Yesaya 30:2

30:2 They travel down to Egypt

without seeking my will, ¹ 

seeking Pharaoh’s protection,

and looking for safety in Egypt’s protective shade. ² 

Daniel 4:12

4:12 Its foliage was attractive and its fruit plentiful;

on it there was food enough for all.

Under it the wild animals ³  used to seek shade,

and in its branches the birds of the sky used to nest.

All creatures ⁴  used to feed themselves from it.

Hosea 14:7

14:7 People will reside again ⁵  in his shade;

they will plant and harvest grain in abundance. ⁶ 

They will blossom like a vine,

and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

Matius 13:32

13:32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, ⁷  so that the wild birds ⁸  come and nest in its branches.” ⁹ 

[30:2]  ¹ tn Heb “those who go to descend to Egypt, but [of] my mouth they do not inquire.”

[30:2]  ² tn Heb “to seek protection in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek refuge in the shade of Egypt.”

[4:12]  ³ tn Aram “the beasts of the field.”

[4:12]  ⁴ tn Aram “all flesh.”

[14:7]  ⁵ tn Hosea uses the similar-sounding terms יָשֻׁבוּ יֹשְׁבֵי (yashuvu yoshve, “the dwellers will return”) to create a wordplay between the roots שׁוּב (shuv, “to return”) and יָשַׁב (yashav, “to dwell; to reside”).

[14:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will cause the grain to live” or “they will revive the grain.” Some English versions treat this as a comparison: “they shall revive as the corn” (KJV); “will flourish like the grain” (NIV).

[13:32]  ⁷ sn This is rhetorical hyperbole, since technically a mustard plant is not a tree. This could refer to one of two types of mustard plant popular in Palestine and would be either ten or twenty-five ft (3 or 7.5 m) tall.

[13:32]  ⁸ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

[13:32]  ⁹ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.