Exodus 19:5

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹  and keep ²  my covenant, then you will be my ³  special possession ⁴  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine,

Deuteronomy 32:9

32:9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people,

Jacob is his special possession. ⁵ 

Psalms 28:9

28:9 Deliver your people!

Empower ⁶  the nation that belongs to you! ⁷ 

Care for them like a shepherd and carry them in your arms ⁸  at all times! ⁹ 

Psalms 33:12

33:12 How blessed ¹⁰  is the nation whose God is the Lord,

the people whom he has chosen to be his special possession. ¹¹ 

Psalms 78:62

78:62 He delivered his people over to the sword,

and was angry with his chosen nation. ¹² 

Psalms 94:14

94:14 Certainly ¹³  the Lord does not forsake his people;

he does not abandon the nation that belongs to him. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 135:4

135:4 Indeed, ¹⁵  the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,

Israel to be his special possession. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 10:16

10:16 The Lord, who is the inheritance ¹⁷  of Jacob’s descendants, ¹⁸  is not like them.

He is the one who created everything.

And the people of Israel are those he claims as his own. ¹⁹ 

He is known as the Lord who rules over all.” ²⁰ 

Zechariah 2:12

2:12 The Lord will take possession of ²¹  Judah as his portion in the holy land and he will choose Jerusalem once again.

¹ 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.

² 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.”

³ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

⁴ 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.

⁵ tc Heb “the portion of his inheritance.” The LXX and Smr add “Israel” and BHS suggests the reconstruction: “The Lord’s allotment is Jacob, the portion of his inheritance is Israel” (cf. NAB). While providing good parallelism, it destroys a fine chiastic structure: “allotment” (a), “his people” (b), “Jacob (b’), and “inheritance” (a’).

⁶ tn Or “bless.”

⁷ tn Heb “your inheritance.” The parallelism (note “your people”) indicates that Israel is in view.

⁸ tn Heb “shepherd them and lift them up.”

⁹ tn Or “forever.”

¹⁰ 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).

¹¹ tn Heb “inheritance.”

¹² tn Heb “his inheritance.”

¹³ tn Or “for.”

¹⁴ tn Or “his inheritance.”

¹⁵ tn Or “for.”

¹⁶ sn His special possession. The language echoes Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18. See also Mal 3:17.

¹⁷ tn The words “The Lord who is” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. For the significance of the words that follow them see the study note that follows.

¹⁸ tn Heb “The Portion of Jacob.” “Descendants” is implied, and is supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹⁹ tn Heb “And Israel is the tribe of his possession.”

²⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies is his name.”

²¹ tn Heb “will inherit” (so NIV, NRSV).