Yesaya 6:13

6:13 Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, ¹  like one of the large sacred trees ²  or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down. ³  That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.” ⁴ 

Yeremia 30:11

30:11 For I, the Lord, affirm ⁵  that

I will be with you and will rescue you.

I will completely destroy all the nations where I scattered you.

But I will not completely destroy you.

I will indeed discipline you, but only in due measure.

I will not allow you to go entirely unpunished.” ⁶ 

Yoel 2:14

2:14 Who knows?

Perhaps he will be compassionate and grant a reprieve, ⁷ 

and leave blessing in his wake ⁸  –

a meal offering and a drink offering for you to offer to the Lord your God! ⁹ 

Amos 9:8-9

9:8 Look, the sovereign Lord is watching ¹⁰  the sinful nation, ¹¹ 

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

But I will not completely destroy the family ¹²  of Jacob,” says the Lord.

9:9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground. ¹³ 

Matius 24:22

24:22 And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

Markus 13:20

13:20 And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved. But because of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut them ¹⁴  short.

Roma 9:27-29

9:27 And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children ¹⁵  of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, 9:28 for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.” ¹⁶  9:29 Just ¹⁷  as Isaiah predicted,

“If the Lord of armies ¹⁸  had not left us descendants,

we would have become like Sodom,

and we would have resembled Gomorrah.” ¹⁹ 

Roma 11:5-6

11:5 So in the same way at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 11:6 And if it is by grace, it is no longer by works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

Roma 11:24-26

11:24 For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

11:25 For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, ²⁰  so that you may not be conceited: A partial hardening has happened to Israel ²¹  until the full number ²²  of the Gentiles has come in. 11:26 And so ²³  all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion;

he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.

[6:13]  ¹ tn Or “be burned” (NRSV); NIV “laid waste.”

[6:13]  ² tn Heb “like a massive tree or like a big tree” (perhaps, “like a terebinth or like an oak”).

[6:13]  ³ tn The Hebrew text has “which in the felling, a sacred pillar in them.” Some take מַצֶּבֶת (matsevet) as “stump,” and translate, “which, when chopped down, have a stump remaining in them.” But elsewhere מַצֶּבֶת refers to a memorial pillar (2 Sam 18:18) and the word resembles מַצֶּבָה (matsevah, “sacred pillar”). בָּם (bam, “in them”) may be a corruption of בָּמָה (bamah, “high place”; the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has במה). אֳשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) becomes a problem in this case, but one might emend the form to וּכְּאֲשֵׁרָה (ukÿ’asherah, “or like an Asherah pole”) and translate, “like one of the large sacred trees or an Asherah pole.” Though the text is difficult, the references to sacred trees and a sacred pillar suggest that the destruction of a high place is in view, an apt metaphor for the judgment of idolatrous Judah.

[6:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “a holy offspring [is] its sacred pillar.” If מַצֶּבֶת (matsevet) is taken as “stump,” one can see in this statement a brief glimpse of hope. The tree (the nation) is chopped down, but the stump (a righteous remnant) remains from which God can restore the nation. However, if מַצֶּבֶת is taken as “sacred pillar” (מַצֶּבָה, matsevah; see the previous note), it is much more difficult to take the final statement in a positive sense. In this case “holy offspring” alludes to God’s ideal for his covenant people, the offspring of the patriarchs. Ironically that “holy” nation is more like a “sacred pillar” and it will be thrown down like a sacred pillar from a high place and its land destroyed like the sacred trees located at such shrines. Understood in this way, the ironic statement is entirely negative in tone, just like the rest of the preceding announcement of judgment. It also reminds the people of their failure; they did not oppose pagan religion, instead they embraced it. Now they will be destroyed in the same way they should have destroyed paganism.

[30:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[30:11]  ⁶ tn The translation “entirely unpunished” is intended to reflect the emphatic construction of the infinitive absolute before the finite verb.

[2:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “turn” or “turn back.”

[2:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “leave a blessing behind him.”

[2:14]  ⁹ tn The phrase “for you to offer” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[9:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the eyes of the sovereign Lord are on.”

[9:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “kingdom.”

[9:8]  ¹² tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

[9:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “like being shaken with a sieve, and a pebble does not fall to the ground.” The meaning of the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror), translated “pebble,” is unclear here. In 2 Sam 17:13 it appears to refer to a stone. If it means “pebble,” then the sieve described in v. 6 allows the grain to fall into a basket while retaining the debris and pebbles. However, if one interprets צְרוֹר as a “kernel of grain” (cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT) then the sieve is constructed to retain the grain and allow the refuse and pebbles to fall to the ground. In either case, the simile supports the last statement in v. 8 by making it clear that God will distinguish between the righteous (the grain) and the wicked (the pebbles) when he judges, and will thereby preserve a remnant in Israel. Only the sinners will be destroyed (v. 10).

[13:20]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “the days.”

[9:27]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “sons.”

[9:28]  ¹⁶ tc In light of the interpretive difficulty of this verse, a longer reading seems to have been added to clarify the meaning. The addition, in the middle of the sentence, makes the whole verse read as follows: “For he will execute his sentence completely and quickly in righteousness, because the Lord will do it quickly on the earth.” The shorter reading is found largely in Alexandrian mss (Ì⁴⁶ א* A B 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), while the longer reading is found principally in Western and Byzantine mss (א² D F G Ψ 33 Ï lat). The longer reading follows Isa 10:22-23 (LXX) verbatim, while Paul in the previous verse quoted the LXX loosely. This suggests the addition was made by a copyist trying to make sense out of a difficult passage rather than by the author himself.

[9:28]  tn There is a wordplay in Greek (in both the LXX and here) on the phrase translated “completely and quickly” (συντελῶν καὶ συντέμνων, suntelwn kai suntemnwn). These participles are translated as adverbs for smoothness; a more literal (and more cumbersome) rendering would be: “The Lord will act by closing the account [or completing the sentence], and by cutting short the time.” The interpretation of this text is notoriously difficult. Cf. BDAG 975 s.v. συντέμνω.

[9:28]  sn A modified quotation from Isa 10:22-23. Since it is not exact, it has been printed as italics only.

[9:29]  ¹⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[9:29]  ¹⁸ tn Traditionally, “Lord of hosts”; Grk “Lord Sabaoth,” which means “Lord of the [heavenly] armies,” sometimes translated more generally as “Lord Almighty.”

[9:29]  ¹⁹ sn A quotation from Isa 1:9.

[11:25]  ²⁰ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[11:25]  ²¹ tn Or “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.”

[11:25]  ²² tn Grk “fullness.”

[11:26]  ²³ tn It is not clear whether the phrase καὶ οὕτως (kai Joutws, “and so”) is to be understood in a modal sense (“and in this way”) or in a temporal sense (“and in the end”). Neither interpretation is conclusive from a grammatical standpoint, and in fact the two may not be mutually exclusive. Some, like H. Hübner, who argue strongly against the temporal reading, nevertheless continue to give the phrase a temporal significance, saying that God will save all Israel in the end (Gottes Ich und Israel [FRLANT], 118).