Mazmur 22:15

22:15 The roof of my mouth ¹  is as dry as a piece of pottery;

my tongue sticks to my gums. ² 

You ³  set me in the dust of death. ⁴ 

Mazmur 22:29

22:29 All of the thriving people ⁵  of the earth will join the celebration and worship; ⁶ 

all those who are descending into the grave ⁷  will bow before him,

including those who cannot preserve their lives. ⁸ 

Mazmur 30:9

30:9 “What ⁹  profit is there in taking my life, ¹⁰ 

in my descending into the Pit? ¹¹ 

Can the dust of the grave ¹²  praise you?

Can it declare your loyalty? ¹³ 

Mazmur 103:14

103:14 For he knows what we are made of; ¹⁴ 

he realizes ¹⁵  we are made of clay. ¹⁶ 

Mazmur 104:29

104:29 When you ignore them, they panic. ¹⁷ 

When you take away their life’s breath, they die

and return to dust.

[22:15]  ¹ tc Heb “my strength” (כֹּחִי, kokhiy), but many prefer to emend the text to חִכִּי (khikiy, “my palate”; cf. NEB, NRSV “my mouth”) assuming that an error of transposition has occurred in the traditional Hebrew text.

[22:15]  ² tn Cf. NEB “my jaw”; NASB, NRSV “my jaws”; NIV “the roof of my mouth.”

[22:15]  ³ sn Here the psalmist addresses God and suggests that God is ultimately responsible for what is happening because of his failure to intervene (see vv. 1-2, 11).

[22:15]  ⁴ sn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to the progressive nature of the action. The psalmist is in the process of dying.

[22:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the Lord.

[22:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the Lord will receive universal worship. The mood is one of wishful thinking and anticipation; this is not prophecy in the strict sense.

[22:29]  ⁷ tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.

[22:29]  ⁸ tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”

[30:9]  ⁹ sn The following two verses (vv. 9-10) contain the prayer (or an excerpt of the prayer) that the psalmist offered to the Lord during his crisis.

[30:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “What profit [is there] in my blood?” “Blood” here represents his life.

[30:9]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew term שָׁחַת (shakhat, “pit”) is often used as a title for Sheol (see Pss 16:10; 49:9; 55:24; 103:4).

[30:9]  ¹² tn Heb “dust.” The words “of the grave” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[30:9]  ¹³ tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “Of course not!”

[30:9]  sn According to the OT, those who descend into the realm of death/Sheol are cut off from God’s mighty deeds and from the worshiping covenant community that experiences divine intervention (Pss 6:5; 88:10-12; Isa 38:18). In his effort to elicit a positive divine response, the psalmist reminds God that he will receive no praise or glory if he allows the psalmist to die. Dead men do not praise God!

[103:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “our form.”

[103:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “remembers.”

[103:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “we [are] clay.”

[104:29]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you hide your face, they are terrified.”