Genesis 9:11

9:11 I confirm ¹  my covenant with you: Never again will all living things ²  be wiped out ³  by the waters of a flood; ⁴  never again will a flood destroy the earth.”

Genesis 9:17

9:17 So God said to Noah, “This is the guarantee of the covenant that I am confirming between me and all living things ⁵  that are on the earth.”

Genesis 6:18

6:18 but I will confirm ⁶  my covenant with you. You will enter ⁷  the ark – you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

Genesis 17:7-8

17:7 I will confirm ⁸  my covenant as a perpetual ⁹  covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ¹⁰  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ¹¹  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ¹²  possession. I will be their God.”

Genesis 22:17

22:17 I will indeed bless you, ¹³  and I will greatly multiply ¹⁴  your descendants ¹⁵  so that they will be as countless as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession ¹⁶  of the strongholds ¹⁷  of their enemies.

Isaiah 54:9-10

54:9 “As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, ¹⁸ 

when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood ¹⁹  would never again cover the earth.

In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.

54:10 Even if the mountains are removed

and the hills displaced,

my devotion will not be removed from you,

nor will my covenant of friendship ²⁰  be displaced,”

says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you.

Jeremiah 31:35-36

The Lord Guarantees Israel’s Continuance

31:35 The Lord has made a promise to Israel.

He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day

and the moon and stars to give light by night.

He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll.

He promises it as the one who is known as the Lord who rules over all. ²¹ 

31:36 The Lord affirms, ²²  “The descendants of Israel will not

cease forever to be a nation in my sight.

That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights

were to cease to operate before me.” ²³ 

Jeremiah 33:20

33:20 “I, Lord, make the following promise: ²⁴  ‘I have made a covenant with the day ²⁵  and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people ²⁶  could break that covenant

Romans 1:3

1:3 concerning his Son who was a descendant ²⁷  of David with reference to the flesh, ²⁸ 

¹ tn The verb וַהֲקִמֹתִי (vahaqimoti) is a perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive and should be translated with the English present tense, just as the participle at the beginning of the speech was (v. 9). Another option is to translate both forms with the English future tense (“I will confirm”).

² tn Heb “all flesh.”

³ tn Heb “cut off.”

⁴ tn Heb “and all flesh will not be cut off again by the waters of the flood.”

⁵ tn Heb “all flesh.”

⁶ tn The Hebrew verb וַהֲקִמֹתִי (vahaqimoti) is the Hiphil perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive (picking up the future sense from the participles) from קוּם (qum, “to rise up”). This may refer to the confirmation or fulfillment of an earlier promise, but it is more likely that it anticipates the unconditional promise made to humankind following the flood (see Gen 9:9, 11, 17).

⁷ tn The perfect verb form with vav (ו) consecutive is best understood as specific future, continuing God’s description of what will happen (see vv. 17-18a).

⁸ tn The verb קוּם (qum, “to arise, to stand up”) in the Hiphil verbal stem means “to confirm, to give effect to, to carry out” (i.e., a covenant or oath; see BDB 878-79 s.v. קוּם).

⁹ tn Or “as an eternal.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

¹¹ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

¹² tn Or “as an eternal.”

¹³ tn The use of the infinitive absolute before the finite verbal form (either an imperfect or cohortative) emphasizes the certainty of the blessing.

¹⁴ tn Here too the infinitive absolute is used for emphasis before the following finite verb (either an imperfect or cohortative).

¹⁵ tn The Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) occurring here and in v. 18 may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

¹⁶ tn Or “inherit.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “gate,” which here stands for a walled city. To break through the gate complex would be to conquer the city, for the gate complex was the main area of defense (hence the translation “stronghold”).

¹⁸ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “For [or “indeed”] the waters of Noah [is] this to me.” כִּי־מֵי (ki-me, “for the waters of”) should be emended to כְּמֵי (kÿmey, “like the days of”), which is supported by the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and all the ancient versions except LXX.

¹⁹ tn Heb “the waters of Noah” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

²⁰ tn Heb “peace” (so many English versions); NLT “of blessing.”

²¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for this title. In the Hebrew text the verse reads: “Thus says the Lord who provides the sun for light by day, the fixed ordering of the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar, whose name is Yahweh of armies, ‘…’” The hymnic introduction to the quote which does not begin until v. 36 has been broken down to avoid a long awkward sentence in English. The word “said” has been translated “made a promise” to reflect the nature of the content in vv. 36-37. The first two lines of the Hebrew poetry are a case of complex or supplementary ellipsis where the complete idea of “providing/establishing the fixed laws” is divided between the two lines (cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 110-13). The necessity for recombining the ellipsis is obvious from reference to the fixed ordering in the next verse. (Some commentators prefer to delete the word as an erroneous glossing of the word in the following line (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 277, n. y).

²² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

²³ tn Heb “‘If these fixed orderings were to fail to be present before me,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘then the seed of Israel could cease from being a nation before me forever (or more literally, “all the days”).’” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to modern style. The connection has been maintained by reversing the order of condition and consequence and still retaining the condition in the second clause. For the meaning of “cease to operate” for the verb מוּשׁ (mush) compare the usage in Isa 54:10; Ps 55:11 (55:12 HT); Prov 17:13 where what is usually applied to persons or things is applied to abstract things like this (see HALOT 506 s.v. II מוּשׁ Qal for general usage).

²⁴ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the Lord is speaking so the first person introduction has again been adopted. The content of the verse shows that it is a promise to David (vv. 21-22) and the Levites based on a contrary to fact condition (v. 20). See further the translator’s note at the end of the next verse for explanation of the English structure adopted here.

²⁵ tn The word יוֹמָם (yomam) is normally an adverb meaning “daytime, by day, daily.” However, here and in v. 25 and in Jer 15:9 it means “day, daytime” (cf. BDB 401 s.v. יוֹמָם 1).

²⁶ tn Heb “you.” The pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43; 33:10.

²⁷ tn Grk “born of the seed” (an idiom).

²⁸ tn Grk “according to the flesh,” indicating Jesus’ earthly life, a reference to its weakness. This phrase implies that Jesus was more than human; otherwise it would have been sufficient to say that he was a descendant of David, cf. L. Morris, Romans, 44.