Psalms 17:5

17:5 I carefully obey your commands; ¹ 

I do not deviate from them. ² 

Psalms 40:2

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ³ 

out of the slimy mud. ⁴ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ⁵ 

Psalms 44:18

44:18 We have not been unfaithful, ⁶ 

nor have we disobeyed your commands. ⁷ 

Psalms 73:2

73:2 But as for me, my feet almost slipped;

my feet almost slid out from under me. ⁸ 

Job 23:11

23:11 My feet ⁹  have followed ¹⁰  his steps closely;

I have kept to his way and have not turned aside. ¹¹ 

Proverbs 14:15

14:15 A naive person ¹²  believes everything,

but the shrewd person discerns his steps. ¹³ 

Ezekiel 27:6

27:6 They made your oars from oaks of Bashan;

they made your deck ¹⁴  with cypresses ¹⁵  from the Kittean isles. ¹⁶ 

[17:5]  ¹ tn Heb “my steps stay firm in your tracks.” The infinitive absolute functions here as a finite verb (see GKC 347 §113.gg). God’s “tracks” are his commands, i.e., the moral pathways he has prescribed for the psalmist.

[17:5]  ² tn Heb “my footsteps do not stagger.”

[40:2]  ³ tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).

[40:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[40:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[44:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “our heart did not turn backward.” Cf. Ps 78:57.

[44:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “and our steps did [not] turn aside from your path.” The negative particle is understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line). God’s “path” refers to his commands, i.e., the moral pathway he has prescribed for the psalmist. See Pss 17:5; 25:4.

[73:2]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verb normally means “to pour out,” but here it must have the nuance “to slide.”

[23:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “my foot.”

[23:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “held fast.”

[23:11]  ¹¹ tn The last clause, “and I have not turned aside,” functions adverbially in the sentence. The form אָט (’at) is a pausal form of אַתֶּה (’atteh), the Hiphil of נָטָה (natah, “stretch out”).

[14:15]  ¹² sn The contrast is with the simpleton and the shrewd. The simpleton is the young person who is untrained morally or intellectually, and therefore gullible. The shrewd one is the prudent person, the one who has the ability to make critical discriminations.

[14:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “his step”; cf. TEV “sensible people watch their step.”

[27:6]  ¹⁴ tn Or “hull.”

[27:6]  ¹⁵ tc The Hebrew reads “Your deck they made ivory, daughter of Assyria.” The syntactically difficult “ivory” is understood here as dittography and omitted, though some construe this to refer to ivory inlays. “Daughter of Assyria” is understood here as improper word division and the vowels repointed as “cypresses.”

[27:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the coastlands (or islands) of Kittim,” generally understood to be a reference to the island of Cyprus, where the Phoenicians had a trading colony on the southeast coast. Many modern English versions have “Cyprus” (CEV, TEV), “the coastlands of Cyprus” (NASB), “the coasts of Cyprus” (NIV, NRSV), or “the southern coasts of Cyprus” (NLT).