Yeremia 7:16

7:16 Then the Lord said, ¹  “As for you, Jeremiah, ²  do not pray for these people! Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf! Do not plead with me to save them, ³  because I will not listen to you.

Yeremia 15:1

15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ⁴  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ⁵  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ⁶ 

Yeremia 18:20

18:20 Should good be paid back with evil?

Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. ⁷ 

Just remember how I stood before you

pleading on their behalf ⁸ 

to keep you from venting your anger on them. ⁹ 

Yeremia 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹⁰  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ¹¹  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ¹² 

Kejadian 18:24-33

18:24 What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare ¹³  the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it? 18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the godly with the wicked, treating the godly and the wicked alike! Far be it from you! Will not the judge ¹⁴  of the whole earth do what is right?” ¹⁵ 

18:26 So the Lord replied, “If I find in the city of Sodom fifty godly people, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

18:27 Then Abraham asked, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord ¹⁶  (although I am but dust and ashes), ¹⁷  18:28 what if there are five less than the fifty godly people? Will you destroy ¹⁸  the whole city because five are lacking?” ¹⁹  He replied, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

18:29 Abraham ²⁰  spoke to him again, ²¹  “What if forty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it for the sake of the forty.”

18:30 Then Abraham ²²  said, “May the Lord not be angry ²³  so that I may speak! ²⁴  What if thirty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

18:31 Abraham ²⁵  said, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”

18:32 Finally Abraham ²⁶  said, “May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak just once more. What if ten are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.”

18:33 The Lord went on his way ²⁷  when he had finished speaking ²⁸  to Abraham. Then Abraham returned home. ²⁹ 

Kejadian 20:17

20:17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children.

Kejadian 20:1

Abraham and Abimelech

20:1 Abraham journeyed from there to the Negev ³⁰  region and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived as a temporary resident ³¹  in Gerar,

1 Samuel 7:8

7:8 The Israelites said to Samuel, “Keep ³²  crying out to the Lord our ³³  God so that he may save us ³⁴  from the hand of the Philistines!”

1 Samuel 12:19

12:19 All the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God on behalf of us – your servants – so we won’t die, for we have added to all our sins by asking for a king.” ³⁵ 

1 Samuel 12:23

12:23 As far as I am concerned, far be it from me to sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you! I will instruct you in the way that is good and upright.

1 Samuel 12:2

12:2 Now look! This king walks before you. As for me, I am old and gray, though my sons are here with you. I have walked before you from the time of my youth till the present day.

1 Samuel 1:20

1:20 After some time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, thinking, “I asked the Lord for him. ³⁶ 

Ayub 42:8-9

42:8 So now take ³⁷  seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will intercede ³⁸  for you, and I will respect him, ³⁹  so that I do not deal with you ⁴⁰  according to your folly, ⁴¹  because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has.” ⁴² 

42:9 So they went, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and did just as the Lord had told them; and the Lord had respect for Job. ⁴³ 

Yehezkiel 14:14

14:14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, ⁴⁴  and Job, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign Lord.

Yehezkiel 14:18-20

14:18 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters – they would save only their own lives.

14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals. 14:20 Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

Yehezkiel 22:30

22:30 “I looked for a man from among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. ⁴⁵ 

Maleakhi 1:9

1:9 But now plead for God’s favor ⁴⁶  that he might be gracious to us. ⁴⁷  “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

Yakobus 5:16-18

5:16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. ⁴⁸  5:17 Elijah was a human being ⁴⁹  like us, and he prayed earnestly ⁵⁰  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! 5:18 Then ⁵¹  he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest.

[7:16]  ¹ tn The words “Then the Lord said” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ² tn Heb “As for you.” The personal name Jeremiah is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ³ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[15:1]  ⁴ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27, Deut 4:10.

[15:1]  sn Moses and Samuel were well-known for their successful intercession on behalf of Israel. See Ps 99:6-8 and see, e.g., Exod 32:11-14, 30-34; 1 Sam 7:5-9. The Lord is here rejecting Jeremiah’s intercession on behalf of the people (14:19-22).

[15:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “my soul would not be toward them.” For the usage of “soul” presupposed here see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 6 in the light of the complaints and petitions in Jeremiah’s prayer in 14:19, 21.

[15:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”

[18:20]  ⁷ tn Or “They are plotting to kill me”; Heb “They have dug a pit for my soul.” This is a common metaphor for plotting against someone. See BDB 500 s.v. כָּרָה Qal and for an example see Pss 7:16 (7:15 HT) in its context.

[18:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “to speak good concerning them” going back to the concept of “good” being paid back with evil.

[18:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “to turn back your anger from them.”

[18:20]  sn See Jer 14:7-9, 19-21 and 15:1-4 for the idea.

[42:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.

[42:2]  ¹² tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[18:24]  ¹³ tn Heb “lift up,” perhaps in the sense of “bear with” (cf. NRSV “forgive”).

[18:25]  ¹⁴ tn Or “ruler.”

[18:25]  ¹⁵ sn Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right? For discussion of this text see J. L. Crenshaw, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,” ZAW 82 (1970): 380-95, and C. S. Rodd, “Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Just?” ExpTim 83 (1972): 137-39.

[18:27]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here and in vv. 30, 31, 32 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[18:27]  ¹⁷ tn The disjunctive clause is a concessive clause here, drawing out the humility as a contrast to the Lord.

[18:28]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew verb שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) was used earlier to describe the effect of the flood.

[18:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “because of five.”

[18:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:29]  ²¹ tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys – the preterite (“he added”) is combined with an adverb “yet” and an infinitive “to speak.”

[18:30]  ²² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:30]  ²³ tn Heb “let it not be hot to the Lord.” This is an idiom which means “may the Lord not be angry.”

[18:30]  ²⁴ tn After the jussive, the cohortative indicates purpose/result.

[18:31]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:32]  ²⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “And the Lord went.”

[18:33]  ²⁸ tn The infinitive construct (“speaking”) serves as the direct object of the verb “finished.”

[18:33]  ²⁹ tn Heb “to his place.”

[20:1]  ³⁰ tn Or “the South [country]”; Heb “the land of the Negev.”

[20:1]  sn Negev is the name for the southern desert region in the land of Canaan.

[20:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “and he sojourned.”

[7:8]  ³² tn Heb “don’t stop.”

[7:8]  ³³ tc The LXX reads “your God” rather than the MT’s “our God.”

[7:8]  ³⁴ tn After the negated jussive, the prefixed verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.

[12:19]  ³⁵ tn Heb “for we have added to all our sins an evil [thing] by asking for ourselves a king.”

[1:20]  ³⁶ tn Heb “because from the Lord I asked him.” The name “Samuel” sounds like the Hebrew verb translated “asked.” The explanation of the meaning of the name “Samuel” that is provided in v. 20 is not a strict etymology. It seems to suggest that the first part of the name is derived from the Hebrew root שׁאל (sh’l, “to ask”), but the consonants do not support this. Nor is it likely that the name comes from the root שׁמא (shm’, “to hear”), for the same reason. It more probably derives from שֶׁם (shem, “name”), so that “Samuel” means “name of God.” Verse 20 therefore does not set forth a linguistic explanation of the meaning of the name, but rather draws a parallel between similar sounds. This figure of speech is known as paronomasia.

[42:8]  ³⁷ tn The imperatives in this verse are plural, so all three had to do this together.

[42:8]  ³⁸ tn The verb “pray” is the Hitpael from the root פָּלַל (palal). That root has the main idea of arbitration; so in this stem it means “to seek arbitration [for oneself],” or “to pray,” or “to intercede.”

[42:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “I will lift up his face,” meaning, “I will regard him.”

[42:8]  ⁴⁰ tn This clause is a result clause, using the negated infinitive construct.

[42:8]  ⁴¹ tn The word “folly” can also be taken in the sense of “disgrace.” If the latter is chosen, the word serves as the direct object. If the former, then it is an adverbial accusative.

[42:8]  ⁴² sn The difference between what they said and what Job said, therefore, has to do with truth. Job was honest, spoke the truth, poured out his complaints, but never blasphemed God. For his words God said he told the truth. He did so with incomplete understanding, and with all the impatience and frustration one might expect. Now the friends, however, did not tell what was right about God. They were not honest; rather, they were self-righteous and condescending. They were saying what they thought should be said, but it was wrong.

[42:9]  ⁴³ tn The expression “had respect for Job” means God answered his prayer.

[14:14]  ⁴⁴ sn Traditionally this has been understood as a reference to the biblical Daniel, though he was still quite young when Ezekiel prophesied. One wonders if he had developed a reputation as an intercessor by this point. For this reason some prefer to see a reference to a ruler named Danel, known in Canaanite legend for his justice and wisdom. In this case all three of the individuals named would be non-Israelites, however the Ugaritic Danel is not known to have qualities of faith in the Lord that would place him in the company of the other men. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:447-50.

[22:30]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “I did not find.”

[1:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “seek the face of God.”

[1:9]  ⁴⁷ tn After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunction indicates purpose (cf. NASB, NRSV).

[5:16]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”

[5:17]  ⁴⁹ tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.

[5:17]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).

[5:18]  ⁵¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events.