2 Chronicles 16:9

16:9 Certainly ¹  the Lord watches the whole earth carefully ²  and is ready to strengthen those who are devoted to him. ³  You have acted foolishly in this matter; from now on you will have war.

2 Chronicles 32:7-8

32:7 “Be strong and brave! Don’t be afraid and don’t panic ⁴  because of the king of Assyria and this huge army that is with him! We have with us one who is stronger than those who are with him. ⁵  32:8 He has with him mere human strength, ⁶  but the Lord our God is with us to help us and fight our battles!” The army ⁷  was encouraged by the words of King Hezekiah of Judah.

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)

Psalms 55:18

55:18 He will rescue ¹⁴  me and protect me from those who attack me, ¹⁵ 

even though ¹⁶  they greatly outnumber me. ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 8:10

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

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ¹⁸ 

For God is with us! ¹⁹ 

Matthew 26:53

26:53 Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and that he would send me more than twelve legions ²⁰  of angels right now?

Romans 8:31

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

Romans 8:1

The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit

8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²¹ 

Romans 4:4

4:4 Now to the one who works, his pay is not credited due to grace but due to obligation. ²² 

[16:9]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[16:9]  ² tn Heb “the eyes of the Lord move quickly through all the earth.”

[16:9]  ³ tn Heb “to strengthen himself with their heart, [the one] complete toward him.”

[32:7]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps, “and don’t be discouraged.”

[32:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “for with us [is] a greater [one] than with him.”

[32:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “With him is an arm of flesh.”

[32:8]  ⁷ tn Or “people.”

[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).

[55:18]  ¹⁴ tn The perfect verbal form is here used rhetorically to indicate that the action is certain to take place (the so-called perfect of certitude).

[55:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “he will redeem in peace my life from [those who] draw near to me.”

[55:18]  ¹⁶ tn Or “for.”

[55:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “among many they are against me.” For other examples of the preposition עִמָּד (’immad) used in the sense of “at, against,” see HALOT 842 s.v.; BDB 767 s.v.; IBHS 219 §11.2.14b.

[8:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ¹⁹ 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).

[26:53]  ²⁰ sn A legion was a Roman army unit of about 6,000 soldiers, so twelve legions would be 72,000.

[8:1]  ²¹ tc The earliest and best witnesses of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as well as a few others (א* B D* F G 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), have no additional words for v. 1. Later scribes (A D¹ Ψ 81 365 629 pc vg) added the words μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν (mh kata sarka peripatousin, “who do not walk according to the flesh”), while even later ones (א² D² 33^vid Ï) added ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα (alla kata pneuma, “but [who do walk] according to the Spirit”). Both the external evidence and the internal evidence are compelling for the shortest reading. The scribes were evidently motivated to add such qualifications (interpolated from v. 4) to insulate Paul’s gospel from charges that it was characterized too much by grace. The KJV follows the longest reading found in Ï.

[4:4]  ²² tn Grk “not according to grace but according to obligation.”