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.
7 tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
8 tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).
9 tn Heb “are higher than.”
10 tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).
11 tn Heb “Oracle of the
12 tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the
13 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.
14 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