Keluaran 32:11

32:11 But Moses sought the favor ¹  of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Ulangan 9:26

9:26 I prayed to him: ²  O, Lord God, ³  do not destroy your people, your valued property ⁴  that you have powerfully redeemed, ⁵  whom you brought out of Egypt by your strength. ⁶ 

Yesaya 63:16-19

63:16 For you are our father,

though Abraham does not know us

and Israel does not recognize us.

You, Lord, are our father;

you have been called our protector from ancient times. ⁷ 

63:17 Why, Lord, do you make us stray ⁸  from your ways, ⁹ 

and make our minds stubborn so that we do not obey you? ¹⁰ 

Return for the sake of your servants,

the tribes of your inheritance!

63:18 For a short time your special ¹¹  nation possessed a land, ¹² 

but then our adversaries knocked down ¹³  your holy sanctuary.

63:19 We existed from ancient times, ¹⁴ 

but you did not rule over them,

they were not your subjects. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 64:8-12

64:8 Yet, ¹⁶  Lord, you are our father.

We are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the product of your labor. ¹⁷ 

64:9 Lord, do not be too angry!

Do not hold our sins against us continually! ¹⁸ 

Take a good look at your people, at all of us! ¹⁹ 

64:10 Your chosen ²⁰  cities have become a desert;

Zion has become a desert,

Jerusalem ²¹  is a desolate ruin.

64:11 Our holy temple, our pride and joy, ²² 

the place where our ancestors praised you,

has been burned with fire;

all our prized possessions have been destroyed. ²³ 

64:12 In light of all this, ²⁴  how can you still hold back, Lord?

How can you be silent and continue to humiliate us?

Yeremia 14:20-21

14:20 Lord, we confess that we have been wicked.

We confess that our ancestors have done wrong. ²⁵ 

We have indeed ²⁶  sinned against you.

14:21 For the honor of your name, ²⁷  do not treat Jerusalem ²⁸  with contempt.

Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. ²⁹ 

Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it! ³⁰ 

[32:11]  ¹ tn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 351) draws on Arabic to show that the meaning of this verb (חָלָה, khalah) was properly “make sweet the face” or “stroke the face”; so here “to entreat, seek to conciliate.” In this prayer, Driver adds, Moses urges four motives for mercy: 1) Israel is Yahweh’s people, 2) Israel’s deliverance has demanded great power, 3) the Egyptians would mock if the people now perished, and 4) the oath God made to the fathers.

[9:26]  ² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:26]  ³ tn Heb “Lord Lord” (אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה, ’adonay yÿhvih). The phrase is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God” (אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהִים, ’adonay ’elohim). See also the note on the phrase “Lord God” in Deut 3:24.

[9:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “your inheritance”; NLT “your special (very own NRSV) possession.” Israel is compared to landed property that one would inherit from his ancestors and pass on to his descendants.

[9:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “you have redeemed in your greatness.”

[9:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “by your strong hand.”

[63:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “our protector [or “redeemer”] from antiquity [is] your name.”

[63:17]  ⁸ tn Some suggest a tolerative use of the Hiphil here, “[why do] you allow us to stray?” (cf. NLT). Though the Hiphil of תָעָה (ta’ah) appears to be tolerative in Jer 50:6, elsewhere it is preferable or necessary to take it as causative. See Isa 3:12; 9:15; and 30:28, as well as Gen 20:13; 2 Kgs 21:9; Job 12:24-25; Prov 12:26; Jer 23:13, 32; Hos 4:12; Amos 2:4; Mic 3:5.

[63:17]  ⁹ tn This probably refers to God’s commands.

[63:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “[Why do] you harden our heart[s] so as not to fear you.” The interrogative particle is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[63:17]  sn How direct this hardening is, one cannot be sure. The speaker may envision direct involvement on the Lord’s part. The Lord has brought the exile as judgment for the nation’s sin and now he continues to keep them at arm’s length by blinding them spiritually. The second half of 64:7 might support this, though the precise reading of the final verb is uncertain. On the other hand, the idiom of lament is sometimes ironic and hyperbolically deterministic. For example, Naomi lamented that Shaddai was directly opposing her and bringing her calamity (Ruth 1:20-21), while the author of Ps 88 directly attributes his horrible suffering and loneliness to God (see especially vv. 6-8, 16-18). Both individuals make little, if any, room for intermediate causes or the principle of sin and death which ravages the human race. In the same way, the speaker in Isa 63:17 (who evidences great spiritual sensitivity and is anything but “hardened”) may be referring to the hardships of exile, which discouraged and even embittered the people, causing many of them to retreat from their Yahwistic faith. In this case, the “hardening” in view is more indirect and can be lifted by the Lord’s intervention. Whether the hardening here is indirect or direct, it is important to recognize that the speaker sees it as one of the effects of rebellion against the Lord (note especially 64:5-6).

[63:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “holy” (ASV, NASB, NRSV, TEV, NLT).

[63:18]  ¹² tn Heb “for a short time they had a possession, the people of your holiness.”

[63:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “your adversaries trampled on.”

[63:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “we were from antiquity” (see v. 16). The collocation עוֹלָם + מִן + הָיָה (hayah + min + ’olam) occurs only here.

[63:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you did not rule them, your name was not called over them.” The expression “the name is called over” indicates ownership; see the note at 4:1. As these two lines stand they are very difficult to interpret. They appear to be stating that the adversaries just mentioned in v. 18 have not been subject to the Lord’s rule in the past, perhaps explaining why they could commit the atrocity described in v. 18b.

[64:8]  ¹⁶ tn On the force of וְעַתָּה (vÿ’attah) here, see HALOT 902 s.v. עַתָּה.

[64:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the work of your hand.”

[64:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “do not remember sin continually.”

[64:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Look, gaze at your people, all of us.” Another option is to translate, “Take a good look! We are all your people.”

[64:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “holy” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT); NIV “sacred.”

[64:10]  ²¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[64:11]  ²² tn Heb “our source of pride.”

[64:11]  ²³ tn Or “all that we valued has become a ruin.”

[64:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “because of these”; KJV, ASV “for these things.”

[14:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “We acknowledge our wickedness [and] the iniquity of our [fore]fathers.” For the use of the word “know” to mean “confess,” “acknowledge” cf. BDB 394 s.v. יָדַע, Qal.1.f and compare the usage in Jer 3:13.

[14:20]  sn For a longer example of an individual identifying with the nation and confessing their sins and the sins of their forefathers see Ps 106.

[14:20]  ²⁶ tn This is another example of the intensive use of כִּי (ki). See BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e.

[14:21]  ²⁷ tn Heb “For the sake of your name.”

[14:21]  ²⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:21]  ²⁹ tn English versions quite commonly supply “us” as an object for the verb in the first line. This is probably wrong. The Hebrew text reads: “Do not treat with contempt for the sake of your name; do not treat with disdain your glorious throne.” This is case of poetic parallelism where the object is left hanging until the second line. For an example of this see Prov 13:1 in the original and consult E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 103-4. There has also been some disagreement whether “your glorious throne” refers to the temple (as in 17:12) or Jerusalem (as in 3:17). From the beginning of the prayer in v. 19 where a similar kind of verb has been used with respect to Zion/Jerusalem it would appear that the contextual referent is Jerusalem. The absence of an object from the first line makes it possible to retain part of the metaphor in the translation and still convey some meaning.

[14:21]  sn The place of God’s glorious throne was first of all the ark of the covenant where God was said to be enthroned between the cherubim, then the temple that housed it, then the city itself. See 2 Kgs 19:14-15 in the context of Sennacherib’s attack on Jerusalem.

[14:21]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Remember, do not break your covenant with us.”