Yeremia 30:8

30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ¹ 

says the Lord who rules over all, ² 

“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ³ 

I will deliver you from captivity. ⁴ 

Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

Keluaran 3:8

3:8 I have come down ⁵  to deliver them ⁶  from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, ⁷  to a land flowing with milk and honey, ⁸  to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ⁹ 

Imamat 26:13

26:13 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, ¹⁰  and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright. ¹¹ 

Ulangan 4:20

4:20 You, however, the Lord has selected and brought from Egypt, that iron-smelting furnace, ¹²  to be his special people ¹³  as you are today.

Ulangan 4:34

4:34 Or has God ¹⁴  ever before tried to deliver ¹⁵  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ¹⁶  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ¹⁷  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

Ulangan 15:15

15:15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you to do this thing today.

Yesaya 9:4

9:4 For their oppressive yoke

and the club that strikes their shoulders,

the cudgel the oppressor uses on them, ¹⁸ 

you have shattered, as in the day of Midian’s defeat. ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 10:27

10:27 At that time ²⁰ 

the Lord will remove their burden from your shoulders, ²¹ 

and their yoke from your neck;

the yoke will be taken off because your neck will be too large. ²² 

Yesaya 14:25

14:25 I will break Assyria ²³  in my land,

I will trample them ²⁴  underfoot on my hills.

Their yoke will be removed from my people,

the burden will be lifted from their shoulders. ²⁵ 

Nahum 1:13

1:13 And now, ²⁶  I will break Assyria’s ²⁷  yoke bar ²⁸  from your neck; ²⁹ 

I will tear apart the shackles ³⁰  that are on you.” ³¹ 

[30:8]  ¹ tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”

[30:8]  sn The time for them to be rescued (Heb “that day”) is the day of deliverance from the trouble alluded to at the end of the preceding verse, not the day of trouble mentioned at the beginning. Israel (even the good figs) will still need to go through the period of trouble (cf. vv. 10-11).

[30:8]  ² tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.

[30:8]  ³ tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.

[30:8]  sn In the immediate context the reference to the yoke of their servitude to foreign domination (Heb “his yoke”) should be understood as a reference to the yoke of servitude to Nebuchadnezzar which has been referred to often in Jer 27-28 (see, e.g., 27:8, 12; 28:2, 4, 11). The end of that servitude has already been referred to in 25:11-14; 29:11-14. Like many other passages in the OT it has been given a later eschatological reinterpretation in the light of subsequent bondages and lack of complete fulfillment, i.e., of restoration to the land and restoration of the Davidic monarchy.

[30:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.

[3:8]  ⁵ sn God’s coming down is a frequent anthropomorphism in Genesis and Exodus. It expresses his direct involvement, often in the exercise of judgment.

[3:8]  ⁶ tn The Hiphil infinitive with the suffix is לְהַצִּילוֹ (lÿhatsilo, “to deliver them”). It expresses the purpose of God’s coming down. The verb itself is used for delivering or rescuing in the general sense, and snatching out of danger for the specific.

[3:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “to a land good and large”; NRSV “to a good and broad land.” In the translation the words “that is both” are supplied because in contemporary English “good and” combined with any additional descriptive term can be understood as elative (“good and large” = “very large”; “good and spacious” = “very spacious”; “good and ready” = “very ready”). The point made in the Hebrew text is that the land to which they are going is both good (in terms of quality) and large (in terms of size).

[3:8]  ⁸ tn This vibrant description of the promised land is a familiar one. Gesenius classifies “milk and honey” as epexegetical genitives because they provide more precise description following a verbal adjective in the construct state (GKC 418-19 §128.x). The land is modified by “flowing,” and “flowing” is explained by the genitives “milk and honey.” These two products will be in abundance in the land, and they therefore exemplify what a desirable land it is. The language is hyperbolic, as if the land were streaming with these products.

[3:8]  ⁹ tn Each people group is joined to the preceding by the vav conjunction, “and.” Each also has the definite article, as in other similar lists (3:17; 13:5; 34:11). To repeat the conjunction and article in the translation seems to put more weight on the list in English than is necessary to its function in identifying what land God was giving the Israelites.

[26:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from being to them slaves.”

[26:13]  ¹¹ tn In other words, to walk as free people and not as slaves. Cf. NIV “with (+ your CEV, NLT) heads held high”; NCV “proudly.”

[4:20]  ¹² tn A כּוּר (kur) was not a source of heat but a crucible (“iron-smelting furnace”) in which precious metals were melted down and their impurities burned away (see I. Cornelius, NIDOTTE 2:618-19); cf. NAB “that iron foundry, Egypt.” The term is a metaphor for intense heat. Here it refers to the oppression and suffering Israel endured in Egypt. Since a crucible was used to burn away impurities, it is possible that the metaphor views Egypt as a place of refinement to bring Israel to a place of submission to divine sovereignty.

[4:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “to be his people of inheritance.” The Lord compares his people to valued property inherited from one’s ancestors and passed on to one’s descendants.

[4:34]  ¹⁴ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

[4:34]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

[4:34]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

[4:34]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

[9:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the scepter of the oppressor against him.” The singular pronouns are collective, referring to the people. The oppressed nation is compared to an ox weighed down by a heavy yoke and an animal that is prodded and beaten.

[9:4]  ¹⁹ sn This alludes to Gideon’s victory over Midian (Judg 7-8), when the Lord delivered Israel from an oppressive foreign invader.

[10:27]  ²⁰ tn Or “in that day” (KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[10:27]  ²¹ tn Heb “he [i.e., the Lord] will remove his [i.e, Assyria’s] burden from upon your shoulder.”

[10:27]  ²² tc The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads literally, “and the yoke will be destroyed (or perhaps, “pulled down”) because of fatness.” Perhaps this is a bizarre picture of an ox growing so fat that it breaks the yoke around its neck or can no longer fit into its yoke. Fatness would symbolize the Lord’s restored blessings; the removal of the yoke would symbolize the cessation of Assyrian oppression. Because of the difficulty of the metaphor, many prefer to emend the text at this point. Some emend וְחֻבַּל (vÿkhubbal, “and it will be destroyed,” a perfect with prefixed vav), to יִחְבֹּל (yikhbol, “[it] will be destroyed,” an imperfect), and take the verb with what precedes, “and their yoke will be destroyed from your neck.” Proponents of this view (cf. NAB, NRSV) then emend עֹל (’ol, “yoke”) to עָלָה (’alah, “he came up”) and understand this verb as introducing the following description of the Assyrian invasion (vv. 28-32). מִפְּנֵי־שָׁמֶן (mippÿney-shamen, “because of fatness”) is then emended to read “from before Rimmon” (NAB, NRSV), “from before Samaria,” or “from before Jeshimon.” Although this line may present difficulties, it appears best to regard the line as a graphic depiction of God’s abundant blessings on his servant nation.

[14:25]  ²³ tn Heb “to break Assyria.”

[14:25]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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.

[1:13]  ²⁶ tn The particle וְעַתָּה (vÿ’attah, “And now”) often introduces a transition in a prophetic oracle (HALOT 902 s.v. 3.a). It often draws a contrast between a past condition (as described in v. 12) and what will happen in the immediate future (as described in v. 13; see, e.g., Gen 11:6; 2 Sam 2:6; 2 Kgs 12:8). See H. A. Brongers, “Bemerkungen zum Gebrauch des adverbialen we’attah im Alten Testament,” VT 15 (1965): 289-99.

[1:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Assyria) has been supplied from context.

[1:13]  ²⁸ tc The BHS editors propose revocalizing the MT מֹטֵהוּ (motehu, “his yoke bar”) to מַטַּהַוּ (mattahu, “his scepter”). The threat of breaking an enemy’s scepter was a common ancient Near Eastern treaty curse (see D. Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets [BibOr], 61). This proposed revocalization has no external support. The MT is supported by the use of the parallel word pair מוֹטָה/מוֹסֵר (motah, “scepter”/moser, “bonds”) elsewhere (Jer 27:2). The term מוֹטָה is never used in parallelism with מוֹסֵר elsewhere.

[1:13]  sn The terms yoke bar and shackles are figures of speech (hypocatastasis) for Assyrian subjugation of Judah. The imagery of the yoke bar draws an implied comparison between the yoking of a beast of burden to the subjugation of a nation under a foreign power, i.e., vassaldom (Lev 26:13; Jer 27:2; 28:14; Ezek 30:18; 34:27). This imagery also alludes to the Assyrian use of “yoke” imagery to describe their subjugation of foreign nations to the status of vassal. When describing their subjugation of nations, Assyrian rulers frequently spoke of causing them to “pull my yoke.” Sennacherib subjugated Judah to the Assyrian “yoke” in 701 b.c. when he invaded Judah and forced Hezekiah into a position of Assyrian vassal: “I laid waste the large district of Judah and put the straps of my yoke upon Hezekiah, its king” (“Sennacherib: The Siege of Jerusalem,” lines 13-15, in ANET 288).

[1:13]  ²⁹ tn Heb “from you”; the word “neck” is supplied in the translation as a clarification for the modern reader who may be less familiar with the imagery of a yoke around the neck of farm animals or draft animals.

[1:13]  sn The statement I will break Assyria’s yoke bar from your neck draws an implied comparison (hypocatastasis) between breaking a plowing yoke off the neck of a farming animal and freeing a vassal from the tyranny of an oppressive suzerain through military conquest (Lev 26:13; Isa 58:6; Jer 30:8; Ezek 30:18; 34:27).

[1:13]  ³⁰ sn The phrase the shackles that are on you draws an implied comparison between the chains and stocks of prisoners or slaves with the burden of international vassaldom to a tyrannical suzerain who demands absolute obedience and requires annual tributary offerings (e.g., Ps 2:3; Isa 52:2; Jer 27:2; 30:8). “Shackles” were the agent of covenantal discipline (e.g., Deut 28:48). Isaiah stated that the Assyrian “yoke” was the Lord’s instrument of discipline (Isa 28:22). The phrase I will tear apart the shackles that are on you draws an implied comparison (hypocatastasis) between removing the iron chains from a prisoner/slave and freeing a vassal from the oppression of a tyrannical suzerain through military conquest (Ps 2:3; Isa 52:2).

[1:13]  ³¹ tn Heb “your shackles.”