Mazmur 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ¹ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ² 

Amsal 16:9

16:9 A person ³  plans his course, ⁴ 

but the Lord directs ⁵  his steps. ⁶ 

Amsal 20:24

20:24 The steps of a person ⁷  are ordained by ⁸  the Lord –

so how can anyone ⁹  understand his own ¹⁰  way?

Yeremia 10:23

10:23 Lord, we know that people do not control their own destiny. ¹¹ 

It is not in their power to determine what will happen to them. ¹² 

Yeremia 10:1

The Lord, not Idols, is the Only Worthy Object of Worship

10:1 You people of Israel, ¹³  listen to what the Lord has to say to you.

1 Korintus 12:6

12:6 And there are different results, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.

Efesus 1:11

1:11 In Christ ¹⁴  we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, ¹⁵  since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will

Efesus 2:13

2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁶ 

[139:16]  ¹ 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]  ² 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).

[16:9]  ³ tn Heb “the heart of a man.” This stresses that it is within the heart that plans are made. Only those plans that are approved by God will succeed.

[16:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “his way” (so KJV, NASB).

[16:9]  ⁵ tn The verb כּוּן (kun, “to establish; to confirm”) with צַעַד (tsa’ad, “step”) means “to direct” (e.g., Ps 119:133; Jer 10:23). This contrasts what people plan and what actually happens – God determines the latter.

[16:9]  ⁶ sn “Steps” is an implied comparison, along with “way,” to indicate the events of the plan as they work out.

[20:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “the steps of a man”; but “man” is the noun גֶּבֶר (gever, in pause), indicating an important, powerful person. BDB 149-50 s.v. suggests it is used of men in their role of defending women and children; if that can be validated, then a translation of “man” would be appropriate here. But the line seems to have a wider, more general application. The “steps” represent (by implied comparison) the course of life (cf. NLT “the road we travel”).

[20:24]  ⁸ tn Heb “from the Lord”; NRSV “ordered by the Lord”; NIV “directed by the Lord.”

[20:24]  sn To say that one’s steps are ordained by the Lord means that one’s course of actions, one’s whole life, is divinely prepared and sovereignly superintended (e.g., Gen 50:26; Prov 3:6). Ironically, man is not actually in control of his own steps.

[20:24]  ⁹ tn The verse uses an independent nominative absolute to point up the contrast between the mortal and the immortal: “and man, how can he understand his way?” The verb in the sentence would then be classified as a potential imperfect; and the whole question rhetorical. It is affirming that humans cannot understand very much at all about their lives.

[20:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his way.” The referent of the third masculine singular pronoun is unclear, so the word “own” was supplied in the translation to clarify that the referent is the human individual, not the Lord.

[10:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Not to the man his way.” For the nuance of “fate, destiny, or the way things turn out” for the Hebrew word “way” see Hag 1:5, Isa 40:27 and probably Ps 49:13 (cf. KBL 218 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 5). For the idea of “control” or “hold in one’s power” for the preposition “to” see Ps 3:8 (cf. BDB 513 s.v. לְ 5.b[a]).

[10:23]  ¹² tn Heb “Not to a man the walking and the establishing his step.”

[10:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[1:11]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “in whom,” as a continuation of the previous verse.

[1:11]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “we were appointed by lot.” The notion of the verb κληρόω (klhrow) in the OT was to “appoint a portion by lot” (the more frequent cognate verb κληρονομέω [klhronomew] meant “obtain a portion by lot”). In the passive, as here, the idea is that “we were appointed [as a portion] by lot” (BDAG 548 s.v. κληρόω 1). The words “God’s own” have been supplied in the translation to clarify this sense of the verb. An alternative interpretation is that believers receive a portion as an inheritance: “In Christ we too have been appointed a portion of the inheritance.” See H. W. Hoehner, Ephesians, 226-27, for discussion on this interpretive issue.

[1:11]  sn God’s own possession. Although God is not mentioned explicitly in the Greek text, it is clear from the context that he has chosen believers for himself. Just as with the nation Israel, the church is God’s chosen portion or possession (cf. Deut 32:8-9).

[2:13]  ¹⁶ tn Or “have come near in the blood of Christ.”

[2:13]  sn See the note on “his blood” in 1:7.