Psalms 66:13

66:13 I will enter your temple with burnt sacrifices;

I will fulfill the vows I made to you,

Psalms 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb.

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence.


sn Here the psalmist switches to the singular; he speaks as the representative of the nation.

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.

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).