Lamentations 3:18

3:18 So I said, “My endurance has expired;

I have lost all hope of deliverance ¹  from the Lord.”

Job 17:11-16

17:11 My days have passed, my plans ²  are shattered,

even ³  the desires ⁴  of my heart.

17:12 These men ⁵  change ⁶  night into day;

they say, ⁷  ‘The light is near

in the face of darkness.’ ⁸ 

17:13 If ⁹  I hope for the grave to be my home,

if I spread out my bed in darkness,

17:14 If I cry ¹⁰  to corruption, ¹¹  ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My Mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

17:15 where then ¹²  is my hope?

And my hope, ¹³  who sees it?

17:16 Will ¹⁴  it ¹⁵  go down to the barred gates ¹⁶  of death?

Will ¹⁷  we descend ¹⁸  together into the dust?”

Psalms 31:22

31:22 I jumped to conclusions and said, ¹⁹ 

“I am cut off from your presence!” ²⁰ 

But you heard my plea for mercy when I cried out to you for help.

Isaiah 38:10-13

38:10 “I thought, ²¹ 

‘In the middle of my life ²²  I must walk through the gates of Sheol,

I am deprived ²³  of the rest of my years.’

38:11 “I thought,

‘I will no longer see the Lord ²⁴  in the land of the living,

I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. ²⁵ 

38:12 My dwelling place ²⁶  is removed and taken away ²⁷  from me

like a shepherd’s tent.

I rolled up my life like a weaver rolls cloth; ²⁸ 

from the loom he cuts me off. ²⁹ 

You turn day into night and end my life. ³⁰ 

38:13 I cry out ³¹  until morning;

like a lion he shatters all my bones;

you turn day into night and end my life. ³² 

Ezekiel 37:11

37:11 Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope has perished; we are cut off.’

Ezekiel 37:2

37:2 He made me walk all around among them. ³³  I realized ³⁴  there were a great many bones in the valley and they were very dry.

Colossians 1:8-10

1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, ³⁵  have not ceased praying for you and asking God ³⁶  to fill ³⁷  you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live ³⁸  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ³⁹  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

[3:18]  ¹ tn Heb “and my hope from the Lord.” The hope is for deliverance. The words, “I have lost all…” have been supplied in the translation in order to clarify the Hebrew idiom for the English reader.

[17:11]  ² tn This term usually means “plans; devices” in a bad sense, although it can be used of God’s plans (see e.g., Zech 8:15).

[17:11]  ³ tn Although not in the Hebrew text, “even” is supplied in the translation, because this line is in apposition to the preceding.

[17:11]  ⁴ tn This word has been linked to the root יָרַשׁ (yarash, “to inherit”) yielding a meaning “the possessions of my heart.” But it is actually to be connected to אָרַשׁ (’arash, “to desire”) cognate to the Akkadian eresu, “desire.” The LXX has “limbs,” which may come from an Aramaic word for “ropes.” An emendation based on the LXX would be risky.

[17:12]  ⁵ tn The verse simply has the plural, “they change.” But since this verse seems to be a description of his friends, a clarification of the referent in the translation is helpful.

[17:12]  ⁶ tn The same verb שִׂים (sim, “set”) is used this way in Isa 5:20: “…who change darkness into light.”

[17:12]  ⁷ tn The rest of the verse makes better sense if it is interpreted as what his friends say.

[17:12]  ⁸ tn This expression is open to alternative translations: (1) It could mean that they say in the face of darkness, “Light is near.” (2) It could also mean “The light is near the darkness” or “The light is nearer than the darkness.”

[17:13]  ⁹ tn The clause begins with אִם (’im) which here has more of the sense of “since.” E. Dhorme (Job, 253) takes a rather rare use of the word to get “Can I hope again” (see also GKC 475 §150.f for the caveat).

[17:14]  ¹⁰ tn This is understood because the conditional clauses seem to run to the apodosis in v. 15.

[17:14]  ¹¹ tn The word שַׁחַת (shakhat) may be the word “corruption” from a root שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) or a word “pit” from שׁוּחַ (shuakh, “to sink down”). The same problem surfaces in Ps 16:10, where it is parallel to “Sheol.” E. F. Sutcliffe, The Old Testament and the Future Life, 76ff., defends the meaning “corruption.” But many commentators here take it to mean “the grave” in harmony with “Sheol.” But in this verse “worms” would suggest “corruption” is better.

[17:15]  ¹² tn The adverb אֵפוֹ (’efo, “then”) plays an enclitic role here (see Job 4:7).

[17:15]  ¹³ tn The repetition of “my hope” in the verse has thrown the versions off, and their translations have led commentators also to change the second one to something like “goodness,” on the assumption that a word cannot be repeated in the same verse. The word actually carries two different senses here. The first would be the basic meaning “hope,” but the second a metonymy of cause, namely, what hope produces, what will be seen.

[17:16]  ¹⁴ sn It is natural to assume that this verse continues the interrogative clause of the preceding verse.

[17:16]  ¹⁵ tn The plural form of the verb probably refers to the two words, or the two senses of the word in the preceding verse. Hope and what it produces will perish with Job.

[17:16]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew word בַּדִּים (baddim) describes the “bars” or “bolts” of Sheol, referring (by synecdoche) to the “gates of Sheol.” The LXX has “with me to Sheol,” and many adopt that as “by my side.”

[17:16]  ¹⁷ tn The conjunction אִם (’im) confirms the interrogative interpretation.

[17:16]  ¹⁸ tn The translation follows the LXX and the Syriac versions with the change of vocalization in the MT. The MT has the noun “rest,” yielding, “will our rest be together in the dust?” The verb נָחַת (nakhat) in Aramaic means “to go down; to descend.” If that is the preferred reading – and it almost is universally accepted here – then it would be spelled נֵחַת (nekhat). In either case the point of the verse is clearly describing death and going to the grave.

[31:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and I, I said in my haste.”

[31:22]  ²⁰ tn Heb “from before your eyes.”

[38:10]  ²¹ tn Or “I said” (KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[38:10]  ²² tn The precise meaning of the phrase בִּדְמִי יָמַי (bidmi yamay, “in the [?] of my days”) is uncertain. According to HALOT 226 s.v. דְּמִי this word is a hapax legomenon meaning “half.” Others derive the form from דַּמִי (dami, “quiet, rest, peacefulness”).

[38:10]  ²³ tn The precise meaning of the verb is uncertain. The Pual of of פָּקַד (paqad) occurs only here and in Exod 38:21, where it appears to mean “passed in review” or “mustered.” Perhaps the idea is, “I have been called away for the remainder of my years.” To bring out the sense more clearly, one can translate, “I am deprived of the rest of my years.”

[38:11]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew text has יָהּ יָהּ (yah yah, the abbreviated form of יְהוָה [yÿhvah] repeated), but this is probably a corruption of יְהוָה.

[38:11]  ²⁵ tc The Hebrew text has חָדֶל (khadel), which appears to be derived from a verbal root meaning “to cease, refrain.” But the form has probably suffered an error of transmission; the original form (attested in a few medieval Hebrew mss) was likely חֶלֶד (kheled, “world”).

[38:12]  ²⁶ tn According to HALOT 217 s.v. דּוֹר this noun is a hapax legomenon meaning “dwelling place,” derived from a verbal root meaning “live” (see Ps 84:10). For an interpretation that understands the form as the well-attested noun meaning “generation,” see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:679, n. 4.

[38:12]  ²⁷ tn The verb form appears to be a Niphal from גָּלָה (galah), which normally means “uncovered, revealed” in the Niphal. Because of the following reference to a shepherd’s tent, some prefer to emend the form to וְנָגַל, a Niphal from גָלָל (galal, “roll”) and translate “is rolled [or “folded”] up.”

[38:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “I rolled up, like a weaver, my life” (so ASV).

[38:12]  ²⁹ sn For a discussion of the imagery employed here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:684.

[38:12]  ³⁰ tn Heb “from day to night you bring me to an end.”

[38:13]  ³¹ tn The verb form in the Hebrew text is a Piel from שָׁוַה (shavah). There are two homonyms שָׁוַה, one meaning in the Piel “level, smooth out,” the other “set, place.” Neither fits in v. 13. It is likely that the original reading was שִׁוַּעְתִּי (shivva’ti, “I cry out”) from the verbal root שָׁוַע (shava’), which occurs exclusively in the Piel.

[38:13]  ³² tn Heb “from day to night you bring me to an end.”

[37:2]  ³³ tn Heb “and he made me pass over them, around, around.”

[37:2]  ³⁴ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and is here translated as “I realized” because it results from Ezekiel’s recognition of the situation around him. In Hebrew, the exclamation is repeated in the following sentence.

[1:9]  ³⁵ tn Or “heard about it”; Grk “heard.” There is no direct object stated in the Greek (direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context). A direct object is expected by an English reader, however, so most translations supply one. Here, however, it is not entirely clear what the author “heard”: a number of translations supply “it” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV; NAB “this”), but this could refer back either to (1) “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8, or (2) “your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4). In light of this uncertainty, other translations supply “about you” (TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT). This is preferred by the present translation since, while it does not resolve the ambiguity entirely, it does make it less easy for the English reader to limit the reference only to “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8.

[1:9]  ³⁶ tn The term “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but the following reference to “the knowledge of his will” makes it clear that “God” is in view as the object of the “praying and asking,” and should therefore be included in the English translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ³⁷ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been translated as substantival, indicating the content of the prayer and asking. The idea of purpose may also be present in this clause.

[1:10]  ³⁸ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ³⁹ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”