…said.”

¹⁵ tn Here the aorist imperative καταβάτω (katabatw) has been translated as a conditional imperative. This fits the pattern of other conditional imperatives (imperative + καί + future indicative) outlined by ExSyn 489.

¹⁶ sn An allusion to Ps 22:8.