139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. 1
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence. 2
33:9 For he spoke, and it 3 came into existence,
he issued the decree, 4 and it stood firm.
90:2 Even before the mountains came into existence, 5
or you brought the world into being, 6
you were the eternal God. 7
148:5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for he gave the command and they came into existence.
1 tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.
2 tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).
3 tn That is, “all the earth” in the first line of v. 8. The apparent antecedent of the masculine subject of the verbs in v. 9 (note וַיֶּהִי [vayyehiy] and וַיַּעֲמֹד [vayya’amod]) is “earth” or “world,” both of which are feminine nouns. However, כָּל (kol, “all”) may be the antecedent, or the apparent lack of agreement may be explained by the collective nature of the nouns involved here (see GKC 463 §145.e).
4 tn Heb “he commanded.”
5 tn Heb “were born.”
6 tn Heb “and you gave birth to the earth and world.” The Polel verbal form in the Hebrew text pictures God giving birth to the world. The LXX and some other ancient textual witnesses assume a polal (passive) verbal form here. In this case the earth becomes the subject of the verb and the verb is understood as third feminine singular rather than second masculine singular.
7 tn Heb “and from everlasting to everlasting you [are] God.” Instead of אֵל (’el, “God”) the LXX reads אַל (’al, “not”) and joins the negative particle to the following verse, making the verb תָּשֵׁב (tashev) a jussive. In this case v. 3a reads as a prayer, “do not turn man back to a low place.” However, taking תָּשֵׁב as a jussive is problematic in light of the following following wayyiqtol form וַתֹּאמֶר (vato’mer, “and you said/say”).