Psalms 52:5

52:5 Yet ¹  God will make you a permanent heap of ruins. ² 

He will scoop you up ³  and remove you from your home; ⁴ 

he will uproot you from the land of the living. (Selah)

Psalms 56:13

56:13 when you deliver ⁵  my life from death.

You keep my feet from stumbling, ⁶ 

so that I might serve ⁷  God as I enjoy life. ⁸ 

Psalms 142:5

142:5 I cry out to you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my shelter,

my security ⁹  in the land of the living.”

Job 33:30

33:30 to turn back his life from the place of corruption,

that he may be enlightened with the light of life.

Isaiah 38:11

38:11 “I thought,

‘I will no longer see the Lord ¹⁰  in the land of the living,

I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 38:19

38:19 The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks,

as I do today.

A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.

Jeremiah 11:19

11:19 Before this I had been like a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter.

I did not know they were making plans to kill me. ¹² 

I did not know they were saying, ¹³ 

“Let’s destroy the tree along with its fruit! ¹⁴ 

Let’s remove Jeremiah ¹⁵  from the world of the living

so people will not even be reminded of him any more.” ¹⁶ 

Ezekiel 26:20

26:20 then I will bring you down to bygone people, ¹⁷  to be with those who descend to the pit. I will make you live in the lower parts of the earth, among ¹⁸  the primeval ruins, with those who descend to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited or stand ¹⁹  in the land of the living.

[52:5]  ¹ tn The adverb גַּם (gam, “also; even”) is translated here in an adversative sense (“yet”). It highlights the contrastive correspondence between the evildoer’s behavior and God’s response.

[52:5]  ² tn Heb “will tear you down forever.”

[52:5]  ³ tn This rare verb (חָתָה, khatah) occurs only here and in Prov 6:27; 25:22; Isa 30:14.

[52:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “from [your] tent.”

[56:13]  ⁵ tn The perfect verbal form is probably future perfect; the psalmist promises to make good on his vows once God has delivered him (see Pss 13:5; 52:9). (2) Another option is to understand the final two verses as being added later, after the Lord intervened on the psalmist’s behalf. In this case one may translate, “for you have delivered.” Other options include taking the perfect as (3) generalizing (“for you deliver”) or (4) rhetorical (“for you will”).

[56:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “are not my feet [kept] from stumbling?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course they are!” The question has been translated as an affirmation for the sake of clarification of meaning.

[56:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “walk before.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254; cf. the same idiom in 2 Kgs 20:3; Isa 38:3.

[56:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the light of life.” The phrase is used here and in Job 33:30.

[142:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “my portion.” The psalmist compares the Lord to landed property, which was foundational to economic stability in ancient Israel.

[38:11]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text has יָהּ יָהּ (yah yah, the abbreviated form of יְהוָה [yÿhvah] repeated), but this is probably a corruption of יְהוָה.

[38:11]  ¹¹ tc The Hebrew text has חָדֶל (khadel), which appears to be derived from a verbal root meaning “to cease, refrain.” But the form has probably suffered an error of transmission; the original form (attested in a few medieval Hebrew mss) was likely חֶלֶד (kheled, “world”).

[11:19]  ¹² tn Heb “against me.” The words “to kill me” are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:19]  ¹³ tn The words “I did not know that they were saying” are not in the text. The quote is without formal introduction in the original. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:19]  ¹⁴ tn This word and its pronoun (לַחְמוֹ, lakhmo, “its bread”) is often emended to read “in/with its sap” = “in its prime” (either לֵחוֹ [lekho] or לֵחְמוֹ [lekhÿmo]); the latter would be more likely and the מוֹ (mo) could be explained as a rare use of the old poetic third plural suffix for the third singular; cf. GKC 258 §91.l for general use and Ps 11:7 and Job 27:23 for third singular use. Though this fits the context nicely the emendation is probably unnecessary since the word “bread” is sometimes used of other foodstuff than grain or its products (cf. BDB 537 s.v. לֶחֶם 2.a).

[11:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “cut it [or him] off.” The metaphor of the tree may be continued, though the verb “cut off” is used also of killing people. The rendering clarifies the meaning of the metaphor.

[11:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “so that his name will not be remembered any more.”

[26:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”

[26:20]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).

[26:20]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and I will place beauty.” This reading makes little sense; many, following the lead of the LXX, emend the text to read “nor will you stand” with the negative particle before the preceding verb understood by ellipsis; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:73. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:47) offers another alternative, taking the apparent first person verb form as an archaic second feminine form and translating “nor radiate splendor.”