1 Samuel 2:9-10

2:9 He watches over ¹  his holy ones, ² 

but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,

for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

2:10 The Lord shatters ³  his adversaries; ⁴ 

he thunders against them from ⁵  the heavens.

The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.

He will strengthen ⁶  his king

and exalt the power ⁷  of his anointed one.” ⁸ 

Job 40:4-5

40:4 “Indeed, I am completely unworthy ⁹  – how could I reply to you?

I put ¹⁰  my hand over my mouth to silence myself. ¹¹ 

40:5 I have spoken once, but I cannot answer;

twice, but I will say no more.” ¹² 

Psalms 46:10

46:10 He says, ¹³  “Stop your striving and recognize ¹⁴  that I am God!

I will be exalted ¹⁵  over ¹⁶  the nations! I will be exalted over ¹⁷  the earth!”

Psalms 76:8-9

76:8 From heaven you announced what their punishment would be. ¹⁸ 

The earth ¹⁹  was afraid and silent

76:9 when God arose to execute judgment,

and to deliver all the oppressed of the earth. (Selah)

Isaiah 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ²⁰  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ²¹  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ²²  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ²³ 

Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ²⁴  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ²⁵ 

Habakkuk 2:20

2:20 But the Lord is in his majestic palace. ²⁶ 

The whole earth is speechless in his presence!” ²⁷ 

Zechariah 2:13

2:13 Be silent in the Lord’s presence, all people everywhere, ²⁸  for he is being moved to action in his holy dwelling place. ²⁹ 

Romans 3:19

3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under ³⁰  the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

Romans 9:20

9:20 But who indeed are you – a mere human being ³¹  – to talk back to God? ³²  Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?” ³³ 

[2:9]  ¹ tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:9]  ² tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.

[2:10]  ³ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this line and in the next two lines are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:10]  ⁴ tc The present translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Vulgate in reading the plural (“his adversaries,” similarly many other English versions) rather than the singular (“his adversary”) of the Kethib.

[2:10]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew preposition here has the sense of “from within.”

[2:10]  ⁶ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this and the next line are understood as indicating what is anticipated and translated with the future tense, because at the time of Hannah’s prayer Israel did not yet have a king.

[2:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “the horn,” here a metaphor for power or strength. Cf. NCV “make his appointed king strong”; NLT “increases the might of his anointed one.”

[2:10]  ⁸ tc The LXX greatly expands v. 10 with an addition that seems to be taken from Jer 9:23-24.

[40:4]  ⁵ tn The word קַלֹּתִי (qalloti) means “to be light; to be of small account; to be unimportant.” From this comes the meaning “contemptible,” which in the causative stem would mean “to treat with contempt; to curse.” Dhorme tries to make the sentence a conditional clause and suggests this meaning: “If I have been thoughtless.” There is really no “if” in Job’s mind.

[40:4]  ⁶ tn The perfect verb here should be classified as an instantaneous perfect; the action is simultaneous with the words.

[40:4]  ⁷ tn The words “to silence myself” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[40:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will not add.”

[46:10]  ⁹ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[46:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “do nothing/be quiet (see 1 Sam 15:16) and know.” This statement may be addressed to the hostile nations, indicating they should cease their efforts to destroy God’s people, or to Judah, indicating they should rest secure in God’s protection. Since the psalm is an expression of Judah’s trust and confidence, it is more likely that the words are directed to the nations, who are actively promoting chaos and are in need of a rebuke.

[46:10]  ¹¹ tn Elsewhere in the psalms the verb רוּם (rum, “be exalted”) when used of God, refers to his exalted position as king (Pss 18:46; 99:2; 113:4; 138:6) and/or his self-revelation as king through his mighty deeds of deliverance (Pss 21:13; 57:5, 11).

[46:10]  ¹² tn Or “among.”

[46:10]  ¹³ tn Or “in.”

[76:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a [legal] decision,” or “sentence.”

[76:8]  ¹² tn “The earth” stands here by metonymy for its inhabitants.

[6:5]  ¹³ tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”

[6:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.

[6:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ¹⁶ tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.

[6:10]  ¹⁵ tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.

[6:10]  ¹⁶ tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘Be quiet for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.

[2:20]  ¹⁷ tn Or “holy temple.” The Lord’s heavenly palace, rather than the earthly temple, is probably in view here (see Ps 11:4; Mic 1:2-3). The Hebrew word ֹקדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holy”) here refers to the sovereign transcendence associated with his palace.

[2:20]  ¹⁸ tn Or “Be quiet before him, all the earth!”

[2:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “all flesh”; NAB, NIV “all mankind.”

[2:13]  ²⁰ sn The sense here is that God in heaven is about to undertake an occupation of his earthly realm (v. 12) by restoring his people to the promised land.

[3:19]  ²¹ tn Grk “in,” “in connection with.”

[9:20]  ²³ tn Grk “O man.”

[9:20]  ²⁴ tn Grk “On the contrary, O man, who are you to talk back to God?”

[9:20]  ²⁵ sn A quotation from Isa 29:16; 45:9.