Discovery BoxPsalms 14:3
Contextthey are all morally corrupt. 2
None of them does what is right, 3
not even one!
Psalms 53:3
Contextthey are all morally corrupt. 5
None of them does what is right, 6
not even one!
Psalms 62:11
Context62:11 God has declared one principle;
two principles I have heard: 7
God is strong, 8
Psalms 139:16
Context139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. 9
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence. 10
[14:3] 1 tn Heb “everyone turns aside.”
[14:3] 2 tn Heb “together they are corrupt.”
[14:3] 3 tn Heb “there is none that does good.”
[53:3] 4 tn Heb “all of it turns away.” Ps 14:1 has הָכֹּל (hakkol) instead of כֻּלּוֹ, and סָר (sar, “turn aside”) instead of סָג (sag, “turn away”).
[53:3] 5 tn Heb “together they are corrupt.”
[53:3] 6 tn Heb “there is none that does good.”
[62:11] 7 tn Heb “one God spoke, two which I heard.” This is a numerical saying utilizing the “x” followed by “x + 1” pattern to facilitate poetic parallelism. (See W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament [VTSup], 55-56.) As is typical in such sayings, a list corresponding to the second number (in this case “two”) follows. Another option is to translate, “God has spoken once, twice [he has spoken] that which I have heard.” The terms אַחַת (’akhat, “one; once”) and שְׁתַּיִם (shÿtayim, “two; twice”) are also juxtaposed in 2 Kgs 6:10 (where they refer to an action that was done more than “once or twice”) and in Job 33:14 (where they refer to God speaking “one way” and then in “another manner”).
[62:11] 8 tn Heb “that strength [belongs] to God.”
[139:16] 10 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] 11 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).
