56:8 You keep track of my misery. 1
Put my tears in your leather container! 2
Are they not recorded in your scroll? 3
71:15 I will tell about your justice,
and all day long proclaim your salvation, 4
though I cannot fathom its full extent. 5
79:2 They have given the corpses of your servants
to the birds of the sky; 6
the flesh of your loyal followers
to the beasts of the earth.
132:12 If your sons keep my covenant
and the rules I teach them,
their sons will also sit on your throne forever.”
1 tn Heb “my wandering you count, you.” The Hebrew term נֹד (nod, “wandering,” derived from the verbal root נוֹד, nod, “to wander”; cf. NASB) here refers to the psalmist’s “changeable circumstances of life” and may be translated “misery.” The verb סָפַר (safar, “count”) probably carries the nuance “assess” here. Cf. NIV “my lament”; NRSV “my tossings.”
2 tn Traditionally “your bottle.” Elsewhere the Hebrew word נֹאד (no’d, “leather container”) refers to a container made from animal skin which is used to hold wine or milk (see Josh 9:4, 13; Judg 4:19; 1 Sam 16:20). If such a container is metaphorically in view here, then the psalmist seems to be asking God to store up his tears as a reminder of his suffering.
3 tn The word “recorded” is supplied in the translation for clarification. The rhetorical question assumes a positive response (see the first line of the verse).
4 tn Heb “my mouth declares your vindication, all the day your deliverance.”
5 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.”
6 tn Heb “[as] food for the birds of the sky.”