1 Tawarikh 28:9

28:9 “And you, Solomon my son, obey ¹  the God of your father and serve him with a submissive attitude and a willing spirit, ²  for the Lord examines all minds and understands every motive of one’s thoughts. If you seek him, he will let you find him, ³  but if you abandon him, he will reject you permanently.

Ulangan 8:2

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ⁴  has brought you these forty years through the desert ⁵  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Ulangan 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ⁶  I am giving ⁷  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ⁸  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ⁹ 

1 Samuel 16:7

16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t be impressed by ¹⁰  his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. God does not view things the way men do. ¹¹  People look on the outward appearance, ¹²  but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Mazmur 7:9

7:9 May the evil deeds of the wicked ¹³  come to an end! ¹⁴ 

But make the innocent ¹⁵  secure, ¹⁶ 

O righteous God,

you who examine ¹⁷  inner thoughts and motives! ¹⁸ 

Mazmur 51:6

51:6 Look, ¹⁹  you desire ²⁰  integrity in the inner man; ²¹ 

you want me to possess wisdom. ²² 

Amsal 16:2

16:2 All a person’s ways ²³  seem right ²⁴  in his own opinion, ²⁵ 

but the Lord evaluates ²⁶  the motives. ²⁷ 

Amsal 21:2

21:2 All of a person’s ways seem right in his own opinion, ²⁸ 

but the Lord evaluates ²⁹  the motives. ³⁰ 

Yeremia 17:10

17:10 I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds.

I examine people’s hearts. ³¹ 

I deal with each person according to how he has behaved.

I give them what they deserve based on what they have done.

Ibrani 4:12

4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart.

Wahyu 2:23

2:23 Furthermore, I will strike her followers ³²  with a deadly disease, ³³  and then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will repay ³⁴  each one of you ³⁵  what your deeds deserve. ³⁶ 

[28:9]  ¹ tn Heb “know.”

[28:9]  ² tn Heb “with a complete heart and a willing being.”

[28:9]  ³ tn Heb “he will allow himself to be found by you.”

[8:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ⁵ tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[8:1]  ⁶ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[16:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “don’t look toward.”

[16:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for not that which the man sees.” The translation follows the LXX, which reads, “for not as man sees does God see.” The MT has suffered from homoioteleuton or homoioarcton. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 274.

[16:7]  ¹² tn Heb “to the eyes.”

[7:9]  ¹³ tn In the psalms the Hebrew term רְשָׁעִים (rÿsha’im, “wicked”) describes people who are proud, practical atheists (Ps 10:2, 4, 11) who hate God’s commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander (Ps 50:16-20), and cheat others (Ps 37:21). They oppose God and his people.

[7:9]  ¹⁴ tn The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation here.

[7:9]  ¹⁵ tn Or “the godly” (see Ps 5:12). The singular form is collective (see the plural “upright in heart” in v. 10), though it may reflect the personal focus of the psalmist in this context.

[7:9]  ¹⁶ tn The prefixed verbal form expresses the psalmist’s prayer or wish.

[7:9]  ¹⁷ tn For other uses of the verb in this sense, see Job 7:18; Pss 11:4; 26:2; 139:23.

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and [the one who] tests hearts and kidneys, just God.” The translation inverts the word order to improve the English style. The heart and kidneys were viewed as the seat of one’s volition, conscience, and moral character.

[51:6]  ¹⁹ sn The juxtaposition of two occurrences of “look” in vv. 5-6 draws attention to the sharp contrast between the sinful reality of the psalmist’s condition and the lofty ideal God has for him.

[51:6]  ²⁰ tn The perfect is used in a generalizing sense here.

[51:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the covered [places],” i.e., in the inner man.

[51:6]  ²² tn Heb “in the secret [place] wisdom you cause me to know.” The Hiphil verbal form is causative, while the imperfect is used in a modal sense to indicate God’s desire (note the parallel verb “desire”).

[51:6]  sn You want me to possess wisdom. Here “wisdom” does not mean “intelligence” or “learning,” but refers to moral insight and skill.

[16:2]  ²³ tn Heb “ways of a man.”

[16:2]  ²⁴ sn The Hebrew term translated “right” (z~E) means “innocent” (NIV) or “pure” (NAB, NRSV, NLT). It is used in the Bible for pure oils or undiluted liquids; here it means unmixed actions. Therefore on the one hand people rather naively conclude that their actions are fine.

[16:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in his eyes.”

[16:2]  ²⁶ tn The figure (a hypocatastasis) of “weighing” signifies “evaluation” (e.g., Exod 5:8; 1 Sam 2:3; 16:7; Prov 21:2; 24:12). There may be an allusion to the Egyptian belief of weighing the heart after death to determine righteousness. But in Hebrew thought it is an ongoing evaluation as well, not merely an evaluation after death.

[16:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “spirits” (so KJV, ASV). This is a metonymy for the motives, the intentions of the heart (e.g., 21:2 and 24:2).

[16:2]  sn Humans deceive themselves rather easily and so appear righteous in their own eyes; but the proverb says that God evaluates motives and so he alone can determine if the person’s ways are innocent.

[21:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in his own eyes.” The term “eyes” is a metonymy for estimation, opinion, evaluation.

[21:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “weighs” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “examines”; NCV, TEV “judges.”

[21:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the hearts.” The term לֵב (lev, “heart”) is used as a metonymy of association for thoughts and motives (BDB 660-61 s.v. 6-7). Even though people think they know themselves, the Lord evaluates motives as well (e.g., Prov 16:2).

[17:10]  ³¹ tn The term rendered “mind” here and in the previous verse is actually the Hebrew word for “heart.” However, in combination with the word rendered “heart” in the next line, which is the Hebrew for “kidneys,” it is best rendered “mind” because the “heart” was considered the center of intellect, conscience, and will and the “kidneys” the center of emotions.

[17:10]  sn For an earlier reference to this motif see Jer 11:20. For a later reference see Jer 20:12. See also Ps 17:2-3.

[2:23]  ³² tn Grk “her children,” but in this context a reference to this woman’s followers or disciples is more likely meant.

[2:23]  ³³ tn Grk “I will kill with death.” θάνατος (qanatos) can in particular contexts refer to a manner of death, specifically a contagious disease (see BDAG 443 s.v. 3; L&N 23.158).

[2:23]  ³⁴ tn Grk “I will give.” The sense of δίδωμι (didwmi) in this context is more “repay” than “give.”

[2:23]  ³⁵ sn This pronoun and the following one are plural in the Greek text.

[2:23]  ³⁶ tn Grk “each one of you according to your works.”