Psalms 71:15

71:15 I will tell about your justice,

and all day long proclaim your salvation, ¹ 

though I cannot fathom its full extent. ² 

Psalms 92:5

92:5 How great are your works, O Lord!

Your plans are very intricate! ³ 

Psalms 139:6

139:6 Your knowledge is beyond my comprehension;

it is so far beyond me, I am unable to fathom it. ⁴ 

Psalms 139:17-18

139:17 How difficult it is for me to fathom your thoughts about me, O God! ⁵ 

How vast is their sum total! ⁶ 

139:18 If I tried to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

Even if I finished counting them,

I would still have to contend with you. ⁷ 

Isaiah 55:8-9

55:8 “Indeed, ⁸  my plans ⁹  are not like ¹⁰  your plans,

and my deeds ¹¹  are not like ¹²  your deeds,

55:9 for just as the sky ¹³  is higher than the earth,

so my deeds ¹⁴  are superior to ¹⁵  your deeds

and my plans ¹⁶  superior to your plans.

Jeremiah 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ¹⁷  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ¹⁸  a future filled with hope. ¹⁹ 

[71:15]  ¹ tn Heb “my mouth declares your vindication, all the day your deliverance.”

[71:15]  ² tn Heb “though I do not know [the] numbers,” that is, the tally of God’s just and saving acts. HALOT 768 s.v. סְפֹרוֹת understands the plural noun to mean “the art of writing.”

[92:5]  ³ tn Heb “very deep [are] your thoughts.” God’s “thoughts” refer here to his moral design of the world, as outlined in vv. 6-15.

[139:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “too amazing [is this] knowledge for me, it is elevated, I cannot attain to it.”

[139:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “and to me how precious are your thoughts, O God.” The Hebrew verb יָקַר (yaqar) probably has the sense of “difficult [to comprehend]” here (see HALOT 432 s.v. יקר qal.1 and note the use of Aramaic יַקִּר in Dan 2:11). Elsewhere in the immediate context the psalmist expresses his amazement at the extent of God’s knowledge about him (see vv. 1-6, 17b-18).

[139:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “how vast are their heads.” Here the Hebrew word “head” is used of the “sum total” of God’s knowledge of the psalmist.

[139:18]  ⁷ tc Heb “I awake and I [am] still with you.” A reference to the psalmist awaking from sleep makes little, if any, sense contextually. For this reason some propose an emendation to הֲקִצּוֹתִי (haqitsoti), a Hiphil perfect form from an otherwise unattested verb קָצַץ (qatsats) understood as a denominative of קֵץ (qets, “end”). See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 252-53.

[55:8]  ⁸ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV).

[55:8]  ⁹ tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).

[55:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.

[55:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).

[55:8]  ¹² tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.

[55:9]  ¹³ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[55:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).

[55:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “are higher than.”

[55:9]  ¹⁶ tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).

[29:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

[29:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.