71:15 I will tell about your justice,
and all day long proclaim your salvation, 1
though I cannot fathom its full extent. 2
92:5 How great are your works, O Lord!
Your plans are very intricate! 3
139:6 Your knowledge is beyond my comprehension;
it is so far beyond me, I am unable to fathom it. 4
139:17 How difficult it is for me to fathom your thoughts about me, O God! 5
How vast is their sum total! 6
139:18 If I tried to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
Even if I finished counting them,
I would still have to contend with you. 7
55:8 “Indeed, 8 my plans 9 are not like 10 your plans,
and my deeds 11 are not like 12 your deeds,
55:9 for just as the sky 13 is higher than the earth,
so my deeds 14 are superior to 15 your deeds
and my plans 16 superior to your plans.
1 tn Heb “my mouth declares your vindication, all the day your deliverance.”
2 tn Heb “though I do not know [the] numbers,” that is, the tally of God’s just and saving acts. HALOT 768 s.v. סְפֹרוֹת understands the plural noun to mean “the art of writing.”
3 tn Heb “very deep [are] your thoughts.” God’s “thoughts” refer here to his moral design of the world, as outlined in vv. 6-15.
4 tn Heb “too amazing [is this] knowledge for me, it is elevated, I cannot attain to it.”
5 tn Heb “and to me how precious are your thoughts, O God.” The Hebrew verb יָקַר (yaqar) probably has the sense of “difficult [to comprehend]” here (see HALOT 432 s.v. יקר qal.1 and note the use of Aramaic יַקִּר in Dan 2:11). Elsewhere in the immediate context the psalmist expresses his amazement at the extent of God’s knowledge about him (see vv. 1-6, 17b-18).
6 tn Heb “how vast are their heads.” Here the Hebrew word “head” is used of the “sum total” of God’s knowledge of the psalmist.
7 tc Heb “I awake and I [am] still with you.” A reference to the psalmist awaking from sleep makes little, if any, sense contextually. For this reason some propose an emendation to הֲקִצּוֹתִי (haqitsoti), a Hiphil perfect form from an otherwise unattested verb קָצַץ (qatsats) understood as a denominative of קֵץ (qets, “end”). See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252-53.
8 tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV).
9 tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).
10 tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.
11 tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).
12 tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.
13 tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
14 tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).
15 tn Heb “are higher than.”
16 tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).
17 tn Heb “Oracle of the
18 tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the
19 tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.