7:2 Keep my commands 1 so that you may live, 2
and obey 3 my instruction as your most prized possession. 4
55:3 Pay attention and come to me!
Listen, so you can live! 12
Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to 13 you,
just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. 14
1 tc Before v. 2 the LXX inserts: “My son, fear the
2 tn The construction of an imperative with the vav (ו) of sequence after another imperative denotes a logical sequence of purpose or result: “that you may live,” or “and you will live.”
3 tn The term “obey” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied for the sake of clarity and smoothness. Some English versions, in light of the second line of v. 1, supply “guard” (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT).
4 tn Heb “the little man in your eye.” Traditionally this Hebrew idiom is translated into English as “the apple of your eye” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); a more contemporary rendering would be “as your most prized possession.” The word for “man” has the diminutive ending on it. It refers to the pupil, where the object focused on – a man – is reflected in miniature. The point is that the teaching must be the central focus of the disciple’s vision and attention.
5 tn Heb “As the work [or “deed”] of the land of Egypt, which you were dwelling in it, you must not do.”
6 tn Heb “and as the work [or “deed”] of the land of Canaan which I am bringing you to there, you must not do.” The participle “I am bringing” is inceptive; the
7 tn Heb “and you shall not walk.”
8 tn Heb “My regulations you shall do”; KJV, NASB “my judgments”; NRSV “My ordinances”; NIV, TEV “my laws.”
9 tn Heb “and my statutes you shall keep [or “watch; guard”] to walk in them.”
10 tn Heb “And you shall keep.”
11 tn Heb “which the man shall do them and shall live in them.” The term for “a man, human being; mankind” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. The expression וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living” so it is written וְחָיָה (vÿkhayah) in Smr, but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal and GKC 218 §76.i; cf. Lev 25:35).
12 tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.
13 tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”
14 tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”
15 tn Or “his commandment results in eternal life.”
16 tn Grk “The things I speak, just as the Father has spoken to me, thus I speak.”