2 Samuel 12:11

12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ¹  from inside your own household! ²  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ³  He will have sexual relations with ⁴  your wives in broad daylight! ⁵ 

2 Samuel 16:10

16:10 But the king said, “What do we have in common, ⁶  you sons of Zeruiah? If he curses because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David!’, who can say to him, ‘Why have you done this?’”

Genesis 45:5

45:5 Now, do not be upset and do not be angry with yourselves because you sold me here, ⁷  for God sent me ⁸  ahead of you to preserve life!

Genesis 50:20

50:20 As for you, you meant to harm me, ⁹  but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day. ¹⁰ 

Exodus 7:3

7:3 But I will harden ¹¹  Pharaoh’s heart, and although I will multiply ¹²  my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt,

Exodus 7:1

7:1 So the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God ¹³  to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. ¹⁴ 

Exodus 26:19

26:19 and you are to make forty silver bases to go under the twenty frames – two bases under the first frame for its two projections, and likewise ¹⁵  two bases under the next frame for its two projections;

Exodus 26:1

The Tabernacle

26:1 ¹⁶ “The tabernacle itself ¹⁷  you are to make with ¹⁸  ten curtains of fine twisted linen and blue and purple and scarlet; ¹⁹  you are to make them with ²⁰  cherubim that are the work of an artistic designer.

Exodus 22:20-23

22:20 “Whoever sacrifices to a god other than the Lord ²¹  alone must be utterly destroyed. ²² 

22:21 “You must not wrong ²³  a foreigner ²⁴  nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

22:22 “You must not afflict ²⁵  any widow or orphan. 22:23 If you afflict them ²⁶  in any way ²⁷  and they cry to me, I will surely hear ²⁸  their cry,

Ezekiel 14:9

14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of ²⁹  that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

Ezekiel 20:25

20:25 I also gave ³⁰  them decrees ³¹  which were not good and regulations by which they could not live.

Acts 4:28

4:28 to do as much as your power ³²  and your plan ³³  had decided beforehand ³⁴  would happen.

Acts 4:2

4:2 angry ³⁵  because they were teaching the people and announcing ³⁶  in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

Acts 2:11

2:11 both Jews and proselytes, ³⁷  Cretans and Arabs – we hear them speaking in our own languages about the great deeds God has done!” ³⁸ 

[12:11]  ¹ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ² tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ³ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[16:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “What to me and to you?”

[45:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “let there not be anger in your eyes.”

[45:5]  ⁸ sn You sold me here, for God sent me. The tension remains as to how the brothers’ wickedness and God’s intentions work together. Clearly God is able to transform the actions of wickedness to bring about some gracious end. But this is saying more than that; it is saying that from the beginning it was God who sent Joseph here. Although harmonization of these ideas remains humanly impossible, the divine intention is what should be the focus. Only that will enable reconciliation.

[50:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “you devised against me evil.”

[50:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “God devised it for good in order to do, like this day, to preserve alive a great nation.”

[7:3]  ¹¹ tn The clause begins with the emphatic use of the pronoun and a disjunctive vav (ו) expressing the contrast “But as for me, I will harden.” They will speak, but God will harden.

[7:3]  ¹² tn The form beginning the second half of the verse is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive, הִרְבֵּיתִי (hirbeti). It could be translated as a simple future in sequence after the imperfect preceding it, but the logical connection is not obvious. Since it carries the force of an imperfect due to the sequence, it may be subordinated as a temporal clause to the next clause that begins in v. 4. That maintains the flow of the argument.

[7:1]  ¹³ tn The word “like” is added for clarity, making explicit the implied comparison in the statement “I have made you God to Pharaoh.” The word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is used a few times in the Bible for humans (e.g., Pss 45:6; 82:1), and always clearly in the sense of a subordinate to GOD – they are his representatives on earth. The explanation here goes back to 4:16. If Moses is like God in that Aaron is his prophet, then Moses is certainly like God to Pharaoh. Only Moses, then, is able to speak to Pharaoh with such authority, giving him commands.

[7:1]  ¹⁴ tn The word נְבִיאֶךָ (nÿvi’ekha, “your prophet”) recalls 4:16. Moses was to be like God to Aaron, and Aaron was to speak for him. This indicates that the idea of a “prophet” was of one who spoke for God, an idea with which Moses and Aaron and the readers of Exodus are assumed to be familiar.

[26:19]  ¹⁵ tn The clause is repeated to show the distributive sense; it literally says, “and two bases under the one frame for its two projections.”

[26:1]  ¹⁶ sn This chapter is given over to the details of the structure itself, the curtains, coverings, boards and walls and veil. The passage can be studied on one level for its function both practically and symbolically for Israel’s worship. On another level it can be studied for its typology, for the tabernacle and many of its parts speak of Christ. For this one should see the commentaries.

[26:1]  ¹⁷ tn The word order in Hebrew thrusts the direct object to the front for particular emphasis. After the first couple of pieces of furniture are treated (chap. 25), attention turns to the tabernacle itself.

[26:1]  ¹⁸ tn This is for the adverbial accusative explaining how the dwelling place is to be made.

[26:1]  ¹⁹ sn S. R. Driver suggests that the curtains were made with threads dyed with these colors (Exodus, 280). Perhaps the colored threads were used for embroidering the cherubim in the curtains.

[26:1]  ²⁰ tn The construction is difficult in this line because of the word order. “Cherubim” is an adverbial accusative explaining how they were to make the curtains. And מַעֲשֵׂה חֹשֵׁב (ma’aseh khoshev) means literally “work of a designer”; it is in apposition to “cherubim.” The Hebrew participle means “designer” or “deviser” so that one could render this “of artistic designs in weaving” (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 280-81). B. Jacob says that it refers to “artistic weavers” (Exodus, 789).

[22:20]  ²¹ tn Heb “not to Yahweh.”

[22:20]  ²² tn The verb חָרַם (kharam) means “to be devoted” to God or “to be banned.” The idea is that it would be God’s to do with as he liked. What was put under the ban was for God alone, either for his service or for his judgment. But it was out of human control. Here the verb is saying that the person will be utterly destroyed.

[22:21]  ²³ tn Or “oppress.”

[22:21]  ²⁴ tn Or “alien,” both here and in 23:9. This individual is a resident foreigner; he lives in the land but, aside from provisions such as this, might easily be without legal rights.

[22:22]  ²⁵ tn The verb “afflict” is a Piel imperfect from עָנָה (’anah); it has a wide range of meanings: “afflict, oppress, humiliate, rape.” These victims are at the mercy of the judges, businessmen, or villains. The righteous king and the righteous people will not mistreat them (see Isa 1:17; Job 31:16, 17, 21).

[22:23]  ²⁶ tn The accusative here is the masculine singular pronoun, which leads S. R. Driver to conclude that this line is out of place, even though the masculine singular can be used in places like this (Exodus, 232). U. Cassuto says its use is to refer to certain classes (Exodus, 292).

[22:23]  ²⁷ tn Here again and with “cry” the infinitive absolute functions with a diminished emphasis (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[22:23]  ²⁸ tn Here is the normal use of the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense to emphasize the verb: “I will surely hear,” implying, “I will surely respond.”

[14:9]  ²⁹ tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.

[20:25]  ³⁰ tn Or “permitted.”

[20:25]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew term חֻקּוֹת (khuqot; translated “statutes” elsewhere in this chapter) is normally feminine. Here Ezekiel changes the form to masculine: חֻקִּים (khuqim). Further, they are not called “my decrees” as vv. 11 and 13 refer to “my statutes.” The change is a signal that Ezekiel is not talking about the same statutes in vv. 11 and 13, which lead to life.

[4:28]  ³² tn Grk “hand,” here a metaphor for God’s strength or power or authority.

[4:28]  ³³ tn Or “purpose,” “will.”

[4:28]  ³⁴ tn Or “had predestined.” Since the term “predestine” is something of a technical theological term, not in wide usage in contemporary English, the translation “decide beforehand” was used instead (see L&N 30.84). God’s direction remains as the major theme.

[4:2]  ³⁵ tn Or “greatly annoyed,” “provoked.”

[4:2]  ³⁶ tn Or “proclaiming.”

[2:11]  ³⁷ sn Proselytes refers to Gentile (i.e., non-Jewish) converts to Judaism.

[2:11]  ³⁸ tn Or “God’s mighty works.” Here the genitive τοῦ θεοῦ (tou qeou) has been translated as a subjective genitive.