92:5 How great are your works, O Lord!
Your plans are very intricate! 1
55:8 “Indeed, 2 my plans 3 are not like 4 your plans,
and my deeds 5 are not like 6 your deeds,
55:9 for just as the sky 7 is higher than the earth,
so my deeds 8 are superior to 9 your deeds
and my plans 10 superior to your plans.
4:12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning;
they do not understand his strategy.
He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed 14 at the threshing floor.
1 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.
2 tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV).
3 tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).
4 tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.
5 tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).
6 tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.
3 tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
4 tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).
5 tn Heb “are higher than.”
6 tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).
4 tn Heb “Oracle of the
5 tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the
6 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.
5 tn The words “to be threshed” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the