Psalms 139:15-16

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,

when ¹  I was made in secret

and sewed together in the depths of the earth. ² 

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 

Psalms 145:1-2

Psalm 145 ⁵ 

A psalm of praise, by David.

145:1 I will extol you, my God, O king!

I will praise your name continually! ⁶ 

145:2 Every day I will praise you!

I will praise your name continually! ⁷ 

Isaiah 49:1

Ideal Israel Delivers the Exiles

49:1 Listen to me, you coastlands! ⁸ 

Pay attention, you people who live far away!

The Lord summoned me from birth; ⁹ 

he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 49:5

49:5 So now the Lord says,

the one who formed me from birth ¹¹  to be his servant –

he did this ¹²  to restore Jacob to himself,

so that Israel might be gathered to him;

and I will be honored ¹³  in the Lord’s sight,

for my God is my source of strength ¹⁴  –

Jeremiah 1:5

1:5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb ¹⁵  I chose you. ¹⁶ 

Before you were born I set you apart.

I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Luke 1:31-32

1:31 Listen: ¹⁷  You will become pregnant ¹⁸  and give birth to ¹⁹  a son, and you will name him ²⁰  Jesus. ²¹  1:32 He ²²  will be great, ²³  and will be called the Son of the Most High, ²⁴  and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father ²⁵  David.

Galatians 1:15

1:15 But when the one ²⁶  who set me apart from birth ²⁷  and called me by his grace was pleased

[139:15]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  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).

[145:1]  ⁵ sn Psalm 145. The psalmist praises God because he is a just and merciful king who cares for his people.

[145:1]  ⁶ tn Or, hyperbolically, “forever.”

[145:2]  ⁷ tn Or, hyperbolically, “forever.”

[49:1]  ⁸ tn Or “islands” (NASB, NIV); NLT “in far-off lands.”

[49:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “called me from the womb.”

[49:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from the inner parts of my mother he mentioned my name.”

[49:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from the womb” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:5]  ¹² tn The words “he did this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text the infinitive construct of purpose is subordinated to the previous statement.

[49:5]  ¹³ tn The vav (ו) + imperfect is translated here as a result clause; one might interpret it as indicating purpose, “and so I might be honored.”

[49:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and my God is [perhaps, “having been”] my strength.” The disjunctive structure (vav [ו] + subject + verb) is interpreted here as indicating a causal circumstantial clause.

[1:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the womb.” The words “your mother’s” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I knew you.” The parallelism here with “set you apart” and “appointed you” make clear that Jeremiah is speaking of his foreordination to be a prophet. For this same nuance of the Hebrew verb see Gen 18:19; Amos 3:2.

[1:31]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “And behold.”

[1:31]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “you will conceive in your womb.”

[1:31]  ¹⁹ tn Or “and bear.”

[1:31]  ²⁰ tn Grk “you will call his name.”

[1:31]  ²¹ tn See v. 13 for a similar construction.

[1:32]  ²² tn Grk “this one.”

[1:32]  ²³ sn Compare the description of Jesus as great here with 1:15, “great before the Lord.” Jesus is greater than John, since he is Messiah compared to a prophet. Great is stated absolutely without qualification to make the point.

[1:32]  ²⁴ sn The expression Most High is a way to refer to God without naming him. Such avoiding of direct reference to God was common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.

[1:32]  ²⁵ tn Or “ancestor.”

[1:15]  ²⁶ tc ‡ Several important witnesses have ὁ θεός (Jo qeos) after εὐδόκησεν (eudokhsen; so א A D Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï co) while the shorter reading is supported by Ì⁴⁶ B F G 629 1505 pc lat. There is hardly any reason why scribes would omit the words (although the Beatty papyrus and the Western text do at times omit words and phrases), but several reasons why scribes would add the words (especially the need to clarify). The confluence of witnesses for the shorter reading (including a few fathers and versions) adds strong support for its authenticity. It is also in keeping with Paul’s style to refrain from mentioning God by name as a rhetorical device (cf. ExSyn 437 [although this section deals with passive constructions, the principle is the same]). NA²⁷ includes the words in brackets, indicating some doubts as to their authenticity.

[1:15]  ²⁷ tn Grk “from my mother’s womb.”