Psalms 10:11-13

10:11 He says to himself, ¹ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ² 

10:12 Rise up, Lord! ³ 

O God, strike him down! ⁴ 

Do not forget the oppressed!

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ⁵ 

He says to himself, ⁶  “You ⁷  will not hold me accountable.” ⁸ 

Psalms 59:7

59:7 Look, they hurl insults at me

and openly threaten to kill me, ⁹ 

for they say, ¹⁰ 

“Who hears?”

Job 22:12-13

22:12 “Is not God on high in heaven? ¹¹ 

And see ¹²  the lofty stars, ¹³  how high they are!

22:13 But you have said, ‘What does God know?

Does he judge through such deep darkness? ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 29:15

29:15 Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead, ¹⁵ 

who do their work in secret and boast, ¹⁶ 

“Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?” ¹⁷ 

Ezekiel 8:12

8:12 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ¹⁸  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

Ezekiel 9:9

9:9 He said to me, “The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of murder, and the city is full of corruption, ¹⁹  for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land, and the Lord does not see!’ ²⁰ 

Zephaniah 1:12

1:12 At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps.

I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ²¹ 

those who think to themselves, ²² 

‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ²³ 

Luke 18:3-4

18:3 There was also a widow ²⁴  in that city ²⁵  who kept coming ²⁶  to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 18:4 For ²⁷  a while he refused, but later on ²⁸  he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, ²⁹ 

[10:11]  ¹ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ² tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[10:12]  ³ sn Rise up, O Lord! The psalmist’s mood changes from lament to petition and confidence.

[10:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “lift up your hand.” Usually the expression “lifting the hand” refers to praying (Pss 28:2; 134:2) or making an oath (Ps 106:26), but here it probably refers to “striking a blow” (see 2 Sam 18:28; 20:21). Note v. 15, where the psalmist asks the Lord to “break the arm of the wicked.” A less likely option is that the psalmist is requesting that the Lord declare by oath his intention to intervene.

[10:13]  ⁵ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ⁷ tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”

[59:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “look, they gush forth with their mouth, swords [are] in their lips.”

[59:7]  ¹⁰ tn The words “for they say” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The following question (“Who hears?”) is spoken by the psalmist’s enemies, who are confident that no one else can hear their threats against the psalmist. They are aggressive because they feel the psalmist is vulnerable and has no one to help him.

[22:12]  ¹¹ tn This reading preserves the text as it is. The nouns “high” and “heavens” would then be taken as adverbial accusatives of place (see GKC 373-74 §118.g).

[22:12]  ¹² tn The parallel passage in Isa 40:26-27, as well as the context here, shows that the imperative is to be retained here. The LXX has “he sees.”

[22:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “head of the stars.”

[22:13]  ¹⁴ sn Eliphaz is giving to Job the thoughts and words of the pagans, for they say, “How does God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High?” (see Ps 73:11; 94:11).

[29:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who deeply hide counsel from the Lord.” This probably alludes to political alliances made without seeking the Lord’s guidance. See 30:1-2 and 31:1.

[29:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and their works are in darkness and they say.”

[29:15]  ¹⁷ tn The rhetorical questions suggest the answer, “no one.” They are confident that their deeds are hidden from others, including God.

[8:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “lawlessness” (NAB); “perversity” (NRSV). The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT, and its meaning is uncertain. The similar phrase in 7:23 has a common word for “violence.”

[9:9]  ²⁰ sn The saying is virtually identical to that of the elders in Ezek 8:12.

[1:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “who thicken on their sediment.” The imagery comes from wine making, where the wine, if allowed to remain on the sediment too long, will thicken into syrup. The image suggests that the people described here were complacent in their sinful behavior and interpreted the delay in judgment as divine apathy.

[1:12]  ²² tn Heb “who say in their hearts.”

[1:12]  ²³ tn Heb “The Lord does not do good nor does he do evil.”

[18:3]  ²⁴ sn This widow was not necessarily old, since many people lived only into their thirties in the 1st century.

[18:3]  ²⁵ tn Or “town.”

[18:3]  ²⁶ tn This is an iterative imperfect; the widow did this on numerous occasions.

[18:4]  ²⁷ tn Grk “And for.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[18:4]  ²⁸ tn Grk “after these things.”

[18:4]  ²⁹ tn Grk “man,” but the singular ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used as a generic in comparison to God.