1 Samuel 12:22

12:22 The Lord will not abandon his people because he wants to uphold his great reputation. ¹  The Lord was pleased to make you his own people.

1 Samuel 12:2

12:2 Now look! This king walks before you. As for me, I am old and gray, though my sons are here with you. I have walked before you from the time of my youth till the present day.

1 Samuel 23:27

23:27 But a messenger came to Saul saying, “Come quickly, for the Philistines have raided the land!”

Psalms 77:7

77:7 I asked, ²  “Will the Lord reject me forever?

Will he never again show me his favor?

Psalms 89:31-37

89:31 if they break ³  my rules

and do not keep my commandments,

89:32 I will punish their rebellion by beating them with a club, ⁴ 

their sin by inflicting them with bruises. ⁵ 

89:33 But I will not remove ⁶  my loyal love from him,

nor be unfaithful to my promise. ⁷ 

89:34 I will not break ⁸  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ⁹ 

89:35 Once and for all I have vowed by my own holiness,

I will never deceive ¹⁰  David.

89:36 His dynasty will last forever. ¹¹ 

His throne will endure before me, like the sun, ¹² 

89:37 it will remain stable, like the moon, ¹³ 

his throne will endure like the skies.” ¹⁴  (Selah)

Psalms 94:14

94:14 Certainly ¹⁵  the Lord does not forsake his people;

he does not abandon the nation that belongs to him. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 31:36-37

31:36 The Lord affirms, ¹⁷  “The descendants of Israel will not

cease forever to be a nation in my sight.

That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights

were to cease to operate before me.” ¹⁸ 

31:37 The Lord says, “I will not reject all the descendants of Israel

because of all that they have done. ¹⁹ 

That could only happen if the heavens above could be measured

or the foundations of the earth below could all be explored,” ²⁰ 

says the Lord. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 33:24-26

33:24 “You have surely noticed what these people are saying, haven’t you? They are saying, ²²  ‘The Lord has rejected the two families of Israel and Judah ²³  that he chose.’ So they have little regard that my people will ever again be a nation. ²⁴  33:25 But I, the Lord, make the following promise: ²⁵  I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth. 33:26 Just as surely as I have done this, so surely will I never reject the descendants of Jacob. Nor will I ever refuse to choose one of my servant David’s descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, ²⁶  I will restore them ²⁷  and show mercy to them.”

Hosea 9:17

9:17 My God will reject them,

for they have not obeyed him;

so they will be fugitives among the nations.

Amos 9:8-9

9:8 Look, the sovereign Lord is watching ²⁸  the sinful nation, ²⁹ 

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

But I will not completely destroy the family ³⁰  of Jacob,” says the Lord.

9:9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground. ³¹ 

[12:22]  ¹ tn Heb “on account of his great name.”

[77:7]  ² tn As in vv. 4 and 6a, the words of vv. 7-9 are understood as a quotation of what the psalmist said earlier. Therefore the words “I asked” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[89:31]  ³ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:32]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will punish with a club their rebellion.”

[89:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “with blows their sin.”

[89:33]  ⁶ tn Heb “break”; “make ineffectual.” Some prefer to emend אָפִיר (’afir; the Hiphil of פָּרַר, parar, “to break”) to אָסִיר (’asir; the Hiphil of סוּר, sur, “to turn aside”), a verb that appears in 2 Sam 7:15.

[89:33]  ⁷ tn Heb “and I will not deal falsely with my faithfulness.”

[89:34]  ⁸ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ⁹ tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[89:35]  ¹⁰ tn Or “lie to.”

[89:36]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his offspring forever will be.”

[89:36]  ¹² tn Heb “and his throne like the sun before me.”

[89:37]  ¹³ tn Heb “like the moon it will be established forever.”

[89:37]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and a witness in the sky, secure.” Scholars have offered a variety of opinions as to the identity of the “witness” referred to here, none of which is very convincing. It is preferable to join וְעֵד (vÿ’ed) to עוֹלָם (’olam) in the preceding line and translate the commonly attested phrase עוֹלָם וְעֵד (“forever”). In this case one may translate the second line, “[it] will be secure like the skies.” Another option (the one reflected in the present translation) is to take עד as a rare noun meaning “throne” or “dais.” This noun is attested in Ugaritic; see, for example, CTA 16 vi 22-23, where ksi (= כִּסֵּא, kisse’, “throne”) and ’d (= עד, “dais”) appear as synonyms in the poetic parallelism (see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 91). Emending בַּשַּׁחַק (bashakhaq, “in the heavens”) to כַּשַׁחַק (kashakhaq, “like the heavens”) – bet/kaf (כ/ב) confusion is widely attested – one can then read “[his] throne like the heavens [is] firm/stable.” Verse 29 refers to the enduring nature of the heavens, while Job 37:18 speaks of God spreading out the heavens (שְׁחָקִים, shÿkhaqim) and compares their strength to a bronze mirror. Ps 89:29 uses the term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim, “skies”) which frequently appears in parallelism to שְׁחָקִים.

[94:14]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for.”

[94:14]  ¹⁶ tn Or “his inheritance.”

[31:36]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:36]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “‘If these fixed orderings were to fail to be present before me,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘then the seed of Israel could cease from being a nation before me forever (or more literally, “all the days”).’” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to modern style. The connection has been maintained by reversing the order of condition and consequence and still retaining the condition in the second clause. For the meaning of “cease to operate” for the verb מוּשׁ (mush) compare the usage in Isa 54:10; Ps 55:11 (55:12 HT); Prov 17:13 where what is usually applied to persons or things is applied to abstract things like this (see HALOT 506 s.v. II מוּשׁ Qal for general usage).

[31:37]  ¹⁹ sn This answers Jeremiah’s question in 14:19.

[31:37]  ²⁰ tn Heb “If the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below be explored, then also I could reject all the seed of Israel for all they have done.”

[31:37]  ²¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[33:24]  ²² tn Heb “Have you not seen what this people have said, saying.” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The sentence has been broken in two to better conform with contemporary English style.

[33:24]  ²³ tn Heb “The two families which the Lord chose, he has rejected them.” This is an example of an object prepositioned before the verb and resumed by a redundant pronoun to throw emphasis of focus on it (called casus pendens in the grammars; cf. GKC 458 §143.d). Some commentators identify the “two families” as those of David and Levi mentioned in the previous verses, and some identify them as the families of the Israelites and of David mentioned in the next verse. However, the next clause in this verse and the emphasis on the restoration and regathering of Israel and Judah in this section (cf. 33:7, 14) show that the reference is to Israel and Judah (see also 30:3, 4; 31:27, 31 and 3:18).

[33:24]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and my people [i.e., Israel and Judah] they disdain [or look down on] from being again a nation before them.” The phrase “before them” refers to their estimation, their mental view (cf. BDB s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.a[g]). Hence it means they look with disdain on the people being a nation again (cf. BDB s.v. עוֹד 1.a[b] for the usage of עוֹד [’od] here).

[33:25]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” See the translator’s note at the beginning of v. 20 for the style adopted here. Here the promise is in v. 26 following the contrary to fact condition in v. 25. The Hebrew text of vv. 25-26 reads: “Thus says the Lord, “If I have not established my covenant with day and night [and] the laws/statutes of heaven and earth, also I could reject the seed of Jacob and David my servant from taking from his seed as rulers over the seed of Abraham…” The syntax of the original is a little awkward because it involves the verbs “establish” and “reject” governing two objects, the first governing two similar objects “my covenant” and “the regulations” and the second governing two dissimilar objects “the seed of Jacob” and “my servant David from taking [so as not to take].” The translation has sought to remove these awkward syntactical constructions and also break down the long complex original sentence in such a way as to retain its original intent, i.e., the guarantee of the continuance of the seed of Jacob and of the rule of a line of David’s descendants over them based on the fixed order of God’s creation decrees.

[33:26]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) is probably intensive here as it has been on a number of occasions in the book of Jeremiah (see BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e for the category).

[33:26]  ²⁷ tn Or “I will make them prosperous once again,” or “I will bring them back from captivity.”

[9:8]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the eyes of the sovereign Lord are on.”

[9:8]  ²⁹ tn Or “kingdom.”

[9:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

[9:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “like being shaken with a sieve, and a pebble does not fall to the ground.” The meaning of the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror), translated “pebble,” is unclear here. In 2 Sam 17:13 it appears to refer to a stone. If it means “pebble,” then the sieve described in v. 6 allows the grain to fall into a basket while retaining the debris and pebbles. However, if one interprets צְרוֹר as a “kernel of grain” (cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT) then the sieve is constructed to retain the grain and allow the refuse and pebbles to fall to the ground. In either case, the simile supports the last statement in v. 8 by making it clear that God will distinguish between the righteous (the grain) and the wicked (the pebbles) when he judges, and will thereby preserve a remnant in Israel. Only the sinners will be destroyed (v. 10).