Jeremiah 28:13-14

28:13 “Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says, ¹  ‘You have indeed broken the wooden yoke. But you have ²  only succeeded in replacing it with an iron one! ³  28:14 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁴  says, “I have put an irresistible yoke of servitude on all these nations ⁵  so they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they will indeed serve him. I have even given him control over the wild animals.”’” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 44:28

44:28 Some who survive in battle will return to the land of Judah from the land of Egypt. But they will be very few indeed! ⁷  Then the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will know whose word proves true, ⁸  mine or theirs.’

Job 23:13

23:13 But he is unchangeable, ⁹  and who can change ¹⁰  him?

Whatever he ¹¹  has desired, he does.

Zechariah 1:5-6

1:5 “As for your ancestors, where are they? And did the prophets live forever? 1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ¹²  Then they paid attention ¹³  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

Matthew 24:35

24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. ¹⁴ 

Matthew 24:2

24:2 And he said to them, ¹⁵  “Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth, ¹⁶  not one stone will be left on another. ¹⁷  All will be torn down!” ¹⁸ 

Matthew 2:13

The Escape to Egypt

2:13 After they had gone, an ¹⁹  angel of the Lord ²⁰  appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod ²¹  is going to look for the child to kill him.”

¹ tn Heb “Hananiah, ‘Thus says the Lord….” The translation uses an indirect quotation here used to eliminate one level of embedded quotation.

² tn The Greek version reads “I have made/put” rather than “you have made/put.” This is the easier reading and is therefore rejected.

³ tn Heb “the yoke bars of wood you have broken, but you have made in its stead yoke bars of iron.”

⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for this title.

⁵ tn Heb “An iron yoke I have put on the necks of all these nations.”

⁶ sn The emphasis is on the absoluteness of Nebuchadnezzar’s control. The statement is once again rhetorical and not to be taken literally. See the study note on 27:6.

⁷ tn Heb “The survivors of the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number [more literally, “men of number”; for the idiom see BDB 709 s.v. מִסְפָּר 1.a].” The term “survivors of the sword” may be intended to represent both those who survive death in war or death by starvation or disease, a synecdoche of species for all three genera.

⁸ tn Heb “will stand,” i.e., in the sense of being fulfilled, proving to be true, or succeeding (see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g).

⁹ tc The MT has “But he [is] in one.” Many add the word “mind” to capture the point that God is resolute and unchanging. Some commentators find this too difficult, and so change the text from בְאֶחָד (bÿ’ekhad, here “unchangeable”) to בָחָר (bakhar, “he has chosen”). The wording in the text is idiomatic and should be retained. R. Gordis (Job, 262) translates it “he is one, i.e., unchangeable, fixed, determined.” The preposition בּ (bet) is a bet essentiae – “and he [is] as one,” or “he is one” (see GKC 379 §119.i).

¹⁰ tn Heb “cause him to return.”

¹¹ tn Or “his soul.”

¹² tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

¹³ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

¹⁴ sn The words that Jesus predicts here will never pass away. They are more stable and lasting than creation itself. For this kind of image, see Isa 40:8; 55:10-11.

¹⁵ tn Grk “answering, he said to them.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (ajpokriqei") is redundant in English and has not been translated.

¹⁶ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

¹⁷ sn With the statement not one stone will be left on another Jesus predicted the total destruction of the temple, something that did occur in a.d. 70.

¹⁸ tn Grk “not one stone will be left here on another which will not be thrown down.”

¹⁹ tn Grk “behold, an angel.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

²⁰ tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” See the note on the word “Lord” in 1:20.

²¹ sn See the note on King Herod in 2:1. Herod the Great was particularly ruthless regarding the succession to his throne.