Mazmur 139:11

139:11 If I were to say, “Certainly the darkness will cover me, ¹ 

and the light will turn to night all around me,” ² 

Yehezkiel 8:12

8:12 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ³  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

Efesus 6:12

6:12 For our struggle ⁴  is not against flesh and blood, ⁵  but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, ⁶  against the spiritual forces ⁷  of evil in the heavens. ⁸ 

[139:11]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb שׁוּף (shuf), which means “to crush; to wound,” in Gen 3:15 and Job 9:17, is problematic here. For a discussion of attempts to relate the verb to Arabic roots, see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 251. Many emend the form to יְשׂוּכֵּנִי (yesukkeniy), from the root שׂכך (“to cover,” an alternate form of סכך), a reading assumed in the present translation.

[139:11]  ² tn Heb “and night, light, around me.”

[8:12]  ³ tn Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:12]  sn This type of image is explicitly prohibited in the Mosaic law (Lev 26:1).

[6:12]  ⁴ tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”

[6:12]  ⁵ tn Grk “blood and flesh.”

[6:12]  ⁶ tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.

[6:12]  sn The phrase world-rulers of this darkness does not refer to human rulers but the evil spirits that rule over the world. The phrase thus stands in apposition to what follows (the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens); see note on heavens at the end of this verse.

[6:12]  ⁷ tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.

[6:12]  ⁸ sn The phrase spiritual forces of evil in the heavens serves to emphasize the nature of the forces which oppose believers as well as to indicate the locality from which they originate.