Mazmur 39:4

39:4 “O Lord, help me understand my mortality

and the brevity of life! ¹ 

Let me realize how quickly my life will pass! ² 

Mazmur 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ³ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ⁴ 

[39:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Cause me to know, O Lord, my end; and the measure of my days, what it is!”

[39:4]  ² tn Heb “Let me know how transient I am!”

[139:16]  ³ 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.

[139:16]  ⁴ 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).