Deuteronomy 4:37

4:37 Moreover, because he loved ¹  your ancestors, he chose their ²  descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power

Deuteronomy 10:15

10:15 However, only to your ancestors did he ³  show his loving favor, ⁴  and he chose you, their descendants, ⁵  from all peoples – as is apparent today.

Deuteronomy 10:1

The Opportunity to Begin Again

10:1 At that same time the Lord said to me, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark. ⁶ 

Deuteronomy 20:14-17

20:14 However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you. 20:15 This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

Laws Concerning War with Canaanite Nations

20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that ⁷  the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing ⁸  to survive. 20:17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them ⁹  – the Hittites, ¹⁰  Amorites, ¹¹  Canaanites, ¹²  Perizzites, ¹³  Hivites, ¹⁴  and Jebusites ¹⁵  – just as the Lord your God has commanded you,

Matthew 5:44-45

5:44 But I say to you, love your enemy and ¹⁶  pray for those who persecute you, 5:45 so that you may be like ¹⁷  your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Luke 6:36

6:36 Be merciful, ¹⁸  just as your Father is merciful.

Titus 3:3-4

3:3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another. 3:4 ¹⁹  But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared,

¹ tn The concept of love here is not primarily that of emotional affection but of commitment or devotion. This verse suggests that God chose Israel to be his special people because he loved the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and had promised to bless their descendants. See as well Deut 7:7-9.

² tc The LXX, Smr, Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate read a third person masculine plural suffix for the MT’s 3rd person masculine singular, “his descendants.” Cf. Deut 10:15. Quite likely the MT should be emended in this instance.

³ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 10:4.

⁴ tn Heb “take delight to love.” Here again the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “love”), juxtaposed with בָחַר (bakhar, “choose”), is a term in covenant contexts that describes the Lord’s initiative in calling the patriarchal ancestors to be the founders of a people special to him (cf. the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37).

⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “after them,” but it is redundant in English style and has not been included in the translation.

⁶ tn Or “chest” (so NIV, CEV); NLT “sacred chest”; TEV “wooden box.” This chest was made of acacia wood; it is later known as the ark of the covenant.

⁷ tn The antecedent of the relative pronoun is “cities.”

⁸ tn Heb “any breath.”

⁹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “utterly.” Cf. CEV “completely wipe out.”

¹⁰ sn Hittite. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 b.c.) they were at their zenith, establishing outposts and colonies near and far. Some elements were obviously in Canaan at the time of the Conquest (1400-1350 b.c.).

¹¹ sn Amorite. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200 b.c. or thereabouts.

¹² sn Canaanite. These were the indigenous peoples of the land of Palestine, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000 b.c.). The OT identifies them as descendants of Ham (Gen 10:6), the only Hamites to have settled north and east of Egypt.

¹³ sn Perizzite. This probably refers to a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).

¹⁴ sn Hivite. These are usually thought to be the same as the Hurrians, a people well-known in ancient Near Eastern texts. They are likely identical to the Horites (see note on “Horites” in Deut 2:12).

¹⁵ tc The LXX adds “Girgashites” here at the end of the list in order to list the full (and usual) complement of seven (see note on “seven” in Deut 7:1).

¹⁶ tc Most mss ([D] L [W] Θ Ë¹³ 33 Ï lat) read “bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” before “those who persecute you.” But this is surely a motivated reading, importing the longer form of this aphorism from Luke 6:27-28. The shorter text is found in א B ˹ pc sa, as well as several fathers and versional witnesses.

¹⁷ tn Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.

¹⁸ sn Merciful is a characteristic of God often noted in the OT: Exod 34:6; Deut 4:31; Joel 2:31; Jonah 4:2; 2 Sam 24:14. This remark also echoes the more common OT statements like Lev 19:2 or Deut 18:13: “you must be holy as I am holy.”

¹⁹ tn Verses 4-7 are set as poetry in NA²⁶/NA²⁷. These verses probably constitute the referent of the expression “this saying” in v. 8.