44:21 would not God discover it,
for he knows 1 one’s thoughts? 2
11:11 For he 3 knows deceitful 4 men;
when he sees evil, will he not 5 consider it? 6
34:21 For his eyes are on the ways of an individual,
he observes all a person’s 7 steps.
34:22 There is no darkness, and no deep darkness,
where evildoers can hide themselves. 8
24:12 If you say, “But we did not know about this,”
does not the one who evaluates 9 hearts consider?
Does not the one who guards your life know?
Will he not repay each person according to his deeds? 10
7:2 They do not realize 14
that I remember all of their wicked deeds.
Their evil deeds have now surrounded them;
their sinful deeds are always before me. 15
7:1 whenever I want to heal Israel,
the sin of Ephraim is revealed,
and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed.
For they do what is wrong;
thieves break into houses,
and gangs rob people out in the streets.
1 tn The active participle describes what is characteristically true.
2 tn Heb “would not God search out this, for he knows the hidden things of [the] heart?” The expression “search out” is used metonymically here, referring to discovery, the intended effect of a search. The “heart” (i.e., mind) is here viewed as the seat of one’s thoughts. The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he would!” The point seems to be this: There is no way the Israelites who are the speakers in the psalm would reject God and turn to another god, for the omniscient God would easily discover such a sin.
3 tn The pronoun is emphatic implying that Zophar indicates that God indeed knows Job’s sin even if Job does not.
4 tn The expression is literally “men of emptiness” (see Ps 26:4). These are false men, for שָׁוְא (shavÿ’) can mean “vain, empty, or false, deceitful.”
5 tn E. Dhorme (Job, 162) reads the prepositional phrase “to him” rather than the negative; he translates the line as “he sees iniquity and observes it closely.”
6 tn Some commentators do not take this last clause as a question, but simply as a statement, namely, that when God sees evil he does not need to ponder or consider it – he knows it instantly. In that case it would be a circumstantial clause: “without considering it.” D. J. A. Clines lists quite an array of other interpretations for the line (Job [WBC], 255); for example, “and he is himself unobserved”; taking the word לֹא (lo’) as an emphatic; taking the negative as a noun, “considering them as nothing”; and others that change the verb to “they do not understand it.” But none of these are compelling; they offer no major improvement.
7 tn Heb “his”; the referent (a person) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn The construction of this colon uses the Niphal infinitive construct from סָתַר (satar, “to be hidden; to hide”). The resumptive adverb makes this a relative clause in its usage: “where the evildoers can hide themselves.”
9 tn Heb “weighs” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV) meaning “tests” or “evaluates.”
10 sn The verse completes the saying by affirming that people will be judged responsible for helping those in mortal danger. The verse uses a series of rhetorical questions to affirm that God knows our hearts and we cannot plead ignorance.
11 tn Heb “[you are] great in counsel and mighty in deed.”
12 tn Heb “your eyes are open to the ways of the sons of men.”
13 tn Heb “giving to each according to his way [= behavior/conduct] and according to the fruit of his deeds.”
14 tn Heb “and they do not say in their heart”; TEV “It never enters their heads.”
15 tn Heb “they [the sinful deeds] are before my face” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NCV “they are right in front of me.”
16 tn Grk “walk.” The verb περιπατέω (peripatew) is a common NT idiom for one’s lifestyle, behavior, or manner of conduct (L&N 41.11).