Amos 7:5

7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!

How can Jacob survive? ¹ 

He is too weak!” ² 

Exodus 32:11-12

32:11 But Moses sought the favor ³  of the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your anger burn against your people, whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 32:12 Why ⁴  should the Egyptians say, ⁵  ‘For evil ⁶  he led them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy ⁷  them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger, and relent ⁸  of this evil against your people.

Exodus 34:9

34:9 and said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord ⁹  go among us, for we ¹⁰  are a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Numbers 14:17-19

14:17 So now, let the power of my Lord ¹¹  be great, just as you have said, 14:18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, ¹²  forgiving iniquity and transgression, ¹³  but by no means clearing ¹⁴  the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children until the third and fourth generations.’ ¹⁵  14:19 Please forgive ¹⁶  the iniquity of this people according to your great loyal love, ¹⁷  just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now.”

Jeremiah 14:7

14:7 Then I said, ¹⁸ 

“O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name ¹⁹ 

even though our sins speak out against us. ²⁰ 

Indeed, ²¹  we have turned away from you many times.

We have sinned against you.

Jeremiah 14:20-21

14:20 Lord, we confess that we have been wicked.

We confess that our ancestors have done wrong. ²² 

We have indeed ²³  sinned against you.

14:21 For the honor of your name, ²⁴  do not treat Jerusalem ²⁵  with contempt.

Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. ²⁶ 

Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it! ²⁷ 

Daniel 9:19

9:19 O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, pay attention, and act! Don’t delay, for your own sake, O my God! For your city and your people are called by your name.” ²⁸ 

James 5:15-16

5:15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up – and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ²⁹  5:16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. ³⁰ 

[7:5]  ¹ tn Heb “stand.”

[7:5]  ² tn Heb “small.”

[32:11]  ³ tn S. R. Driver (Exodus, 351) draws on Arabic to show that the meaning of this verb (חָלָה, khalah) was properly “make sweet the face” or “stroke the face”; so here “to entreat, seek to conciliate.” In this prayer, Driver adds, Moses urges four motives for mercy: 1) Israel is Yahweh’s people, 2) Israel’s deliverance has demanded great power, 3) the Egyptians would mock if the people now perished, and 4) the oath God made to the fathers.

[32:12]  ⁴ tn The question is rhetorical; it really forms an affirmation that is used here as a reason for the request (see GKC 474 §150.e).

[32:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “speak, saying.” This is redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation.

[32:12]  ⁶ tn The word “evil” means any kind of life-threatening or fatal calamity. “Evil” is that which hinders life, interrupts life, causes pain to life, or destroys it. The Egyptians would conclude that such a God would have no good intent in taking his people to the desert if now he destroyed them.

[32:12]  ⁷ tn The form is a Piel infinitive construct from כָּלָה (kalah, “to complete, finish”) but in this stem, “bring to an end, destroy.” As a purpose infinitive this expresses what the Egyptians would have thought of God’s motive.

[32:12]  ⁸ tn The verb “repent, relent” when used of God is certainly an anthropomorphism. It expresses the deep pain that one would have over a situation. Earlier God repented that he had made humans (Gen 6:6). Here Moses is asking God to repent/relent over the judgment he was about to bring, meaning that he should be moved by such compassion that there would be no judgment like that. J. P. Hyatt observes that the Bible uses so many anthropomorphisms because the Israelites conceived of God as a dynamic and living person in a vital relationship with people, responding to their needs and attitudes and actions (Exodus [NCBC], 307). See H. V. D. Parunak, “A Semantic Survey of NHM,” Bib 56 (1975): 512-32.

[34:9]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” two times here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[34:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “it is.” Hebrew uses the third person masculine singular pronoun here in agreement with the noun “people.”

[14:17]  ¹¹ tc The form in the text is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay), the word that is usually used in place of the tetragrammaton. It is the plural form with the pronominal suffix, and so must refer to God.

[14:18]  ¹² tn The expression is רַב־חֶסֶד (rav khesed) means “much of loyal love,” or “faithful love.” Some have it “totally faithful,” but that omits the aspect of his love.

[14:18]  ¹³ tn Or “rebellion.”

[14:18]  ¹⁴ tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the verbal activity of the imperfect tense, which here serves as a habitual imperfect. Negated it states what God does not do; and the infinitive makes that certain.

[14:18]  ¹⁵ sn The Decalogue adds “to those who hate me.” The point of the line is that the effects of sin, if not the sinful traits themselves, are passed on to the next generation.

[14:19]  ¹⁶ tn The verb סְלַח־נָא (selakh-na’), the imperative form, means “forgive” (see Ps 130:4), “pardon,” “excuse.” The imperative is of course a prayer, a desire, and not a command.

[14:19]  ¹⁷ tn The construct unit is “the greatness of your loyal love.” This is the genitive of specification, the first word being the modifier.

[14:7]  ¹⁸ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. However, it cannot be a continuation of the Lord’s speech and the people have consistently refused to acknowledge their sin. The fact that the prayer here and in vv. 19-22 are followed by an address from God to Jeremiah regarding prayer (cf. 4:11 and the interchanges there between God and Jeremiah and 15:1) also argues that the speaker is Jeremiah. He is again identifying with his people (cf. 8:18-9:2). Here he takes up the petition part of the lament which often contains elements of confession of sin and statements of trust. In 14:1-6 God portrays to Jeremiah the people’s lamentable plight instead of their describing it to him. Here Jeremiah prays what they should pray. The people are strangely silent throughout.

[14:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Act for the sake of your name.” The usage of “act” in this absolute, unqualified sense cf. BDB 794 s.v. עָוֹשָׂה Qal.I.r and compare the usage, e.g., in 1 Kgs 8:32 and 39. For the nuance of “for the sake of your name” compare the usage in Isa 48:9 and Ezek 20:9, 14.

[14:7]  ²⁰ tn Or “bear witness against us,” or “can be used as evidence against us,” to keep the legal metaphor. Heb “testify against.”

[14:7]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can scarcely be causal here; it is either intensive (BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) or concessive (BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c). The parallel usage in Gen 18:20 argues for the intensive force as does the fact that the concessive has already been expressed by אִם (’im).

[14:20]  ²² tn Heb “We acknowledge our wickedness [and] the iniquity of our [fore]fathers.” For the use of the word “know” to mean “confess,” “acknowledge” cf. BDB 394 s.v. יָדַע, Qal.1.f and compare the usage in Jer 3:13.

[14:20]  ²³ tn This is another example of the intensive use of כִּי (ki). See BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e.

[14:21]  ²⁴ tn Heb “For the sake of your name.”

[14:21]  ²⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:21]  ²⁶ tn English versions quite commonly supply “us” as an object for the verb in the first line. This is probably wrong. The Hebrew text reads: “Do not treat with contempt for the sake of your name; do not treat with disdain your glorious throne.” This is case of poetic parallelism where the object is left hanging until the second line. For an example of this see Prov 13:1 in the original and consult E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 103-4. There has also been some disagreement whether “your glorious throne” refers to the temple (as in 17:12) or Jerusalem (as in 3:17). From the beginning of the prayer in v. 19 where a similar kind of verb has been used with respect to Zion/Jerusalem it would appear that the contextual referent is Jerusalem. The absence of an object from the first line makes it possible to retain part of the metaphor in the translation and still convey some meaning.

[14:21]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Remember, do not break your covenant with us.”

[9:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “for your name is called over your city and your people.” See the note on this expression in v 18.

[5:15]  ²⁹ tn Grk “it will be forgiven him.”

[5:16]  ³⁰ tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”