Psalms 16:10

16:10 You will not abandon me ¹  to Sheol; ² 

you will not allow your faithful follower ³  to see ⁴  the Pit. ⁵ 

Psalms 88:4-6

88:4 They treat me like ⁶  those who descend into the grave. ⁷ 

I am like a helpless man, ⁸ 

88:5 adrift ⁹  among the dead,

like corpses lying in the grave,

whom you remember no more,

and who are cut off from your power. ¹⁰ 

88:6 You place me in the lowest regions of the pit, ¹¹ 

in the dark places, in the watery depths.

Numbers 16:33-34

16:33 They and all that they had went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed over them. So they perished from among the community. 16:34 All the Israelites ¹²  who were around them fled at their cry, ¹³  for they said, “What if ¹⁴  the earth swallows us too?”

Acts 2:24

2:24 But God raised him up, ¹⁵  having released ¹⁶  him from the pains ¹⁷  of death, because it was not possible for him to be held in its power. ¹⁸ 

Acts 2:31

2:31 David by foreseeing this ¹⁹  spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, ²⁰  that he was neither abandoned to Hades, ²¹  nor did his body ²²  experience ²³  decay. ²⁴ 

[16:10]  ¹ tn Or “my life.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.

[16:10]  ² sn In ancient Israelite cosmology Sheol is the realm of the dead, viewed as being under the earth’s surface. See L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 165-76.

[16:10]  ³ tn A “faithful follower” (חָסִיד [khasid], traditionally rendered “holy one”) is one who does what is right in God’s eyes and remains faithful to God (see Pss 4:3; 12:1; 18:25; 31:23; 37:28; 86:2; 97:10). The psalmist here refers to himself, as the parallel line (“You will not abandon me to Sheol”) indicates.

[16:10]  ⁴ tn That is, “experience.” The psalmist is confident that the Lord will protect him in his present crisis (see v. 1) and prevent him from dying.

[16:10]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew word שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 30:9; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4). Note the parallelism with the previous line.

[88:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “I am considered with.”

[88:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the pit.” The noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit,” “cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead.

[88:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “I am like a man [for whom] there is no help.”

[88:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “set free.”

[88:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from your hand.”

[88:6]  ¹¹ tn The noun בּוֹר (bor, “pit,” “cistern”) is sometimes used of the grave and/or the realm of the dead. See v. 4.

[16:34]  ¹² tn Heb “all Israel.”

[16:34]  ¹³ tn Heb “voice.”

[16:34]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “lest.”

[2:24]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “Whom God raised up.”

[2:24]  ¹⁶ tn Or “having freed.”

[2:24]  ¹⁷ sn The term translated pains is frequently used to describe pains associated with giving birth (see Rev 12:2). So there is irony here in the mixed metaphor.

[2:24]  ¹⁸ tn Or “for him to be held by it” (in either case, “it” refers to death’s power).

[2:31]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “David foreseeing spoke.” The participle προϊδών (proidwn) is taken as indicating means. It could also be translated as a participle of attendant circumstance: “David foresaw [this] and spoke.” The word “this” is supplied in either case as an understood direct object (direct objects in Greek were often omitted, but must be supplied for the modern English reader).

[2:31]  ²⁰ tn Or “the Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[2:31]  ²¹ tn Or “abandoned in the world of the dead.” The translation “world of the dead” for Hades is suggested by L&N 1.19. The phrase is an allusion to Ps 16:10.

[2:31]  ²² tn Grk “flesh.” See vv. 26b-27. The reference to “body” in this verse picks up the reference to “body” in v. 26. The Greek term σάρξ (sarx) in both verses literally means “flesh”; however, the translation “body” stresses the lack of decay of his physical body. The point of the verse is not merely the lack of decay of his flesh alone, but the resurrection of his entire person, as indicated by the previous parallel line “he was not abandoned to Hades.”

[2:31]  ²³ tn Grk “see,” but the literal translation of the phrase “see decay” could be misunderstood to mean simply “look at decay,” while here “see decay” is really figurative for “experience decay.”

[2:31]  ²⁴ sn An allusion to Ps 16:10.