Discovery BoxGenesis 47:9
Context47:9 Jacob said to Pharaoh, “All 1 the years of my travels 2 are 130. All 3 the years of my life have been few and painful; 4 the years of my travels are not as long as those of my ancestors.” 5
Psalms 90:10
Context90:10 The days of our lives add up to seventy years, 6
or eighty, if one is especially strong. 7
But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. 8
[47:9] 1 tn Heb “the days of.”
[47:9] 2 tn Heb “sojournings.” Jacob uses a term that depicts him as one who has lived an unsettled life, temporarily residing in many different places.
[47:9] 3 tn Heb “the days of.”
[47:9] 4 tn The Hebrew word רַע (ra’) can sometimes mean “evil,” but that would give the wrong connotation here, where it refers to pain, difficulty, and sorrow. Jacob is thinking back through all the troubles he had to endure to get to this point.
[47:9] 5 tn Heb “and they have not reached the days of the years of my fathers in the days of their sojournings.”
[90:10] 6 tn Heb “the days of our years, in them [are] seventy years.”
[90:10] 7 tn Heb “or if [there is] strength, eighty years.”
[90:10] 8 tn Heb “and their pride [is] destruction and wickedness.” The Hebrew noun רֹהַב (rohav) occurs only here. BDB 923 s.v. assigns the meaning “pride,” deriving the noun from the verbal root רהב (“to act stormily [boisterously, arrogantly]”). Here the “pride” of one’s days (see v. 9) probably refers to one’s most productive years in the prime of life. The words translated “destruction and wickedness” are also paired in Ps 10:7. They also appear in proximity in Pss 7:14 and 55:10. The oppressive and abusive actions of evil men are probably in view (see Job 4:8; 5:6; 15:35; Isa 10:1; 59:4).
[90:10] 10 tn Heb “it passes quickly.” The subject of the verb is probably “their pride” (see the preceding line). The verb גּוּז (guz) means “to pass” here; it occurs only here and in Num 11:31.
[90:10] 11 sn We fly away. The psalmist compares life to a bird that quickly flies off (see Job 20:8).
