13:19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph 6 had made the Israelites solemnly swear, 7 “God will surely attend 8 to you, and you will carry 9 my bones up from this place with you.”
15:14 The nations will hear 10 and tremble;
anguish 11 will seize 12 the inhabitants of Philistia.
21:1 The Lord visited 13 Sarah just as he had said he would and did 14 for Sarah what he had promised. 15
50:24 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to you 16 and lead you up from this land to the land he swore on oath to give 17 to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
8:4 Of what importance is the human race, 22 that you should notice 23 them?
Of what importance is mankind, 24 that you should pay attention to them, 25
1:68 “Blessed 26 be the Lord God of Israel,
because he has come to help 27 and has redeemed 28 his people.
“What is man that you think of him 39 or the son of man that you care for him?
2:7 You made him lower than the angels for a little while.
You crowned him with glory and honor. 40
2:1 Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.
1 tn Heb “and God saw.”
2 tn Heb “and God knew” (יָדַע, yada’). The last clause contains a widely used verb for knowing, but it leaves the object unexpressed within the clause, so as to allow all that vv. 23-24 have described to serve as the compelling content of God’s knowing. (Many modern English versions supply an object for the verb following the LXX, which reads “knew them.”) The idea seems to be that God took personal knowledge of, noticed, or regarded them. In other passages the verb “know” is similar in meaning to “save” or “show pity.” See especially Gen 18:21, Ps 1:6; 31:7, and Amos 3:2. Exodus has already provided an example of the results of not knowing in 1:8 (cf. 5:2).
3 tc The LXX (Greek OT) has “and they rejoiced,” probably reading וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ (vayyismÿkhu) instead of what the MT reading, וַיִּשְׂמְעוּ (vayyismÿ’u, “and they heard”). To rejoice would have seemed a natural response of the people at the news, and the words sound similar in Hebrew.
4 tn Or “intervened for.” The word פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been translated “visited,” which is open to many interpretations. It means that God intervened in the life of the Israelites to bless them with the fulfillment of the promises. It says more than that he took notice of them, took pity on them, or remembered them. He had not yet fulfilled the promises, but he had begun to act by calling Moses and Aaron. The translation “attended to” attempts to capture that much.
5 tn The verb וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ (vayyishtakhavu) is usually rendered “worshiped.” More specifically, the verbal root חָוָה (khava) in the hishtaphel stem means “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” While there is nothing wrong with giving it a general translation of “worship,” it may be better in a passage like this to take it in conjunction with the other verb (“bow”) as a verbal hendiadys, using it as an adverb to that verb. The implication is certainly that they prayed, or praised, and performed some other aspect of worship, but the text may just be describing it from their posture of worship. With this response, all the fears of Moses are swept aside – they believed and they were thankful to God.
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joseph) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “solemnly swear, saying” (so NASB). The construction uses the Hiphil infinitive absolute with the Hiphil perfect to stress that Joseph had made them take a solemn oath to carry his bones out of Egypt. “Saying” introduces the content of what Joseph said.
8 sn This verb appears also in 3:16 and 4:31. The repetition here is a reminder that God was doing what he had said he would do and what Joseph had expected.
9 tn The form is a Hiphil perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it follows in the sequence of the imperfect tense before it, and so is equal to an imperfect of injunction (because of the solemn oath). Israel took Joseph’s bones with them as a sign of piety toward the past and as a symbol of their previous bond with Canaan (B. Jacob, Exodus, 380).
10 tn This verb is a prophetic perfect, assuming that the text means what it said and this song was sung at the Sea. So all these countries were yet to hear of the victory.
11 tn The word properly refers to “pangs” of childbirth. When the nations hear, they will be terrified.
12 tn The verb is again a prophetic perfect.
13 sn The Hebrew verb translated “visit” (פָּקַד, paqad ) often describes divine intervention for blessing or cursing; it indicates God’s special attention to an individual or a matter, always with respect to his people’s destiny. He may visit (that is, destroy) the Amalekites; he may visit (that is, deliver) his people in Egypt. Here he visits Sarah, to allow her to have the promised child. One’s destiny is changed when the
14 tn Heb “and the
15 tn Heb “spoken.”
16 tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) means “to visit,” i.e., to intervene for blessing or cursing; here Joseph announces that God would come to fulfill the promises by delivering them from Egypt. The statement is emphasized by the use of the infinitive absolute with the verb: “God will surely visit you.”
17 tn The words “to give” are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
18 tn Heb “and she arose, along with her daughters-in-law, and she returned from the region of Moab.”
19 tn Heb “in the region of Moab”; KJV, NRSV “in the country of Moab.” Since this is a repetition of the phrase found earlier in the verse, it has been shortened to “in Moab” in the present translation for stylistic reasons.
20 tn Heb “had visited” or “taken note of.” The basic meaning of פָּקַד (paqad) is “observe, examine, take note of” (T. F. Williams, NIDOTTE 3:658), so it sometimes appears with זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”; Pss 8:4 [MT 5]; 106:4; Jer 14:10; 15:15; Hos 8:13; 9:9) and רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”; Exod 4:31; Ps 80:14 [MT 15]; NIDOTTE 3:659). It often emphasizes the cause/effect response to what is seen (NIDOTTE 3:659). When God observes people in need, it is glossed “be concerned about, care for, attend to, help” (Gen 21:1; 50:24, 25; Exod 4:31; Ruth 1:6; 1 Sam 2:21; Jer 15:15; Zeph 2:7; Zech 10:3b; NIDOTTE 3:661). When humans are the subject, it sometimes means “to visit” needy people to bestow a gift (Judg 15:1; 1 Sam 17:18). Because it has such a broad range of meanings, its use here has been translated variously: (1) “had visited” (KJV, ASV, NASV, RSV; so BDB 823-24 s.v. פָּקַד); (2) “had considered” (NRSV) and “had taken note of” (TNK; so HALOT 955-57 s.v. פקד); and (3) “had come to the aid of” (NIV), “had blessed” (TEV), and “had given” (CEV; so NIDOTTE 3:657). When God observed the plight of his people, he demonstrated his concern by benevolently giving them food.
21 tn Heb “by giving to them food.” The translation “reversing the famine and providing abundant crops” attempts to clarify the referent of לֶחֶם (lekhem, “food”) as “crops” and highlights the reversal of the famine that began in v. 1. The infinitive construct לָתֵת לָהֶם לָחֶם (latet lahem lakhem) may denote (1) purpose: “[he visited his people] to give them food” or (2) complementary sense explaining the action of the main verb: “[he visited his people] by giving them food.” The term לֶחֶם (lakhem) here refers to agricultural fertility, the reversal of the famine in v. 1.
22 tn Heb “What is man[kind]?” The singular noun אֱנוֹשׁ (’enosh, “man”) is used here in a collective sense and refers to the human race.
23 tn Heb “remember him.”
24 tn Heb “and the son of man.” The phrase “son of man” is used here in a collective sense and refers to human beings. For other uses of the phrase in a collective or representative manner, see Num 23:19; Ps 146:3; Isa 51:12.
25 tn The two imperfect verbal forms in v. 4 describe God’s characteristic activity.
26 sn The traditional name of this psalm, the “Benedictus,” comes from the Latin wording of the start of the hymn (“Blessed be…”).
27 sn The verb come to help can refer to a visit, but can also connote concern or assistance (L&N 85.11).
28 tn Or “has delivered”; Grk “has accomplished redemption.”
29 tn Grk “They will raze you to the ground.”
30 tn Grk “your children within you.” The phrase “[your] walls” has been supplied in the translation to clarify that the city of Jerusalem, metaphorically pictured as an individual, is spoken of here.
31 sn (Not) one stone on top of another is an idiom for total destruction.
32 tn Grk “leave stone on stone.”
33 tn Grk “the time of your visitation.” To clarify what this refers to, the words “from God” are supplied at the end of the verse, although they do not occur in the Greek text.
34 sn Simeon is a form of the apostle Peter’s Aramaic name. James uses Peter’s “Jewish” name here.
35 tn Or “reported,” “described.”
36 tn BDAG 378 s.v. ἐπισκέπτομαι 3 translates this phrase in Acts 15:14, “God concerned himself about winning a people fr. among the nations.”
37 tn Grk “to take,” but in the sense of selecting or choosing (accompanied by the preposition ἐκ [ek] plus a genitive specifying the group selected from) see Heb 5:1; also BDAG 584 s.v. λαμβάνω 6.
38 sn In the Greek text the expression “from among the Gentiles” is in emphatic position.
39 tn Grk “remember him.”
40 tc Several witnesses, many of them early and important (א A C D* P Ψ 0243 0278 33 1739 1881 al lat co), have at the end of v 7, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.” Other
41 tn Here, because of its occurrence in an OT quotation, τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς (tois adelfois) has been translated simply as “brothers” rather than “brothers and sisters” (see the note on the latter phrase in the previous verse).
42 sn A quotation from Ps 22:22.