Deuteronomy 16:14-15

16:14 You are to rejoice in your festival, you, your son, your daughter, your male and female slaves, the Levites, the resident foreigners, the orphans, and the widows who are in your villages. ¹  16:15 You are to celebrate the festival seven days before the Lord your God in the place he ²  chooses, for he ³  will bless you in all your productivity and in whatever you do; ⁴  so you will indeed rejoice!

Isaiah 35:10

35:10 those whom the Lord has ransomed will return that way. ⁵ 

They will enter Zion with a happy shout.

Unending joy will crown them, ⁶ 

happiness and joy will overwhelm ⁷  them;

grief and suffering will disappear. ⁸ 

Isaiah 66:10

66:10 Be happy for Jerusalem

and rejoice with her, all you who love her!

Share in her great joy,

all you who have mourned over her!

John 16:22

16:22 So also you have sorrow ⁹  now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. ¹⁰ 

Romans 5:11

5:11 Not ¹¹  only this, but we also rejoice ¹²  in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

Philippians 3:3

3:3 For we are the circumcision, ¹³  the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, ¹⁴  exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials ¹⁵ 

Philippians 4:4

4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice!

Philippians 4:1

Christian Practices

4:1 So then, my brothers and sisters, ¹⁶  dear friends whom I long to see, my joy and crown, stand in the Lord in this way, my dear friends!

Philippians 1:8

1:8 For God is my witness that I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

¹ tn Heb “in your gates.”

² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

⁴ tn Heb “in all the work of your hands” (so NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “in all your undertakings.”

⁵ tn Heb “and the redeemed will walk, the ransomed of the Lord will return.”

⁶ tn Heb “[will be] on their head[s].” “Joy” may be likened here to a crown (cf. 2 Sam 1:10). The statement may also be an ironic twist on the idiom “earth/dust on the head” (cf. 2 Sam 1:2; 13:19; 15:32; Job 2:12), referring to a mourning practice.

⁷ tn Heb “will overtake” (NIV); NLT “they will be overcome with.”

⁸ tn Heb “grief and groaning will flee”; KJV “sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

⁹ tn Or “distress.”

¹⁰ sn An allusion to Isa 66:14 LXX, which reads: “Then you will see, and your heart will be glad, and your bones will flourish like the new grass; and the hand of the Lord will be made known to his servants, but he will be indignant toward his enemies.” The change from “you will see [me]” to I will see you places more emphasis on Jesus as the one who reinitiates the relationship with the disciples after his resurrection, but v. 16 (you will see me) is more like Isa 66:14. Further support for seeing this allusion as intentional is found in Isa 66:7, which uses the same imagery of the woman giving birth found in John 16:21. In the context of Isa 66 the passages refer to the institution of the messianic kingdom, and in fact the last clause of 66:14 along with the following verses (15-17) have yet to be fulfilled. This is part of the tension of present and future eschatological fulfillment that runs throughout the NT, by virtue of the fact that there are two advents. Some prophecies are fulfilled or partially fulfilled at the first advent, while other prophecies or parts of prophecies await fulfillment at the second.

¹¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

¹² tn Or “exult, boast.”

¹³ tn There is a significant wordplay here in the Greek text. In v. 2 a rare, strong word is used to describe those who were pro-circumcision (κατατομή, katatomh, “mutilation”; see BDAG 528 s.v.), while in v. 3 the normal word for circumcision is used (περιτομή, peritomh; see BDAG 807 s.v.). Both have τομή (the feminine form of the adjective τομός [tomo"], meaning “cutting, sharp”) as their root; the direction of the action of the former is down or off (from κατά, kata), hence the implication of mutilation or emasculation, while the direction of the action of the latter is around (from περί, peri). The similarity in sound yet wide divergence of meaning between the two words highlights in no uncertain terms the differences between Paul and his opponents.

¹⁴ tc The verb λατρεύω (latreuw; here the participial form, λατρεύοντες [latreuonte"]) either takes a dative direct object or no object at all, bearing virtually a technical nuance of “worshiping God” (see BDAG 587 s.v.). In this text, πνεύματι (pneumati) takes an instrumental force (“by the Spirit”) rather than functioning as object of λατρεύοντες. However, the word after πνεύματι is in question, no doubt because of the collocation with λατρεύοντες. Most witnesses, including some of the earliest and best representatives of the Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine texts (א* A B C D² F G 0278^vid 33 1739 1881 Ï co Ambr), read θεοῦ (qeou; thus, “worship by the Spirit of God”). But several other important witnesses (א² D* P Ψ 075 365 1175 lat sy Chr) have the dative θεῷ (qew) here (“worship God by the Spirit”). Ì⁴⁶ is virtually alone in its omission of the divine name, probably due to an unintentional oversight. The dative θεῷ was most likely a scribal emendation intended to give the participle its proper object, and thus avoid confusion about the force of πνεύματι. Although the Church came to embrace the full deity of the Spirit, the NT does not seem to speak of worshiping the Spirit explicitly. The reading θεῷ thus appears to be a clarifying reading. On external and internal grounds, then, θεοῦ is the preferred reading.

¹⁵ tn Grk “have no confidence in the flesh.”

¹⁶ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:12.