Psalms 104:24

104:24 How many living things you have made, O Lord! ¹ 

You have exhibited great skill in making all of them; ² 

the earth is full of the living things you have made.

Psalms 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ³ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ⁴ 

[104:24]  ¹ tn Heb “How many [are] your works, O Lord.” In this case the Lord’s “works” are the creatures he has made, as the preceding and following contexts make clear.

[104:24]  ² tn Heb “all of them with wisdom you have made.”

[139:16]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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).