Yeremia 28:13-14

28:13 “Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says, ¹  ‘You have indeed broken the wooden yoke. But you have ²  only succeeded in replacing it with an iron one! ³  28:14 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁴  says, “I have put an irresistible yoke of servitude on all these nations ⁵  so they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they will indeed serve him. I have even given him control over the wild animals.”’” ⁶ 

Yeremia 44:28

44:28 Some who survive in battle will return to the land of Judah from the land of Egypt. But they will be very few indeed! ⁷  Then the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will know whose word proves true, ⁸  mine or theirs.’

Ayub 23:13

23:13 But he is unchangeable, ⁹  and who can change ¹⁰  him?

Whatever he ¹¹  has desired, he does.

Zakharia 1:5-6

1:5 “As for your ancestors, where are they? And did the prophets live forever? 1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ¹²  Then they paid attention ¹³  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

Matius 24:35

24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. ¹⁴ 

Matius 24:2

24:2 And he said to them, ¹⁵  “Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth, ¹⁶  not one stone will be left on another. ¹⁷  All will be torn down!” ¹⁸ 

Titus 2:13

2:13 as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing ¹⁹  of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. ²⁰ 

[28:13]  ¹ tn Heb “Hananiah, ‘Thus says the Lord….” The translation uses an indirect quotation here used to eliminate one level of embedded quotation.

[28:13]  ² tn The Greek version reads “I have made/put” rather than “you have made/put.” This is the easier reading and is therefore rejected.

[28:13]  ³ tn Heb “the yoke bars of wood you have broken, but you have made in its stead yoke bars of iron.”

[28:13]  sn This whole incident (and the preceding one in Jer 28) is symbolic. Jeremiah’s wearing of the yoke was symbolic of the Lord’s message to submit to Babylonian authority. Hananiah’s breaking of the yoke was a prediction that that authority would not last beyond two years. By breaking the yoke he was encouraging rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar’s (and hence the Lord’s) authority (cf. 27:9, 14). However, rebelling would only result in further, harsher, more irresistible measures by Nebuchadnezzar to control such rebellion.

[28:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for this title.

[28:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “An iron yoke I have put on the necks of all these nations.”

[28:14]  ⁶ sn The emphasis is on the absoluteness of Nebuchadnezzar’s control. The statement is once again rhetorical and not to be taken literally. See the study note on 27:6.

[44:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “The survivors of the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number [more literally, “men of number”; for the idiom see BDB 709 s.v. מִסְפָּר 1.a].” The term “survivors of the sword” may be intended to represent both those who survive death in war or death by starvation or disease, a synecdoche of species for all three genera.

[44:28]  sn This statement shows that the preceding “none,” “never again,” “all” in vv. 26-27 are rhetorical hyperbole. Not all but almost all; very few would survive. The following statement implies that the reason that they are left alive is to bear witness to the fact that the Lord’s threats were indeed carried out. See vv. 11-14 for a parallel use of “all” and “none” qualified by a “few.”

[44:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “will stand,” i.e., in the sense of being fulfilled, proving to be true, or succeeding (see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g).

[23:13]  ⁹ tc The MT has “But he [is] in one.” Many add the word “mind” to capture the point that God is resolute and unchanging. Some commentators find this too difficult, and so change the text from בְאֶחָד (bÿ’ekhad, here “unchangeable”) to בָחָר (bakhar, “he has chosen”). The wording in the text is idiomatic and should be retained. R. Gordis (Job, 262) translates it “he is one, i.e., unchangeable, fixed, determined.” The preposition בּ (bet) is a bet essentiae – “and he [is] as one,” or “he is one” (see GKC 379 §119.i).

[23:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “cause him to return.”

[23:13]  ¹¹ tn Or “his soul.”

[1:6]  ¹² tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

[1:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

[24:35]  ¹⁴ sn The words that Jesus predicts here will never pass away. They are more stable and lasting than creation itself. For this kind of image, see Isa 40:8; 55:10-11.

[24:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “answering, he said to them.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (ajpokriqei") is redundant in English and has not been translated.

[24:2]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[24:2]  ¹⁷ sn With the statement not one stone will be left on another Jesus predicted the total destruction of the temple, something that did occur in a.d. 70.

[24:2]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “not one stone will be left here on another which will not be thrown down.”

[2:13]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “the blessed hope and glorious appearing.”

[2:13]  ²⁰ tn The terms “God and Savior” both refer to the same person, Jesus Christ. This is one of the clearest statements in the NT concerning the deity of Christ. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. The only issue is whether terms such as “God” and “Savior” could be considered common nouns as opposed to proper names. Sharp and others who followed (such as T. F. Middleton in his masterful The Doctrine of the Greek Article) demonstrated that a proper name in Greek was one that could not be pluralized. Since both “God” (θεός, qeos) and “savior” (σωτήρ, swthr) were occasionally found in the plural, they did not constitute proper names, and hence, do fit Sharp’s rule. Although there have been 200 years of attempts to dislodge Sharp’s rule, all attempts have been futile. Sharp’s rule stands vindicated after all the dust has settled. For more information on Sharp’s rule see ExSyn 270-78, esp. 276. See also 2 Pet 1:1 and Jude 4.