Isaiah 5:19

5:19 They say, “Let him hurry, let him act quickly, ¹ 

so we can see;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel ²  take shape ³  and come to pass,

then we will know it!”

Habakkuk 2:3

2:3 For the message is a witness to what is decreed; ⁴ 

it gives reliable testimony about how matters will turn out. ⁵ 

Even if the message ⁶  is not fulfilled right away, wait patiently; ⁷ 

for it will certainly come to pass – it will not arrive late.

Luke 18:7

18:7 Won’t ⁸  God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out ⁹  to him day and night? ¹⁰  Will he delay ¹¹  long to help them?

Hebrews 10:36

10:36 For you need endurance in order to do God’s will and so receive what is promised. ¹² 

Hebrews 10:2

10:2 For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have ¹³  no further consciousness of sin?

Hebrews 3:8

3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.

¹ tn Heb “let his work hurry, let it hasten.” The pronoun “his” refers to God, as the parallel line makes clear. The reference to his “work” alludes back to v. 12, which refers to his ‘work” of judgment. With these words the people challenged the prophet’s warning of approaching judgment. They were in essence saying that they saw no evidence that God was about to work in such a way.

² sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

³ tn Heb “draw near” (so NASB); NRSV “hasten to fulfillment.”

⁴ tn Heb “For the vision is still for the appointed time.” The Hebrew word עוֹד (’od, “still”) is better emended to עֵד (’ed, “witness”) in light of the parallelism (see the note on the word “turn out” in the following line). The “appointed time” refers to the time when the divine judgment anticipated in vv. 6-20 will be realized.

⁵ tn Heb “and a witness to the end and it does not lie.” The Hebrew term יָפֵחַ (yafeakh) has been traditionally understood as a verb form from the root פּוּחַ (puakh, “puff, blow”; cf. NEB “it will come in breathless haste”; NASB “it hastens toward the goal”) but recent scholarship has demonstrated that it is actually a noun meaning “witness” (cf. NIV “it speaks of the end / and will not prove false”; NRSV “it speaks of the end, and does not lie”). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 106. “The end” corresponds to “the appointed time” of the preceding line and refers to the time when the prophecy to follow will be fulfilled.

⁶ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the message) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn Heb “If it should delay, wait for it.” The Hebrew word חָזוֹן (khazon, “vision, message”) is the subject of the third person verbs in v. 3 and the antecedent of the pronominal suffix in the phrase “for it.”

⁸ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

⁹ sn The prayers have to do with the righteous who cry out to him to receive justice. The context assumes the righteous are persecuted.

¹⁰ tn The emphatic particles in this sentence indicate that God will indeed give justice to the righteous.

¹¹ sn The issue of delay has produced a whole host of views for this verse. (1) Does this assume provision to endure in the meantime? Or (2) does it mean God restricts the level of persecution until he comes? Either view is possible.

¹² tn Grk “the promise,” referring to the thing God promised, not to the pledge itself.

¹³ tn Grk “the worshipers, having been purified once for all, would have.”