Mazmur 119:10

119:10 With all my heart I seek you.

Do not allow me to stray from your commands!

Mazmur 95:10

95:10 For forty years I was continually disgusted ¹  with that generation,

and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray; ² 

they do not obey my commands.’ ³ 

Yeremia 50:17

50:17 “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ⁴ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ⁵ 

Yehezkiel 34:11

34:11 “‘For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out.

Lukas 15:4

15:4 “Which one ⁶  of you, if he has a hundred ⁷  sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture ⁸  and go look for ⁹  the one that is lost until he finds it? ¹⁰ 

[95:10]  ¹ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form.

[95:10]  ² tn Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.”

[95:10]  ³ tn Heb “and they do not know my ways.” In this context the Lord’s “ways” are his commands, viewed as a pathway from which his people, likened to wayward sheep (see v. 7), wander.

[50:17]  ⁴ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

[50:17]  ⁵ tn The verb used here only occurs this one time in the Hebrew Bible. It is a denominative from the Hebrew word for “bones” (עֶצֶם, ’etsem). BDB 1126 s.v. עֶָצַם, denom Pi, define it as “break his bones.” HALOT 822 s.v. II עָצַם Pi defines it as “gnaw on his bones.”

[50:17]  sn If the prophecies which are referred to in Jer 51:59-64 refer to all that is contained in Jer 50–51 (as some believe), this would have referred to the disasters of 605 b.c. and 598 b.c. and all the harassment that Israel experienced from Babylon up until the fourth year of Zedekiah (594 b.c.). If on the other hand, the prophecy related there refers to something less than this final form, the destruction of 587/6 b.c. could be referred to as well.

[15:4]  ⁶ tn Grk “What man.” The Greek word ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used here in a somewhat generic sense.

[15:4]  ⁷ sn This individual with a hundred sheep is a shepherd of modest means, as flocks often had up to two hundred head of sheep.

[15:4]  ⁸ tn Or “desert,” but here such a translation might suggest neglect of the 99 sheep left behind.

[15:4]  ⁹ tn Grk “go after,” but in contemporary English the idiom “to look for” is used to express this.

[15:4]  ¹⁰ sn Until he finds it. The parable pictures God’s pursuit of the sinner. On the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, see John 10:1-18.