Isaiah 40:10

40:10 Look, the sovereign Lord comes as a victorious warrior;

his military power establishes his rule.

Look, his reward is with him;

his prize goes before him.

Isaiah 51:9

51:9 Wake up! Wake up!

Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord!

Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity!

Did you not smash the Proud One?

Did you not wound the sea monster?

Isaiah 52:10

52:10 The Lord reveals his royal power 10 

in the sight of all the nations;

the entire 11  earth sees

our God deliver. 12 

Psalms 44:3

44:3 For they did not conquer 13  the land by their swords,

and they did not prevail by their strength, 14 

but rather by your power, 15  strength 16  and good favor, 17 

for you were partial to 18  them.

Psalms 98:1

Psalm 98 19 

A psalm.

98:1 Sing to the Lord a new song, 20 

for he performs 21  amazing deeds!

His right hand and his mighty arm

accomplish deliverance. 22 

Hosea 1:7

1:7 But I will have pity on the nation 23  of Judah. 24  I will deliver them by the Lord their God; I will not deliver them by the warrior’s bow, by sword, by military victory, 25  by chariot horses, or by chariots.” 26 

Hosea 1:1

Superscription

1:1 27 This is the word of the Lord which was revealed to Hosea 28  son of Beeri during the time when 29  Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah ruled Judah, 30  and during the time when Jeroboam son of Joash 31  ruled Israel. 32 

Colossians 1:24

1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.

Hebrews 2:14-15

2:14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in 33  their humanity, 34  so that through death he could destroy 35  the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil), 2:15 and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death.

tn Heb “comes as a strong one”; ASV “will come as a mighty one.” The preposition בְּ (bet) here carries the nuance “in the capacity of.” It indicates that the Lord possesses the quality expressed by the noun. See GKC 379 §119.i and HALOT 104 s.v. בְּ.

tn Heb “his arm rules for him” (so NIV, NRSV). The Lord’s “arm” symbolizes his military power (see Isa 51:9-10; 63:5).

tn As the Lord returns to Jerusalem as a victorious warrior, he brings with him the spoils of victory, called here his “reward” and “prize.” These terms might also be translated “wages” and “recompense.” Verse 11 indicates that his rescued people, likened to a flock of sheep, are his reward.

tn The arm of the Lord is a symbol of divine military power. Here it is personified and told to arouse itself from sleep and prepare for action.

tn Heb “Are you not the one who smashed?” The feminine singular forms agree grammatically with the feminine noun “arm.” The Hebrew text has ַהמַּחְצֶבֶת (hammakhtsevet), from the verbal root חָצַב (khatsav, “hew, chop”). The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has, probably correctly, המחצת, from the verbal root מָחַץ (makhats, “smash”) which is used in Job 26:12 to describe God’s victory over “the Proud One.”

tn This title (רַהַב, rahav, “proud one”) is sometimes translated as a proper name: “Rahab” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). It is used here of a symbolic sea monster, known elsewhere in the Bible and in Ugaritic myth as Leviathan. This sea creature symbolizes the forces of chaos that seek to destroy the created order. In the Bible “the Proud One” opposes God’s creative work, but is defeated (see Job 26:12; Ps 89:10). Here the title refers to Pharaoh’s Egyptian army that opposed Israel at the Red Sea (see v. 10, and note also Isa 30:7 and Ps 87:4, where the title is used of Egypt).

tn The words “did you not” are understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line). The rhetorical questions here and in v. 10 expect the answer, “Yes, you certainly did!”

tn Hebrew תַּנִּין (tannin) is another name for the symbolic sea monster. See the note at 27:1. In this context the sea creature represents Egypt. See the note on the title “Proud One” earlier in this verse.

tn Heb “lays bare”; NLT “will demonstrate.”

10 tn Heb “his holy arm.” This is a metonymy for his power.

11 tn Heb “the remote regions,” which here stand for the extremities and everything in between.

12 tn Heb “the deliverance of our God.” “God” is a subjective genitive here.

13 tn Or “take possession of.”

14 tn Heb “and their arm did not save them.” The “arm” here symbolizes military strength.

15 tn Heb “your right hand.” The Lord’s “right hand” here symbolizes his power to protect and deliver (see Pss 17:7; 20:6; 21:8).

16 tn Heb “your arm.”

17 tn Heb “light of your face.” The idiom “light of your face” probably refers to a smile (see Eccl 8:1), which in turn suggests favor and blessing (see Num 6:25; Pss 4:6; 31:16; 67:1; 80:3, 7, 19; 89:15; Dan 9:17).

18 tn Or “favorable toward.”

19 sn Psalm 98. The psalmist summons the whole earth to praise God because he reveals his justice and delivers Israel.

20 sn A new song is appropriate because the Lord is constantly intervening in the world as its just king. See Ps 96:1.

21 tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 1-3 are understood here as describing characteristic divine activities. Another option is to translate them as present perfects, “has performed…has accomplished deliverance, etc.” referring to completed actions that have continuing results.

22 tn Heb “his right hand delivers for him and his holy arm.” The right hand and arm symbolize his power as a warrior-king (see Isa 52:10). His arm is “holy” in the sense that it is in a category of its own; God’s power is incomparable.

23 tn Heb “house”; cf. NCV, TEV, NLT “the people of Judah.”

24 tn The word order in this line is rhetorical, emphasizing the divine decision to withhold pity from Israel but to bestow it on Judah. The accusative direct object, which is introduced by a disjunctive vav (to denote contrast), appears before the verb: וְאֶת־בֵּית יְהוּדָה אֲרַחֵם (et-bet yéhudaharakhem, “but upon the house of Judah I will show pity”).

25 tn Heb “by war” (so NAB, NRSV, TEV); KJV, NASB, NIV “battle.”

26 sn These military weapons are examples of the metonymy of adjunct (the specific weapons named) for subject (warfare).

27 tc The textual problems in Hosea are virtually unparalleled in the OT. The Masoretic Text (MT), represented by the Leningrad Codex (c. a.d. 1008), which served as the basis for both BHK and BHS, and the Aleppo Codex (c. a.d. 952), are textually corrupt by all accounts and have a multitude of scribal errors. Many medieval Masoretic mss preserve textual variants that differ from the Leningrad and Aleppo Codices. The Qumran materials (4QXIIc,d,g) contain numerous textual variants that differ from the MT; unfortunately, these texts are quite fragmentary (frequently in the very place that an important textual problem appears). The textual tradition and translation quality of the LXX and the early Greek recensions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) is mixed; in some places they are inferior to the MT but in other places they preserve a better reading. The textual apparatus of BHK and BHS contains many proposed emendations based on the ancient versions (Greek, Syriac, Latin, Aramaic) that often appear to be superior readings than what is preserved in the MT. In numerous cases, the MT readings are so difficult morphologically, syntactically, and contextually that conservative conjectural emendations are necessary to make sense of the text. Most major English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, RSV, NEB, NAB, NASB, NIV, TEV, NKJV, NJPS, NJB, NRSV, REB, NCV, CEV, NLT) adopt (either occasionally or frequently) textual variants reflected in the versions and occasionally adopt conservative conjectural emendations proposed in BHK and/or BHS. However, many of the textual problems in Hosea are so difficult that the English versions frequently are split among themselves. With this in mind, the present translation of Hosea must necessarily be viewed as only preliminary. Further work on the text and translation of Hosea is needed, not only in terms of the NET Bible but in Hosea studies in general. The text of Hosea should be better clarified when the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project completes work on the book of Hosea. For further study of textual problems in Hosea, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:228-71.

28 tn Heb “The word of the Lord which was to Hosea.” The words “This is” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

29 tn Heb “in the days of” (again later in this verse). Cf. NASB “during the days of”; NIV “during the reigns of”; NLT “during the years when.”

30 tn Heb “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

31 sn Joash is a variation of the name Jehoash. Some English versions use “Jehoash” here (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT).

32 tn Heb “Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel.”

33 tn Or “partook of” (this is a different word than the one in v. 14a).

34 tn Grk “the same.”

35 tn Or “break the power of,” “reduce to nothing.”