1 Samuel 23:7

23:7 When Saul was told that David had come to Keilah, Saul said, “God has delivered ¹  him into my hand, for he has boxed himself into a corner by entering a city with two barred gates.” ² 

Psalms 32:7

32:7 You are my hiding place;

you protect me from distress.

You surround me with shouts of joy from those celebrating deliverance. ³  (Selah)

Psalms 37:32-33

37:32 Evil men set an ambush for the godly

and try to kill them. ⁴ 

37:33 But the Lord does not surrender the godly,

or allow them to be condemned in a court of law. ⁵ 

Psalms 54:3-4

54:3 For foreigners ⁶  attack me; ⁷ 

ruthless men, who do not respect God, seek my life. ⁸  (Selah)

54:4 Look, God is my deliverer! ⁹ 

The Lord is among those who support me. ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 21:30

21:30 There is no wisdom and there is no understanding,

and there is no counsel against ¹¹  the Lord. ¹² 

Jeremiah 36:26

36:26 He also ordered Jerahmeel, who was one of the royal princes, ¹³  Seraiah son of Azriel, and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest the scribe Baruch and the prophet Jeremiah. However, the Lord hid them.

Romans 8:31

8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:2

8:2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit ¹⁴  in Christ Jesus has set you ¹⁵  free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 3:11

3:11 there is no one who understands,

there is no one who seeks God.

Romans 4:17-18

4:17 (as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”). ¹⁶  He is our father ¹⁷  in the presence of God whom he believed – the God who ¹⁸  makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do. ¹⁹  4:18 Against hope Abraham ²⁰  believed ²¹  in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations ²²  according to the pronouncement, ²³  “so will your descendants be.” ²⁴ 

[23:7]  ¹ tn The MT reading (“God has alienated him into my hand”) in v. 7 is a difficult and uncommon idiom. The use of this verb in Jer 19:4 is somewhat parallel, but not entirely so. Many scholars have therefore suspected a textual problem here, emending the word נִכַּר (nikkar, “alienated”) to סִכַּר (sikkar, “he has shut up [i.e., delivered]”). This is the idea reflected in the translations of the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate, although it is not entirely clear whether they are reading something different from the MT or are simply paraphrasing what for them too may have been a difficult text. The LXX has “God has sold him into my hands,” apparently reading מַכַר (makar, “sold”) for MT’s נִכַּר. The present translation is a rather free interpretation.

[23:7]  ² tn Heb “with two gates and a bar.” Since in English “bar” could be understood as a saloon, it has been translated as an attributive: “two barred gates.”

[32:7]  ³ tn Heb “[with] shouts of joy of deliverance you surround me.”

[37:32]  ⁴ tn Heb “an evil [one] watches the godly [one] and seeks to kill him.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and godly individual are in view. The active participles describe characteristic behavior.

[37:33]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord does not abandon him into his hand or condemn him when he is judged.” The imperfects draw attention to the Lord’s characteristic behavior in this regard.

[54:3]  ⁶ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss read זֵדִים (zedim, “proud ones”) rather than זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”). (No matter which reading one chooses as original, dalet-resh confusion accounts for the existence of the variant.) The term זֵדִים (“proud ones”) occurs in parallelism with עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Ps 86:14 and Isa 13:11. However, זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”) is parallel to עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Isa 25:5; 29:5; Ezek 28:7; 31:12.

[54:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “rise against me.”

[54:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “and ruthless ones seek my life, they do not set God in front of them.”

[54:4]  ⁹ tn Or “my helper.”

[54:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “sustain my life.”

[21:30]  ¹¹ tn The form לְנֶגֶד (lÿneged) means “against; over against; in opposition to.” The line indicates they cannot in reality be in opposition, for human wisdom is nothing in comparison to the wisdom of God (J. H. Greenstone, Proverbs, 232).

[21:30]  ¹² sn The verse uses a single sentence to state that all wisdom, understanding, and advice must be in conformity to the will of God to be successful. It states it negatively – these things cannot be in defiance of God (e.g., Job 5:12-13; Isa 40:13-14).

[36:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “the son of the king.” Many of the commentaries express doubt that this actually refers to Jehoiakim’s own son since Jehoiakim was only about thirty at this time and one of his sons would not have been old enough to have been in such a position of authority. The same doubt is expressed about the use of this term in 38:6 and in 1 Kgs 22:26. The term need not refer to the ruling king’s own son but one of the royal princes.

[8:2]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”

[8:2]  ¹⁵ tc Most mss read the first person singular pronoun με (me) here (A D 1739^c 1881 Ï lat sa). The second person singular pronoun σε (se) is superior because of external support (א B {F which reads σαι} G 1506* 1739*) and internal support (it is the harder reading since ch. 7 was narrated in the first person). At the same time, it could have arisen via dittography from the final syllable of the verb preceding it (ἠλευθέρωσεν, hleuqerwsen; “has set free”). But for this to happen in such early and diverse witnesses is unlikely, especially as it depends on various scribes repeatedly overlooking either the nu or the nu-bar at the end of the verb.

[4:17]  ¹⁶ tn Verses 16-17 comprise one sentence in Greek, but this has been divided into two sentences due to English requirements.

[4:17]  ¹⁷ tn The words “He is our father” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to show that they resume Paul’s argument from 16b. (It is also possible to supply “Abraham had faith” here [so REB], taking the relative clause [“who is the father of us all”] as part of the parenthesis, and making the connection back to “the faith of Abraham,” but such an option is not as likely [C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:243].)

[4:17]  ¹⁸ tn “The God” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity.

[4:17]  ¹⁹ tn Or “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” The translation of ὡς ὄντα (Jw" onta) allows for two different interpretations. If it has the force of result, then creatio ex nihilo is in view and the variant rendering is to be accepted (so C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:244). A problem with this view is the scarcity of ὡς plus participle to indicate result (though for the telic idea with ὡς plus participle, cf. Rom 15:15; 1 Thess 2:4). If it has a comparative force, then the translation given in the text is to be accepted: “this interpretation fits the immediate context better than a reference to God’s creative power, for it explains the assurance with which God can speak of the ‘many nations’ that will be descended from Abraham” (D. Moo, Romans [NICNT], 282; so also W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, Romans [ICC], 113). Further, this view is in line with a Pauline idiom, viz., verb followed by ὡς plus participle (of the same verb or, in certain contexts, its antonym) to compare present reality with what is not a present reality (cf. 1 Cor 4:7; 5:3; 7:29, 30 (three times), 31; Col 2:20 [similarly, 2 Cor 6:9, 10]).

[4:18]  ²⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:18]  ²¹ tn Grk “who against hope believed,” referring to Abraham. The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[4:18]  ²² sn A quotation from Gen 17:5.

[4:18]  ²³ tn Grk “according to that which had been spoken.”

[4:18]  ²⁴ sn A quotation from Gen 15:5.