Yesaya 8:12

8:12 “Do not say, ‘Conspiracy,’ every time these people say the word. ¹ 

Don’t be afraid of what scares them; don’t be terrified.

Yesaya 37:27

37:27 Their residents are powerless; ² 

they are terrified and ashamed.

They are as short-lived as plants in the field

or green vegetation. ³ 

They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ⁴ 

when it is scorched by the east wind. ⁵ 

Imamat 26:36-37

26:36 “‘As for ⁶  the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer. 26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ⁷  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ⁸  for you before your enemies.

Bilangan 14:1-3

The Israelites Respond in Unbelief

14:1 ⁹ Then all the community raised a loud cry, ¹⁰  and the people wept ¹¹  that night. 14:2 And all the Israelites murmured ¹²  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ¹³  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ¹⁴  in this wilderness! 14:3 Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”

Ulangan 28:65-66

28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. ¹⁵ 

Ulangan 28:2

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹⁶  if you obey the Lord your God:

Kisah Para Rasul 7:6-7

7:6 But God spoke as follows: ‘Your ¹⁷  descendants will be foreigners ¹⁸  in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years. ¹⁹  7:7 But I will punish ²⁰  the nation they serve as slaves,’ said God, ‘and after these things they will come out of there ²¹  and worship ²²  me in this place.’ ²³ 

Mazmur 11:1

Psalm 11 ²⁴ 

For the music director; by David.

11:1 In the Lord I have taken shelter. ²⁵ 

How can you say to me, ²⁶ 

“Flee to a mountain like a bird! ²⁷ 

Mazmur 27:1-2

Psalm 27 ²⁸ 

By David.

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! ²⁹ 

I fear no one! ³⁰ 

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one! ³¹ 

27:2 When evil men attack me ³² 

to devour my flesh, ³³ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ³⁴ 

they stumble and fall. ³⁵ 

Mazmur 112:7-8

112:7 He does not fear bad news.

He ³⁶  is confident; he trusts ³⁷  in the Lord.

112:8 His resolve ³⁸  is firm; he will not succumb to fear

before he looks in triumph on his enemies.

Amsal 28:1

28:1 The wicked person flees when there is no one pursuing, ³⁹ 

but the righteous person is as confident ⁴⁰  as a lion.

Matius 2:3

2:3 When King Herod ⁴¹  heard this he was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him.

[8:12]  ¹ tn Heb “Do not say, ‘Conspiracy,’ with respect to all which these people say, ‘Conspiracy.’” The verb translated “do not say” is second masculine plural, indicating that this exhortation is directed to Isaiah and other followers of the Lord (see v. 16).

[8:12]  sn The background of this command is uncertain. Perhaps the “conspiracy” in view is the alliance between Israel and Syria. Some of the people may even have thought that individuals in Judah were plotting with Israel and Syria to overthrow the king.

[37:27]  ² tn Heb “short of hand”; KJV, ASV “of small power”; NASB “short of strength.”

[37:27]  ³ tn Heb “they are plants in the field and green vegetation.” The metaphor emphasizes how short-lived these seemingly powerful cities really were. See Ps 90:5-6; Isa 40:6-8, 24.

[37:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.

[37:27]  ⁵ tc The Hebrew text has “scorched before the standing grain” (perhaps meaning “before it reaches maturity”), but it is preferable to emend קָמָה (qamah, “standing grain”) to קָדִים (qadim, “east wind”) with the support of 1Q Isa^a; cf. J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:657, n. 8.

[26:36]  ⁶ tn Heb “And.”

[26:37]  ⁷ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.

[26:37]  ⁸ tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.

[14:1]  ⁹ sn This chapter forms part of the story already begun. There are three major sections here: dissatisfaction with the reports (vv. 1-10), the threat of divine punishment (vv. 11-38), and the defeat of the Israelites (vv. 39-45). See K. D. Sakenfeld, “The Problem of Divine Forgiveness in Num 14,” CBQ 37 (1975): 317-30; also J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word רֹאשׁ as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 (1969): 1-10.

[14:1]  ¹⁰ tn The two verbs “lifted up their voice and cried” form a hendiadys; the idiom of raising the voice means that they cried aloud.

[14:1]  ¹¹ tn There are a number of things that the verb “to weep” or “wail” can connote. It could reflect joy, grief, lamentation, or repentance, but here it reflects fear, hopelessness, or vexation at the thought of coming all this way and being defeated by the Canaanite armies. See Judg 20:23, 26.

[14:2]  ¹² tn The Hebrew verb “to murmur” is לוּן (lun). It is a strong word, signifying far more than complaining or grumbling, as some of the modern translations have it. The word is most often connected to the wilderness experience. It is paralleled in the literature with the word “to rebel.” The murmuring is like a parliamentary vote of no confidence, for they no longer trusted their leaders and wished to choose a new leader and return. This “return to Egypt” becomes a symbol of their lack of faith in the Lord.

[14:2]  ¹³ tn The optative is expressed by לוּ (lu) and then the verb, here the perfect tense מַתְנוּ (matnu) – “O that we had died….” Had they wanted to die in Egypt they should not have cried out to the Lord to deliver them from bondage. Here the people became consumed with the fear and worry of what lay ahead, and in their panic they revealed a lack of trust in God.

[14:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “died.”

[28:66]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.

[28:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[7:6]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “that his”; the discourse switches from indirect to direct with the following verbs. For consistency the entire quotation is treated as second person direct discourse in the translation.

[7:6]  ¹⁸ tn Or “will be strangers,” that is, one who lives as a noncitizen of a foreign country.

[7:6]  ¹⁹ sn A quotation from Gen 15:13. Exod 12:40 specifies the sojourn as 430 years.

[7:7]  ²⁰ tn BDAG 568 s.v. κρίνω 5.b.α states, “Oft. the emphasis is unmistakably laid upon that which follows the Divine Judge’s verdict, upon the condemnation or punishment: condemn, punish …Ac 7:7 (Gen 15:14).”

[7:7]  ²¹ tn The words “of there” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[7:7]  sn A quotation from Gen 15:14.

[7:7]  ²² tn Or “and serve,” but with religious/cultic overtones (BDAG 587 s.v. λατρεύω).

[7:7]  ²³ sn An allusion to Exod 3:12.

[11:1]  ²⁴ sn Psalm 11. The psalmist rejects the advice to flee from his dangerous enemies. Instead he affirms his confidence in God’s just character and calls down judgment on evildoers.

[11:1]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew perfect verbal form probably refers here to a completed action with continuing results.

[11:1]  ²⁶ tn The pronominal suffix attached to נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is equivalent to a personal pronoun. See Ps 6:3.

[11:1]  ²⁷ tc The MT is corrupt here. The Kethib (consonantal text) reads: “flee [masculine plural!] to your [masculine plural!] mountain, bird.” The Qere (marginal reading) has “flee” in a feminine singular form, agreeing grammatically with the addressee, the feminine noun “bird.” Rather than being a second masculine plural pronominal suffix, the ending כֶם- (-khem) attached to “mountain” is better interpreted as a second feminine singular pronominal suffix followed by an enclitic mem (ם). “Bird” may be taken as vocative (“O bird”) or as an adverbial accusative of manner (“like a bird”). Either way, the psalmist’s advisers compare him to a helpless bird whose only option in the face of danger is to fly away to an inaccessible place.

[27:1]  ²⁸ sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.

[27:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).

[27:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[27:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[27:2]  ³² tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ³³ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ³⁵ tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

[112:7]  ³⁶ tn Heb “his heart,” viewed here as the seat of the volition and emotions (see Ps 108:1).

[112:7]  ³⁷ tn The passive participle בָּטֻחַ [בָּטוּחַ] (batuakh [batuakh]) expresses a state that results from the subject’s action. See Isa 26:3.

[112:8]  ³⁸ tn Heb “his heart,” viewed here as the seat of the volition.

[28:1]  ³⁹ sn The line portrays the insecurity of a guilty person – he flees because he has a guilty conscience, or because he is suspicious of others around him, or because he fears judgment.

[28:1]  ⁴⁰ tn The verb בָּטַח (batakh) means “to trust; to be secure; to be confident.” Cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “bold.”

[28:1]  sn The righteous, who seek to find favor with God and man, have a clear conscience and do not need to look over their shoulders for avengers or law enforcers. Their position is one of confidence, so that they do not flee.

[2:3]  ⁴¹ sn See the note on King Herod in 2:1.