41:6 When someone comes to visit, 1 he pretends to be friendly; 2
he thinks of ways to defame me, 3
and when he leaves he slanders me. 4
76:11 Make vows to the Lord your God and repay them!
Let all those who surround him 5 bring tribute to the awesome one!
139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. 6
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence. 7
1 tn Heb “to see.”
2 tn Heb “he speaks deceitfully.”
3 tn Heb “his heart gathers sin to itself.”
4 tn Heb “he goes outside and speaks.”
5 tn The phrase “all those who surround him” may refer to the surrounding nations (v. 12 may favor this), but in Ps 89:7 the phrase refers to God’s heavenly assembly.
9 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.
10 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).