Yeremia 44:16-17

44:16 “We will not listen to what you claim the Lord has spoken to us! ¹  44:17 Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ²  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ³  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ⁴ 

Yeremia 44:25-26

44:25 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘You women ⁵  have confirmed by your actions what you vowed with your lips! You said, “We will certainly carry out our vows to sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven.” Well, then fulfill your vows! Carry them out!’ ⁶  44:26 But ⁷  listen to what the Lord has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The Lord says, ‘I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, “As surely as the Lord God lives….” ⁸ 

Yeremia 44:29

44:29 Moreover the Lord says, ⁹  ‘I will make something happen to prove that I will punish you in this place. I will do it so that you will know that my threats to bring disaster on you will prove true. ¹⁰ 

Bilangan 14:28-29

14:28 Say to them, ‘As I live, ¹¹  says ¹²  the Lord, I will surely do to you just what you have spoken in my hearing. ¹³  14:29 Your dead bodies ¹⁴  will fall in this wilderness – all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

Bilangan 14:41

14:41 But Moses said, “Why ¹⁵  are you now transgressing the commandment ¹⁶  of the Lord? It will not succeed!

Mazmur 33:11

33:11 The Lord’s decisions stand forever;

his plans abide throughout the ages. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 14:24-27

14:24 ¹⁸ The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow:

“Be sure of this:

Just as I have intended, so it will be;

just as I have planned, it will happen.

14:25 I will break Assyria ¹⁹  in my land,

I will trample them ²⁰  underfoot on my hills.

Their yoke will be removed from my people,

the burden will be lifted from their shoulders. ²¹ 

14:26 This is the plan I have devised for the whole earth;

my hand is ready to strike all the nations.” ²² 

14:27 Indeed, ²³  the Lord who commands armies has a plan,

and who can possibly frustrate it?

His hand is ready to strike,

and who can possibly stop it? ²⁴ 

Yesaya 28:16-18

28:16 Therefore, this is what the sovereign master, the Lord, says:

“Look, I am laying ²⁵  a stone in Zion,

an approved ²⁶  stone,

set in place as a precious cornerstone for the foundation. ²⁷ 

The one who maintains his faith will not panic. ²⁸ 

28:17 I will make justice the measuring line,

fairness the plumb line;

hail will sweep away the unreliable refuge, ²⁹ 

the floodwaters will overwhelm the hiding place.

28:18 Your treaty with death will be dissolved; ³⁰ 

your agreement ³¹  with Sheol will not last. ³² 

When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by, ³³ 

you will be overrun by it. ³⁴ 

Yesaya 46:10-11

46:10 who announces the end from the beginning

and reveals beforehand ³⁵  what has not yet occurred,

who says, ‘My plan will be realized,

I will accomplish what I desire,’

46:11 who summons an eagle ³⁶  from the east,

from a distant land, one who carries out my plan.

Yes, I have decreed, ³⁷ 

yes, I will bring it to pass;

I have formulated a plan,

yes, I will carry it out.

Ratapan 3:37-38

מ (Mem)

3:37 Whose command was ever fulfilled ³⁸ 

unless the Lord ³⁹  decreed it?

3:38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that everything comes –

both calamity and blessing? ⁴⁰ 

Zakharia 1:6

1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ⁴¹  Then they paid attention ⁴²  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. ⁴³ 

[44:16]  ¹ tn Heb “the word [or message] you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord.” For an explanation of the rendering of “in the name of the Lord” see the study notes on 10:25 and 23:27.

[44:17]  ² tn Heb “that went out of our mouth.” I.e., everything we said, promised, or vowed.

[44:17]  ³ tn Heb “sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” The expressions have been combined to simplify and shorten the sentence. The same combination also occurs in vv. 18, 19.

[44:17]  sn See the translator’s note and the study note on 7:18 for the problem of translation and identification of the term translated here “the goddess called the Queen of Heaven.”

[44:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “saw [or experienced] no disaster/trouble/harm.”

[44:25]  ⁵ tn Or “You and your wives.” The text and referent here is uncertain because of the confusing picture that the alternation of pronouns presents in this verse. Three of the main verbs are second feminine plurals and one of them is second masculine plural. All the pronominal suffixes on the nouns are second masculine plurals. The Hebrew text reads: “You [masc. pl.] and your [masc. pl.] wives have spoken [2nd fem. pl.; תְּדַבֵּרְנָה, tÿdabberÿnah] with your [masc. pl.] mouth and you have fulfilled [masc. pl.; מִלֵּאתֶם, mille’tem] with your [masc. pl.] hands, saying, ‘We [common gender] will certainly carry out….’ Indeed fulfill [2nd fem. pl.; תָּקִימְנָה, taqimnah] your [masc. pl.] vows and indeed carry out [2nd fem. pl.; תַעֲשֶׂינָה, ta’asenah] your [masc. pl.] vows.” Older commentaries, such as K&D 22:165, explain the feminine verbs as a matter of the women being the principle subject. Most all modern commentaries (e.g., J. A. Thompson, J. Bright, W. L. Holladay, and G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers) follow the reading of the Greek version which reads “you women” (= אַתֵּנָה הַנָּשִּׁים, [’attenah hannashim]) in place of “you and your wives” (אַתֶּם וּנְשֵׁיכֶם, ’attem unÿshekhem) in the Hebrew. None of them, however, explain the use of the 2nd masc. plurals here. This is possibly a case where the masculine forms are used in the place of the feminine due to the dislike of Hebrew to use the feminine plural forms (cf. GKC 459 §144.a and 466 §145.t). This seems all the more probable when 2nd fem. pl. verbs are qualified by nouns with 2nd masc. pl. suffixes. The translation here follows this interpretation of the masc. pl. forms and reads “you women” with the Greek version in place of “you and your wives” and sees the referents throughout as the women.

[44:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “Carry out your vows!”

[44:25]  sn The commands here are, of course, sarcastic and not meant to be taken literally.

[44:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “Therefore.” This particle quite often introduces the announcement of judgment after an indictment or accusation of a crime. That is its function here after the statement of cause in vv. 24-25. However, it would not sound right after the immediately preceding ironical or sarcastic commands to go ahead and fulfill their vows. “But” is a better transition unless one wants to paraphrase “Therefore, since you are so determined to do that….”

[44:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “Behold I swear by…that my name will no more be pronounced in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt saying, ‘As the Lord Yahweh lives.’” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style and the significance of pronouncing the name has been interpreted for the sake of readers who might not be familiar with this biblical idiom.

[44:26]  sn They will no longer be able to invoke his name in an oath because they will all be put to death (v. 27; cf. vv. 11-14).

[44:29]  ⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[44:29]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “This will be to you the sign, oracle of the Lord, that I will punish you in this place in order that you may know that my threats against you for evil/disaster/harm will certainly stand [see the translator’s note on the preceding verse for the meaning of this word here].” The word “sign” refers to an event that is a pre-omen or portent of something that will happen later (see BDB 16 s.v. אוֹת 2 and compare usage in 1 Sam 14:10; 2 Kgs 19:29). The best way to carry that idea across in this context seems to be “I will make something happen to prove [or portend].” Another possibility would be “I will give you a pre-omen that,” but many readers would probably not be familiar with “omen/pre-omen.” Again the sentence has been broken in two and restructured to better conform with English style.

[14:28]  ¹¹ sn Here again is the oath that God swore in his wrath, an oath he swore by himself, that they would not enter the land. “As the Lord lives,” or “by the life of the Lord,” are ways to render it.

[14:28]  ¹² tn The word נְאֻם (nÿ’um) is an “oracle.” It is followed by the subjective genitive: “the oracle of the Lord” is equal to saying “the Lord says.”

[14:28]  ¹³ tn Heb “in my ears.”

[14:28]  sn They had expressed the longing to have died in the wilderness, and not in war. God will now give them that. They would not say to God “your will be done,” so he says to them, “your will be done” (to borrow from C. S. Lewis).

[14:29]  ¹⁴ tn Or “your corpses” (also in vv. 32, 33).

[14:41]  ¹⁵ tn The line literally has, “Why is this [that] you are transgressing….” The demonstrative pronoun is enclitic; it brings the force of “why in the world are you doing this now?”

[14:41]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “mouth.”

[33:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the thoughts of his heart for generation to generation.” The verb “abides” is supplied in the translation. The Lord’s “decisions” and “plans” here refer to his decrees and purposes.

[14:24]  ¹⁸ sn Having announced the downfall of the Chaldean empire, the Lord appends to this prophecy a solemn reminder that the Assyrians, the major Mesopotamian power of Isaiah’s day, would be annihilated, foreshadowing what would subsequently happen to Babylon and the other hostile nations.

[14:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to break Assyria.”

[14:25]  ²⁰ tn Heb “him.” This is a collective singular referring to the nation, or a reference to the king of Assyria who by metonymy stands for the entire nation.

[14:25]  ²¹ tn Heb “and his [i.e., Assyria’s] yoke will be removed from them [the people?], and his [Assyria’s] burden from his [the nation’s?] shoulder will be removed.” There are no antecedents in this oracle for the suffixes in the phrases “from them” and “from his shoulder.” Since the Lord’s land and hills are referred to in the preceding line and the statement seems to echo 10:27, it is likely that God’s people are the referents of the suffixes; the translation uses “my people” to indicate this.

[14:26]  ²² tn Heb “and this is the hand that is outstretched over all the nations.”

[14:27]  ²³ tn Or “For” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[14:27]  ²⁴ tn Heb “His hand is outstretched and who will turn it back?”

[28:16]  ²⁵ tc The Hebrew text has a third person verb form, which does not agree with the first person suffix that precedes. The form should be emended to יֹסֵד (yosed), a Qal active participle used in a present progressive or imminent future sense.

[28:16]  ²⁶ tn Traditionally “tested,” but the implication is that it has passed the test and stands approved.

[28:16]  ²⁷ sn The reality behind the metaphor is not entirely clear from the context. The stone appears to represent someone or something that gives Zion stability. Perhaps the ideal Davidic ruler is in view (see 32:1). Another option is that the image of beginning a building project by laying a precious cornerstone suggests that God is about to transform Zion through judgment and begin a new covenant community that will experience his protection (see 4:3-6; 31:5; 33:20-24; 35:10).

[28:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “will not hurry,” i.e., act in panic.

[28:17]  ²⁹ tn Heb “[the] refuge, [the] lie.” See v. 15.

[28:18]  ³⁰ tn On the meaning of כָּפַר (kafar) in this context, see HALOT 494 s.v. I כפר and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:515, n. 9.

[28:18]  ³¹ tn Normally the noun חָזוּת (khazut) means “vision.” See the note at v. 15.

[28:18]  ³² tn Or “will not stand” (NIV, NRSV).

[28:18]  ³³ tn See the note at v. 15.

[28:18]  ³⁴ tn Heb “you will become a trampling place for it.”

[46:10]  ³⁵ tn Or “from long ago”; KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV “from ancient times.”

[46:11]  ³⁶ tn Or, more generally, “a bird of prey” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV; see 18:6).

[46:11]  ³⁷ tn Heb “spoken”; KJV “I have spoken it.”

[3:37]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Who is this, he spoke and it came to pass?” The general sense is to ask whose commands are fulfilled. The phrase “he spoke and it came to pass” is taken as an allusion to the creation account (see Gen 1:3).

[3:37]  ³⁹ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”). See the tc note at 1:14.

[3:38]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “From the mouth of the Most High does it not go forth, both evil and good?”

[1:6]  ⁴¹ 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]  ⁴² tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

[24:35]  ⁴³ 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.