Psalms 22:9-10

22:9 Yes, you are the one who brought me out ¹  from the womb

and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts.

22:10 I have been dependent on you since birth; ² 

from the time I came out of my mother’s womb you have been my God. ³ 

Psalms 71:6

71:6 I have leaned on you since birth; ⁴ 

you pulled me ⁵  from my mother’s womb.

I praise you continually. ⁶ 

Psalms 139:13-16

139:13 Certainly ⁷  you made my mind and heart; ⁸ 

you wove me together ⁹  in my mother’s womb.

139:14 I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. ¹⁰ 

You knew me thoroughly; ¹¹ 

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,

when ¹²  I was made in secret

and sewed together in the depths of the earth. ¹³ 

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ¹⁴ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ¹⁵ 

Isaiah 46:3

46:3 “Listen to me, O family of Jacob, ¹⁶ 

all you who are left from the family of Israel, ¹⁷ 

you who have been carried from birth, ¹⁸ 

you who have been supported from the time you left the womb. ¹⁹ 

[22:9]  ¹ tn Or “the one who pulled me.” The verb is derived from either גָחָה (gakhah; see HALOT 187 s.v. גחה) or גִּיחַ (giyakh; see BDB 161 s.v. גִּיחַ) and seems to carry the nuance “burst forth” or “pull out.”

[22:10]  ² tn Heb “upon you I was cast from [the] womb.”

[22:10]  ³ tn Heb “from the womb of my mother you [have been] my God.”

[71:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the womb.”

[71:6]  ⁵ tc The form in the MT is derived from גָזָה (gazah, “to cut off”), perhaps picturing God as the one who severed the psalmist’s umbilical cord. Many interpreters and translators prefer to emend the text to גֹחִי (gokhiy), from גוּח (gukh) or גִיח, (gikh, “pull out”; see Ps 22:9; cf. the present translation) or to עוּזִּי (’uzziy, “my strength”; cf. NEB “my protector since I left my mother’s womb”).

[71:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “in you [is] my praise continually.”

[139:13]  ⁷ tn Or “for.”

[139:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “my kidneys.” The kidneys were sometimes viewed as the seat of one’s emotions and moral character (cf. Pss 7:9; 26:2). A number of translations, recognizing that “kidneys” does not communicate this idea to the modern reader, have generalized the concept: “inmost being” (NAB, NIV); “inward parts” (NASB, NRSV); “the delicate, inner parts of my body” (NLT). In the last instance, the focus is almost entirely on the physical body rather than the emotions or moral character. The present translation, by using a hendiadys (one concept expressed through two terms), links the concepts of emotion (heart) and moral character (mind).

[139:13]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew verb סָכַךְ (sakhakh, “to weave together”) is an alternate form of שָׂכַךְ (sakhakh, “to weave”) used in Job 10:11.

[139:14]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “because awesome things, I am distinct, amazing [are] your works.” The text as it stands is syntactically problematic and makes little, if any, sense. The Niphal of פָּלָה (pala’) occurs elsewhere only in Exod 33:16. Many take the form from פָלָא (pala’; see GKC 216 §75.qq), which in the Niphal perfect means “to be amazing” (see 2 Sam 1:26; Ps 118:23; Prov 30:18). Some, following the LXX and some other ancient witnesses, also prefer to emend the verb from first to second person, “you are amazing” (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 249, 251). The present translation assumes the text conflates two variants: נפלאים, the otherwise unattested masculine plural participle of פָלָא, and נִפְלָאוֹת (nifla’ot), the usual (feminine) plural form of the Niphal participle. The latter has been changed to a verb by later scribes in an attempt to accommodate it syntactically. The original text likely read, נוראות נפלאותים מעשׂיך (“your works [are] awesome [and] amazing”).

[139:14]  ¹¹ tc Heb “and my being knows very much.” Better parallelism is achieved (see v. 15a) if one emends יֹדַעַת (yoda’at), a Qal active participle, feminine singular form, to יָדַעְתָּ (yada’ta), a Qal perfect second masculine singular perfect. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252.

[139:15]  ¹² tc The Hebrew term אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) should probably be emended to כֲּאַשֶׁר (ka’asher, “when”). The kaf (כ) may have been lost by haplography (note the kaf at the end of the preceding form).

[139:15]  ¹³ sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth’s surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother’s womb with the earth.

[139:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.

[139:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).

[46:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV “descendants of Jacob.”

[46:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and all the remnant of the house of Israel.”

[46:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “from the womb” (so NRSV); KJV “from the belly”; NAB “from your infancy.”

[46:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “who have been lifted up from the womb.”