Ulangan 26:5

26:5 Then you must affirm before the Lord your God, “A wandering ¹  Aramean ²  was my ancestor, ³  and he went down to Egypt and lived there as a foreigner with a household few in number, ⁴  but there he became a great, powerful, and numerous people.

Ulangan 26:1

Presentation of the First Fruits

26:1 When ⁵  you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it,

1 Tawarikh 16:20

16:20 they wandered from nation to nation,

and from one kingdom to another. ⁶ 

Yesaya 30:28

30:28 His battle cry overwhelms like a flooding river ⁷ 

that reaches one’s neck.

He shakes the nations in a sieve that isolates the chaff; ⁸ 

he puts a bit into the mouth of the nations and leads them to destruction. ⁹ 

[26:5]  ¹ tn Though the Hebrew term אָבַד (’avad) generally means “to perish” or the like (HALOT 2-3 s.v.; BDB 1-2 s.v.; cf. KJV “a Syrian ready to perish”), a meaning “to go astray” or “to be lost” is also attested. The ambivalence in the Hebrew text is reflected in the versions where LXX Vaticanus reads ἀπέβαλεν (apebalen, “lose”) for a possibly metathesized reading found in Alexandrinus, Ambrosianus, ἀπέλαβεν (apelaben, “receive”); others attest κατέλειπεν (kateleipen, “leave, abandon”). “Wandering” seems to suit best the contrast with the sedentary life Israel would enjoy in Canaan (v. 9) and is the meaning followed by many English versions.

[26:5]  ² sn A wandering Aramean. This is a reference to Jacob whose mother Rebekah was an Aramean (Gen 24:10; 25:20, 26) and who himself lived in Aram for at least twenty years (Gen 31:41-42).

[26:5]  ³ tn Heb “father.”

[26:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “sojourned there few in number.” The words “with a household” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.

[26:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and it will come to pass that.”

[16:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “and from a kingdom to another nation.”

[30:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “his breath is like a flooding river.” This might picture the Lord breathing heavily as he runs down his enemy, but in light of the preceding verse, which mentions his lips and tongue, “breath” probably stands metonymically for the word or battle cry that he expels from his mouth as he shouts. In Isa 34:16 and Ps 33:6 the Lord’s “breath” is associated with his command.

[30:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “shaking nations in a sieve of worthlessness.” It is not certain exactly how שָׁוְא (shavÿ’, “emptiness, worthlessness”) modifies “sieve.” A sieve is used to separate grain from chaff and isolate what is worthless so that it might be discarded. Perhaps the nations are likened to such chaff; God’s judgment will sift them out for destruction.

[30:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “and a bit that leads astray [is] in the jaws of the peoples.” Here the nations are likened to horse that can be controlled by a bit placed in its mouth. In this case the Lord uses his sovereign control over the “horse” to lead it to its demise.