66:13 I will enter 1 your temple with burnt sacrifices;
I will fulfill the vows I made to you,
139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. 2
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence. 3
1 sn Here the psalmist switches to the singular; he speaks as the representative of the nation.
2 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.
3 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).