32:9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people,
Jacob is his special possession. 8
28:9 Deliver your people!
Empower 16 the nation that belongs to you! 17
Care for them like a shepherd and carry them in your arms 18 at all times! 19
33:12 How blessed 20 is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen to be his special possession. 21
135:4 Indeed, 22 the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel to be his special possession. 23
63:17 Why, Lord, do you make us stray 24 from your ways, 25
and make our minds stubborn so that we do not obey you? 26
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your inheritance!
63:18 For a short time your special 27 nation possessed a land, 28
but then our adversaries knocked down 29 your holy sanctuary.
2:1 But as for you, communicate the behavior that goes with 37 sound teaching.
1 tn Heb “the
2 tn Heb “Lord
3 tn Heb “your inheritance”; NLT “your special (very own NRSV) possession.” Israel is compared to landed property that one would inherit from his ancestors and pass on to his descendants.
4 tn Heb “you have redeemed in your greatness.”
5 tn Heb “by your strong hand.”
6 tn Heb “your inheritance.” See note at v. 26.
7 tn Heb “an outstretched arm.”
8 tc Heb “the portion of his inheritance.” The LXX and Smr add “Israel” and BHS suggests the reconstruction: “The
9 tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.
10 tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”
11 tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”
12 tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.
13 tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).
14 tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).
15 tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.
16 tn Or “bless.”
17 tn Heb “your inheritance.” The parallelism (note “your people”) indicates that Israel is in view.
18 tn Heb “shepherd them and lift them up.”
19 tn Or “forever.”
20 tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see Pss 1:1; 2:12; 34:9; 41:1; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).
21 tn Heb “inheritance.”
22 tn Or “for.”
23 sn His special possession. The language echoes Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18. See also Mal 3:17.
24 tn Some suggest a tolerative use of the Hiphil here, “[why do] you allow us to stray?” (cf. NLT). Though the Hiphil of תָעָה (ta’ah) appears to be tolerative in Jer 50:6, elsewhere it is preferable or necessary to take it as causative. See Isa 3:12; 9:15; and 30:28, as well as Gen 20:13; 2 Kgs 21:9; Job 12:24-25; Prov 12:26; Jer 23:13, 32; Hos 4:12; Amos 2:4; Mic 3:5.
25 tn This probably refers to God’s commands.
26 tn Heb “[Why do] you harden our heart[s] so as not to fear you.” The interrogative particle is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).
27 tn Or “holy” (ASV, NASB, NRSV, TEV, NLT).
28 tn Heb “for a short time they had a possession, the people of your holiness.”
29 tn Heb “your adversaries trampled on.”
30 tc ‡ Most witnesses, especially of the Byzantine and Western texttypes, though with a few important Alexandrian witnesses (א A D F G Ψ 0278 Ï latt sy), add ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “your”) after καρδίας (kardias, “heart”), though it is clearly implied in the shorter (Alexandrian) reading (found in Ì46 B 6 33 1175 1739 1881 pc). The longer reading thus looks to be a clarifying gloss, as is frequently found in the Byzantine and Western traditions. The translation above also uses “your” because of English requirements, not because of textual basis.
31 tn The perfect participle πεφωτισμένους (pefwtismenou") may either be part of the prayer (“that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened”) or part of the basis of the prayer (“since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened”). Although the participle follows the ἵνα (Jina) of v. 17, it is awkward grammatically in the clause. Further, perfect adverbial participles are usually causal in NT Greek. Finally, the context both here and throughout Ephesians seems to emphasize the motif of light as a property belonging to believers. Thus, it seems that the author is saying, “I know that you are saved, that you have had the blinders of the devil removed; because of this, I can now pray that you will fully understand and see the light of God’s glorious revelation.” Hence, the translation takes the participle to form a part of the basis for the prayer.
32 tn Or “the hope to which he has called you.”
33 tn Grk “of the glory of his inheritance.” Here “inheritance” is taken as an attributed genitive and the head noun, “glory,” is thus translated as an adjective, “glorious inheritance.”
34 tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).
35 tn Or “a people who are his very own.”
36 tn Grk “for good works.”
37 tn Grk “say what is fitting for sound teaching” (introducing the behavior called for in this chapter.).
38 tn See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.
39 tn Or “to be subject to their own masters, to do what is wanted in everything.”