Psalms 42:3

42:3 I cannot eat, I weep day and night; ¹ 

all day long they say to me, ²  “Where is your God?”

Joel 2:17

2:17 Let the priests, those who serve the Lord, weep

from the vestibule all the way back to the altar. ³ 

Let them say, “Have pity, O Lord, on your people;

please do not turn over your inheritance to be mocked,

to become a proverb ⁴  among the nations.

Why should it be said ⁵  among the peoples,

“Where is their God?”

Micah 7:10

7:10 When my enemies see this, they will be covered with shame.

They say ⁶  to me, “Where is the Lord your God?”

I will gloat over them. ⁷ 

Then they will be trampled down ⁸ 

like mud in the streets.

[42:3]  ¹ tn Heb “My tears have become my food day and night.”

[42:3]  ² tn Heb “when [they] say to me all the day.” The suffixed third masculine plural pronoun may have been accidentally omitted from the infinitive בֶּאֱמֹר (be’ÿmor, “when [they] say”). Note the term בְּאָמְרָם (bÿ’omram, “when they say”) in v. 10.

[2:17]  ³ tn Heb “between the vestibule and the altar.” The vestibule was located at the entrance of the temple and the altar was located at the other end of the building. So “between the vestibule and the altar” is a merism referring to the entire structure. The priestly lament permeates the entire house of worship.

[2:17]  ⁴ tn For the MT reading לִמְשָׁל (limshol, an infinitive, “to rule”), one should instead read לְמָשָׁל (lÿmashal, a noun, “to a byword”). While the consonantal Hebrew text permits either, the context suggests that the concern here is more one of not wanting to appear abandoned by God to ongoing economic depression rather than one of concern over potential political subjection of Israel (cf. v. 19). The possibility that the form in the MT is an infinitive construct of the denominative verb II מָשַׁל (mashal, “to utter a proverb”) does not seem likely because of the following preposition (Hebrew בְּ [bÿ], rather than עַל [’al]).

[2:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “Why will they say?”

[7:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “who say.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “My eyes will look on them.”

[7:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “a trampled-down place.”