1 Chronicles 28:9

28:9 “And you, Solomon my son, obey ¹  the God of your father and serve him with a submissive attitude and a willing spirit, ²  for the Lord examines all minds and understands every motive of one’s thoughts. If you seek him, he will let you find him, ³  but if you abandon him, he will reject you permanently.

Deuteronomy 8:2

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ⁴  has brought you these forty years through the desert ⁵  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ⁶  I am giving ⁷  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ⁸  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 16:7

16:7 You must cook ¹⁰  and eat it in the place the Lord your God chooses; you may return the next morning to your tents.

Psalms 7:9

7:9 May the evil deeds of the wicked ¹¹  come to an end! ¹² 

But make the innocent ¹³  secure, ¹⁴ 

O righteous God,

you who examine ¹⁵  inner thoughts and motives! ¹⁶ 

Psalms 51:6

51:6 Look, ¹⁷  you desire ¹⁸  integrity in the inner man; ¹⁹ 

you want me to possess wisdom. ²⁰ 

Proverbs 16:2

16:2 All a person’s ways ²¹  seem right ²²  in his own opinion, ²³ 

but the Lord evaluates ²⁴  the motives. ²⁵ 

Proverbs 21:2

21:2 All of a person’s ways seem right in his own opinion, ²⁶ 

but the Lord evaluates ²⁷  the motives. ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 17:10

17:10 I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds.

I examine people’s hearts. ²⁹ 

I deal with each person according to how he has behaved.

I give them what they deserve based on what they have done.

Hebrews 4:12

4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart.

Revelation 2:23

2:23 Furthermore, I will strike her followers ³⁰  with a deadly disease, ³¹  and then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts. I will repay ³²  each one of you ³³  what your deeds deserve. ³⁴ 

[28:9]  ¹ tn Heb “know.”

[28:9]  ² tn Heb “with a complete heart and a willing being.”

[28:9]  ³ tn Heb “he will allow himself to be found by you.”

[8:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ⁵ tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[8:1]  ⁶ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[16:7]  ¹⁰ tn The rules that governed the Passover meal are found in Exod 12:1-51, and Deut 16:1-8. The word translated “cook” (בָּשַׁל, bashal) here is translated “boil” in other places (e.g. Exod 23:19, 1 Sam 2:13-15). This would seem to contradict Exod 12:9 where the Israelites are told not to eat the Passover sacrifice raw or boiled. However, 2 Chr 35:13 recounts the celebration of a Passover feast during the reign of Josiah, and explains that the people “cooked (בָּשַׁל, bashal) the Passover sacrifices over the open fire.” The use of בָּשַׁל (bashal) with “fire” (אֵשׁ, ’esh) suggests that the word could be used to speak of boiling or roasting.

[7:9]  ¹¹ tn In the psalms the Hebrew term רְשָׁעִים (rÿsha’im, “wicked”) describes people who are proud, practical atheists (Ps 10:2, 4, 11) who hate God’s commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander (Ps 50:16-20), and cheat others (Ps 37:21). They oppose God and his people.

[7:9]  ¹² tn The prefixed verbal form is a jussive, expressing an imprecation here.

[7:9]  ¹³ tn Or “the godly” (see Ps 5:12). The singular form is collective (see the plural “upright in heart” in v. 10), though it may reflect the personal focus of the psalmist in this context.

[7:9]  ¹⁴ tn The prefixed verbal form expresses the psalmist’s prayer or wish.

[7:9]  ¹⁵ tn For other uses of the verb in this sense, see Job 7:18; Pss 11:4; 26:2; 139:23.

[7:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and [the one who] tests hearts and kidneys, just God.” The translation inverts the word order to improve the English style. The heart and kidneys were viewed as the seat of one’s volition, conscience, and moral character.

[51:6]  ¹⁷ sn The juxtaposition of two occurrences of “look” in vv. 5-6 draws attention to the sharp contrast between the sinful reality of the psalmist’s condition and the lofty ideal God has for him.

[51:6]  ¹⁸ tn The perfect is used in a generalizing sense here.

[51:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in the covered [places],” i.e., in the inner man.

[51:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in the secret [place] wisdom you cause me to know.” The Hiphil verbal form is causative, while the imperfect is used in a modal sense to indicate God’s desire (note the parallel verb “desire”).

[16:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “ways of a man.”

[16:2]  ²² sn The Hebrew term translated “right” (z~E) means “innocent” (NIV) or “pure” (NAB, NRSV, NLT). It is used in the Bible for pure oils or undiluted liquids; here it means unmixed actions. Therefore on the one hand people rather naively conclude that their actions are fine.

[16:2]  ²³ tn Heb “in his eyes.”

[16:2]  ²⁴ tn The figure (a hypocatastasis) of “weighing” signifies “evaluation” (e.g., Exod 5:8; 1 Sam 2:3; 16:7; Prov 21:2; 24:12). There may be an allusion to the Egyptian belief of weighing the heart after death to determine righteousness. But in Hebrew thought it is an ongoing evaluation as well, not merely an evaluation after death.

[16:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “spirits” (so KJV, ASV). This is a metonymy for the motives, the intentions of the heart (e.g., 21:2 and 24:2).

[21:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in his own eyes.” The term “eyes” is a metonymy for estimation, opinion, evaluation.

[21:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “weighs” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “examines”; NCV, TEV “judges.”

[21:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the hearts.” The term לֵב (lev, “heart”) is used as a metonymy of association for thoughts and motives (BDB 660-61 s.v. 6-7). Even though people think they know themselves, the Lord evaluates motives as well (e.g., Prov 16:2).

[17:10]  ²⁹ tn The term rendered “mind” here and in the previous verse is actually the Hebrew word for “heart.” However, in combination with the word rendered “heart” in the next line, which is the Hebrew for “kidneys,” it is best rendered “mind” because the “heart” was considered the center of intellect, conscience, and will and the “kidneys” the center of emotions.

[2:23]  ³⁰ tn Grk “her children,” but in this context a reference to this woman’s followers or disciples is more likely meant.

[2:23]  ³¹ tn Grk “I will kill with death.” θάνατος (qanatos) can in particular contexts refer to a manner of death, specifically a contagious disease (see BDAG 443 s.v. 3; L&N 23.158).

[2:23]  ³² tn Grk “I will give.” The sense of δίδωμι (didwmi) in this context is more “repay” than “give.”

[2:23]  ³³ sn This pronoun and the following one are plural in the Greek text.

[2:23]  ³⁴ tn Grk “each one of you according to your works.”