Psalms 22:10

22:10 I have been dependent on you since birth; ¹ 

from the time I came out of my mother’s womb you have been my God. ² 

Psalms 35:14

35:14 I mourned for them as I would for a friend or my brother. ³ 

I bowed down ⁴  in sorrow as if I were mourning for my mother. ⁵ 

Psalms 50:20

50:20 You plot against your brother; ⁶ 

you slander your own brother. ⁷ 

Psalms 51:5

51:5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth,

a sinner the moment my mother conceived me. ⁸ 

Psalms 69:8

69:8 My own brothers treat me like a stranger;

they act as if I were a foreigner. ⁹ 

Psalms 113:9

113:9 He makes the barren woman of the family ¹⁰ 

a happy mother of children. ¹¹ 

Praise the Lord!

Psalms 139:13

139:13 Certainly ¹²  you made my mind and heart; ¹³ 

you wove me together ¹⁴  in my mother’s womb.

[22:10]  ¹ tn Heb “upon you I was cast from [the] womb.”

[22:10]  ² tn Heb “from the womb of my mother you [have been] my God.”

[35:14]  ³ tn Heb “like a friend, like a brother to me I walked about.”

[35:14]  ⁴ sn I bowed down. Bowing down was a posture for mourning. See Ps 38:6.

[35:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “like mourning for a mother [in] sorrow I bowed down.”

[50:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “you sit, against your brother you speak.” To “sit” and “speak” against someone implies plotting against that person (see Ps 119:23).

[50:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “against the son of your mother you give a fault.”

[51:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “Look, in wrongdoing I was brought forth, and in sin my mother conceived me.” The prefixed verbal form in the second line is probably a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive), stating a simple historical fact. The psalmist is not suggesting that he was conceived through an inappropriate sexual relationship (although the verse has sometimes been understood to mean that, or even that all sexual relationships are sinful). The psalmist’s point is that he has been a sinner from the very moment his personal existence began. By going back beyond the time of birth to the moment of conception, the psalmist makes his point more emphatically in the second line than in the first.

[69:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “and I am estranged to my brothers, and a foreigner to the sons of my mother.”

[113:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “of the house.”

[113:9]  ¹² tn Heb “sons.”

[139:13]  ¹³ tn Or “for.”

[139:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “my kidneys.” The kidneys were sometimes viewed as the seat of one’s emotions and moral character (cf. Pss 7:9; 26:2). A number of translations, recognizing that “kidneys” does not communicate this idea to the modern reader, have generalized the concept: “inmost being” (NAB, NIV); “inward parts” (NASB, NRSV); “the delicate, inner parts of my body” (NLT). In the last instance, the focus is almost entirely on the physical body rather than the emotions or moral character. The present translation, by using a hendiadys (one concept expressed through two terms), links the concepts of emotion (heart) and moral character (mind).

[139:13]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew verb סָכַךְ (sakhakh, “to weave together”) is an alternate form of שָׂכַךְ (sakhakh, “to weave”) used in Job 10:11.