2 Samuel 12:7-15

12:7 Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I chose ¹  you to be king over Israel and I rescued you from the hand of Saul. 12:8 I gave you your master’s house, and put your master’s wives into your arms. ²  I also gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all that somehow seems insignificant, I would have given you so much more as well! 12:9 Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in my ³  sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! ⁴  You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 12:10 So now the sword will never depart from your house. For you have despised me by taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own!’ 12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ⁵  from inside your own household! ⁶  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ⁷  He will have sexual relations with ⁸  your wives in broad daylight! ⁹  12:12 Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.’” ¹⁰ 

12:13 Then David exclaimed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord!” Nathan replied to David, “Yes, and the Lord has forgiven ¹¹  your sin. You are not going to die. 12:14 Nonetheless, because you have treated the Lord with such contempt ¹²  in this matter, the son who has been born to you will certainly die.”

12:15 Then Nathan went to his home. The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and the child became very ill. ¹³ 

Job 5:17-18

5:17 “Therefore, ¹⁴  blessed ¹⁵  is the man whom God corrects, ¹⁶ 

so do not despise the discipline ¹⁷  of the Almighty. ¹⁸ 

5:18 For ¹⁹  he ²⁰  wounds, ²¹  but he also bandages;

he strikes, but his hands also heal.

Psalms 141:5

141:5 May the godly strike me in love and correct me!

May my head not refuse ²²  choice oil! ²³ 

Indeed, my prayer is a witness against their evil deeds. ²⁴ 

Hebrews 12:10

12:10 For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness.

Revelation 3:19

3:19 All those ²⁵  I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!

[12:7]  ¹ tn Heb “anointed.”

[12:8]  ² tn Heb “and the wives of your lord into your chest [or “lap”].” The words “I put” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarification.

[12:9]  ³ tc So the Qere; the Kethib has “his.”

[12:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “to you for a wife.” This expression also occurs at the end of v. 10.

[12:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ⁷ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[12:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and before the sun.”

[12:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “removed.”

[12:14]  ¹² tc The MT has here “because you have caused the enemies of the Lord to treat the Lord with such contempt.” This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” According to this ancient tradition, the scribes changed the text in order to soften somewhat the negative light in which David was presented. If that is the case, the MT reflects the altered text. The present translation departs from the MT here. Elsewhere the Piel stem of this verb means “treat with contempt,” but never “cause someone to treat with contempt.”

[12:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “and the Lord struck the child…and he was ill.” It is necessary to repeat “the child” in the translation to make clear who became ill, since “the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became very ill” could be understood to mean that David himself became ill.

[5:17]  ¹⁴ tn The particle “therefore” links this section to the preceding; it points this out as the logical consequence of the previous discussion, and more generally, as the essence of Job’s suffering.

[5:17]  ¹⁵ tn The word אַשְׁרֵי (’ashre, “blessed”) is often rendered “happy.” But “happy” relates to what happens. “Blessed” is a reference to the heavenly bliss of the one who is right with God.

[5:17]  ¹⁶ tn The construction is an implied relative clause. The literal rendering would simply be “the man God corrects him.” The suffix on the verb is a resumptive pronoun, completing the use of the relative clause. The verb יָכַח (yakhakh) is a legal term; it always has some sense of a charge, dispute, or conflict. Its usages show that it may describe a strife breaking out, a charge or quarrel in progress, or the settling of a dispute (Isa 1:18). The derived noun can mean “reproach; recrimination; charge” (13:6; 23:4). Here the emphasis is on the consequence of the charge brought, namely, the correction.

[5:17]  ¹⁷ tn The noun מוּסַר (musar) is parallel to the idea of the first colon. It means “discipline, correction” (from יָסַר, yasar). Prov 3:11 says almost the same thing as this line.

[5:17]  ¹⁸ sn The name Shaddai occurs 31 times in the book. This is its first occurrence. It is often rendered “Almighty” because of the LXX and some of the early fathers. The etymology and meaning of the word otherwise remains uncertain, in spite of attempts to connect it to “mountains” or “breasts.”

[5:18]  ¹⁹ sn Verses 18-23 give the reasons why someone should accept the chastening of God – the hand that wounds is the same hand that heals. But, of course, the lines do not apply to Job because his suffering is not due to divine chastening.

[5:18]  ²⁰ tn The addition of the independent pronoun here makes the subject emphatic, as if to say, “For it is he who makes….”

[5:18]  ²¹ tn The imperfect verbs in this verse describe the characteristic activities of God; the classification as habitual imperfect fits the idea and is to be rendered with the English present tense.

[141:5]  ²² tn The form יָנִי (yaniy) appears to be derived from the verbal root נוּא (nu’). Another option is to emend the form to יְנָא (yÿna’), a Piel from נָאָה (na’ah), and translate “may choice oil not adorn my head” (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 271). In this case, choice oil, like delicacies in v. 4, symbolize the pleasures of sin.

[141:5]  ²³ sn May my head not refuse choice oil. The psalmist compares the constructive criticism of the godly (see the previous line) to having refreshing olive oil poured over one’s head.

[141:5]  ²⁴ tc Heb “for still, and my prayer [is] against their evil deeds.” The syntax of the Hebrew text is difficult; the sequence -כִּי־עוֹד וּ (kiy-’od u-, “for still and”) occurs only here. The translation assumes an emendation to כִּי עֵד תְפלָּתִי (“indeed a witness [is] my prayer”). The psalmist’s lament about the evil actions of sinful men (see v. 4) testifies against the wicked in the divine court.

[3:19]  ²⁵ tn The Greek pronoun ὅσος (Josos) means “as many as” and can be translated “All those” or “Everyone.”