2 Chronicles 15:2

15:2 He met ¹  Asa and told him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin! The Lord is with you when you are loyal to him. ²  If you seek him, he will respond to you, ³  but if you reject him, he will reject you.

2 Chronicles 32:8

32:8 He has with him mere human strength, ⁴  but the Lord our God is with us to help us and fight our battles!” The army ⁵  was encouraged by the words of King Hezekiah of Judah.

Numbers 14:9

14:9 Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. ⁶  Their protection ⁷  has turned aside from them, but the Lord is with us. Do not fear them!”

Psalms 46:7

46:7 The Lord who commands armies is on our side! ⁸ 

The God of Jacob ⁹  is our protector! ¹⁰  (Selah)

Psalms 46:11

46:11 The Lord who commands armies is on our side! ¹¹ 

The God of Jacob ¹²  is our protector! ¹³  (Selah)

Isaiah 8:9-10

8:9 You will be broken, ¹⁴  O nations;

you will be shattered! ¹⁵ 

Pay attention, all you distant lands of the earth!

Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered!

Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered! ¹⁶ 

8:10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted!

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ¹⁷ 

For God is with us! ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 41:10

41:10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you!

Don’t be frightened, for I am your God! ¹⁹ 

I strengthen you –

yes, I help you –

yes, I uphold you with my saving right hand! ²⁰ 

Amos 5:14

5:14 Seek good and not evil so you can live!

Then the Lord, the God who commands armies, just might be with you,

as you claim he is.

Matthew 1:23

1:23 “Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him ²¹  Emmanuel,” ²²  which means ²³  “God with us.” ²⁴ 

Matthew 28:20

28:20 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, ²⁵  I am with you ²⁶  always, to the end of the age.” ²⁷ 

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 ²⁸  in Christ Jesus has set you ²⁹  free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 4:22

4:22 So indeed it was credited to Abraham ³⁰  as righteousness.

[15:2]  ¹ tn Heb “went out before.”

[15:2]  ² tn Heb “when you are with him.”

[15:2]  ³ tn Heb “he will allow himself to be found by you.”

[32:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “With him is an arm of flesh.”

[32:8]  ⁵ tn Or “people.”

[14:9]  ⁶ sn The expression must indicate that they could destroy the enemies as easily as they could eat bread.

[14:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “their shade.” The figure compares the shade from the sun with the protection from the enemy. It is also possible that the text is alluding to their deities here.

[46:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “the Lord of hosts is with us.” The title “Lord of hosts” here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle (see Ps 24:10). The military imagery is further developed in vv. 8-9.

[46:7]  ⁹ tn That is, Israel, or Judah (see Ps 20:1).

[46:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “our elevated place” (see Pss 9:9; 18:2).

[46:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord of hosts is with us.” The title “Lord of hosts” here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle (see Ps 24:10). The military imagery is further developed in vv. 8-9.

[46:11]  ¹² tn That is, Israel, or Judah (see Ps 20:1).

[46:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “our elevated place” (see Pss 9:9; 18:2).

[8:9]  ¹⁴ tn The verb רֹעוּ (ro’u) is a Qal imperative, masculine plural from רָעַע (ra’a’, “break”). Elsewhere both transitive (Job 34:24; Ps 2:9; Jer 15:12) and intransitive (Prov 25:19; Jer 11:16) senses are attested for the Qal of this verb. Because no object appears here, the form is likely intransitive: “be broken.” In this case the imperative is rhetorical (like “be shattered” later in the verse) and equivalent to a prediction, “you will be broken.” On the rhetorical use of the imperative in general, see IBHS 572 §34.4c; GKC 324 §110.c.

[8:9]  ¹⁵ tn The imperatival form (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speaker’s firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. See the note on “be broken.”

[8:9]  ¹⁶ tn The initial imperative (“get ready for battle”) acknowledges the reality of the nations’ hostility; the concluding imperative (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speakers’ firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. (See the note on “be broken.”) One could paraphrase, “Okay, go ahead and prepare for battle since that’s what you want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll be shattered.” This rhetorical use of the imperatives is comparable to saying to a child who is bent on climbing a high tree, “Okay, go ahead, climb the tree and break your arm!” What this really means is: “Okay, go ahead and climb the tree since that’s what you really want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll break your arm.” The repetition of the statement in the final two lines of the verse gives the challenge the flavor of a taunt (ancient Israelite “trash talking,” as it were).

[8:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ¹⁸ sn In these vv. 9-10 the tone shifts abruptly from judgment to hope. Hostile nations like Assyria may attack God’s people, but eventually they will be destroyed, for God is with his people, sometimes to punish, but ultimately to vindicate. In addition to being a reminder of God’s presence in the immediate crisis faced by Ahaz and Judah, Immanuel (whose name is echoed in this concluding statement) was a guarantee of the nation’s future greatness in fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Eventually God would deliver his people from the hostile nations (vv. 9-10) through another child, an ideal Davidic ruler who would embody God’s presence in a special way (see 9:6-7). Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Davidic ideal prophesied by Isaiah, the one whom Immanuel foreshadowed. Through the miracle of the incarnation he is literally “God with us.” Matthew realized this and applied Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of Immanuel’s birth to Jesus (Matt 1:22-23). The first Immanuel was a reminder to the people of God’s presence and a guarantee of a greater child to come who would manifest God’s presence in an even greater way. The second Immanuel is “God with us” in a heightened and infinitely superior sense. He “fulfills” Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy by bringing the typology intended by God to realization and by filling out or completing the pattern designed by God. Of course, in the ultimate fulfillment of the type, the incarnate Immanuel’s mother must be a virgin, so Matthew uses a Greek term (παρθένος, parqenos), which carries that technical meaning (in contrast to the Hebrew word עַלְמָה [’almah], which has the more general meaning “young woman”). Matthew draws similar analogies between NT and OT events in 2:15, 18. The linking of these passages by analogy is termed “fulfillment.” In 2:15 God calls Jesus, his perfect Son, out of Egypt, just as he did his son Israel in the days of Moses, an historical event referred to in Hos 11:1. In so doing he makes it clear that Jesus is the ideal Israel prophesied by Isaiah (see Isa 49:3), sent to restore wayward Israel (see Isa 49:5, cf. Matt 1:21). In 2:18 Herod’s slaughter of the infants is another illustration of the oppressive treatment of God’s people by foreign tyrants. Herod’s actions are analogous to those of the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites, causing the personified land to lament as inconsolably as a mother robbed of her little ones (Jer 31:15).

[41:10]  ¹⁹ tn According to BDB (1043 s.v. שָׁעָה), the verb תִּשְׁתָּע (tishta’) in the second line of the poetic couplet is a Hitpael form from the root שָׁעָה (sha’ah, “gaze,” with metathesis of the stem prefix and the first root letter). Taking the Hitpael as iterative, one may then translate “do not anxiously look about.” However, the alleged Hitpael form of שָׁעָה (sha’ah) only occurs here and in verse 23. HALOT 1671 s.v. שׁתע proposes that the verb is instead a Qal form from the root שׁתע (“fear”) which is attested in cognate Semitic languages, including Ugaritic (discovered after the publishing of BDB), suggests the existence of this root. The poetic structure of v. 10 also supports the proposal, for the form in question is in synonymous parallelism to יָרֵא (yare’, “fear”).

[41:10]  ²⁰ tn The “right hand” is a symbol of the Lord’s power to deliver (Exod 15:6, 12) and protect (Ps 63:9 HT [63:8 ET]). Here צֶדֶק (tsedeq) has its well-attested nuance of “vindicated righteousness,” i.e., “victory, deliverance” (see 45:8; 51:5, and BDB 841-42 s.v.).

[1:23]  ²¹ tn Grk “they will call his name.”

[1:23]  ²² sn A quotation from Isa 7:14.

[1:23]  ²³ tn Grk “is translated.”

[1:23]  ²⁴ sn An allusion to Isa 8:8, 10 (LXX).

[28:20]  ²⁵ tn The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has been translated here as “remember” (BDAG 468 s.v. 1.c).

[28:20]  ²⁶ sn I am with you. Matthew’s Gospel begins with the prophecy that the Savior’s name would be “Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with us,’” (1:23, in which the author has linked Isa 7:14 and 8:8, 10 together) and it ends with Jesus’ promise to be with his disciples forever. The Gospel of Matthew thus forms an inclusio about Jesus in his relationship to his people that suggests his deity.

[28:20]  ²⁷ tc Most mss (A^c Θ Ë¹³ Ï it sy) have ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”) at the end of v. 20. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, no good reason exists for the omission of the particle in significant and early witnesses such as א A* B D W ˹ 33 al lat sa.

[8:2]  ²⁸ tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”

[8:2]  ²⁹ 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.

[4:22]  ³⁰ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.