Genesis 19:20-21

19:20 Look, this town ¹  over here is close enough to escape to, and it’s just a little one. ²  Let me go there. ³  It’s just a little place, isn’t it? ⁴  Then I’ll survive.” ⁵ 

19:21 “Very well,” he replied, ⁶  “I will grant this request too ⁷  and will not overthrow ⁸  the town you mentioned.

Psalms 124:7

124:7 We escaped with our lives, ⁹  like a bird from a hunter’s snare.

The snare broke, and we escaped.

Jeremiah 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ¹⁰  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ¹¹  a future filled with hope. ¹² 

Luke 16:26

16:26 Besides all this, ¹³  a great chasm ¹⁴  has been fixed between us, ¹⁵  so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’

Acts 27:44

27:44 and the rest were to follow, ¹⁶  some on planks ¹⁷  and some on pieces of the ship. ¹⁸  And in this way ¹⁹  all were brought safely to land.

James 5:11

5:11 Think of how we regard ²⁰  as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and you have seen the Lord’s purpose, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. ²¹ 

¹ tn The Hebrew word עִיר (’ir) can refer to either a city or a town, depending on the size of the place. Given that this place was described by Lot later in this verse as a “little place,” the translation uses “town.”

² tn Heb “Look, this town is near to flee to there. And it is little.”

³ tn Heb “Let me escape to there.” The cohortative here expresses Lot’s request.

⁴ tn Heb “Is it not little?”

⁵ tn Heb “my soul will live.” After the cohortative the jussive with vav conjunctive here indicates purpose/result.

⁶ tn Heb “And he said, ‘Look, I will grant.’” The order of the clauses has been rearranged for stylistic reasons. The referent of the speaker (“he”) is somewhat ambiguous: It could be taken as the angel to whom Lot has been speaking (so NLT; note the singular references in vv. 18-19), or it could be that Lot is speaking directly to the Lord here. Most English translations leave the referent of the pronoun unspecified and maintain the ambiguity.

⁷ tn Heb “I have lifted up your face [i.e., shown you favor] also concerning this matter.”

⁸ tn The negated infinitive construct indicates either the consequence of God’s granting the request (“I have granted this request, so that I will not”) or the manner in which he will grant it (“I have granted your request by not destroying”).

⁹ tn Heb “our life escaped.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹¹ tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

¹² tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.

¹³ tn Grk “And in all these things.” There is no way Lazarus could carry out this request even if divine justice were not involved.

¹⁴ sn The great chasm between heaven and hell is impassable forever. The rich man’s former status meant nothing now.

¹⁵ tn Grk “between us and you.”

¹⁶ tn The words “were to follow” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. They must be supplied to clarify the sense in contemporary English.

¹⁷ tn Or “boards” according to BDAG 913 s.v. σανίς.

¹⁸ tn Grk “on pieces from the ship”; that is, pieces of wreckage from the ship.

¹⁹ tn Grk “And in this way it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

²⁰ tn Grk “Behold! We regard…”

²¹ sn An allusion to Exod 34:6; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15; 102:13; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2.