Kejadian 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ¹  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ² 

Mazmur 68:1

Psalm 68 ³ 

For the music director; by David, a psalm, a song.

68:1 God springs into action! ⁴ 

His enemies scatter;

his adversaries ⁵  run from him. ⁶ 

Yeremia 14:9

14:9 Why should you be like someone who is helpless, ⁷ 

like a champion ⁸  who cannot save anyone?

You are indeed with us, ⁹ 

and we belong to you. ¹⁰ 

Do not abandon us!”

[18:14]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

[18:14]  ² sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

[68:1]  ³ sn Psalm 68. The psalmist depicts God as a mighty warrior and celebrates the fact that God exerts his power on behalf of his people.

[68:1]  ⁴ tn Or “rises up.” The verb form is an imperfect, not a jussive. The psalmist is describing God’s appearance in battle in a dramatic fashion.

[68:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “those who hate him.”

[68:1]  ⁶ sn The wording of v. 1 echoes the prayer in Num 10:35: “Spring into action, Lord! Then your enemies will be scattered and your adversaries will run from you.”

[14:9]  ⁷ tn This is the only time this word occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The lexicons generally take it to mean “confused” or “surprised” (cf., e.g., BDB 187 s.v. דָּהַם). However, the word has been found in a letter from the seventh century in a passage where it must mean something like “be helpless”; see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:433, for discussion and bibliography of an article where this letter is dealt with.

[14:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “mighty man, warrior.” For this nuance see 1 Sam 17:51 where it parallels a technical term used of Goliath used earlier in 17:4, 23.

[14:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “in our midst.”

[14:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Your name is called upon us.” See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 for this idiom with respect to the temple and see the notes on Jer 7:10.