Deuteronomy 11:12

11:12 a land the Lord your God looks after. ¹  He is constantly attentive to it ²  from the beginning to the end of the year. ³ 

Deuteronomy 11:2

11:2 Bear in mind today that I am not speaking ⁴  to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments ⁵  of the Lord your God, which revealed ⁶  his greatness, strength, and power. ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 16:9

The Festival of Weeks

16:9 You must count seven weeks; you must begin to count them ⁸  from the time you begin to harvest the standing grain.

Psalms 11:4

11:4 The Lord is in his holy temple; ⁹ 

the Lord’s throne is in heaven. ¹⁰ 

His eyes ¹¹  watch; ¹² 

his eyes ¹³  examine ¹⁴  all people. ¹⁵ 

Proverbs 15:3

15:3 The eyes of the Lord ¹⁶  are in every place,

keeping watch ¹⁷  on those who are evil and those who are good.

Zechariah 4:10

4:10 For who dares make light of small beginnings? These seven eyes ¹⁸  will joyfully look on the tin tablet ¹⁹  in Zerubbabel’s hand. (These are the eyes of the Lord, which constantly range across the whole earth.)

[11:12]  ¹ tn Heb “seeks.” The statement reflects the ancient belief that God (Baal in Canaanite thinking) directly controlled storms and rainfall.

[11:12]  ² tn Heb “the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it” (so NIV); NASB, NRSV “always on it.”

[11:12]  ³ sn From the beginning to the end of the year. This refers to the agricultural year that was marked by the onset of the heavy rains, thus the autumn. See note on the phrase “the former and the latter rains” in v. 14.

[11:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “that not.” The words “I am speaking” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[11:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord.” The collocation of the verbs “know” and “see” indicates that personal experience (knowing by seeing) is in view. The term translated “discipline” (KJV, ASV “chastisement”) may also be rendered “instruction,” but vv. 2b-6 indicate that the referent of the term is the various acts of divine judgment the Israelites had witnessed.

[11:2]  ⁶ tn The words “which revealed” have been supplied in the translation to show the logical relationship between the terms that follow and the divine judgments. In the Hebrew text the former are in apposition to the latter.

[11:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “his strong hand and his stretched-out arm.”

[16:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “the seven weeks.” The translation uses a pronoun to avoid redundancy in English.

[11:4]  ⁹ tn Because of the royal imagery involved here, one could translate “lofty palace.” The Lord’s heavenly temple is in view here (see Mic 1:2-4).

[11:4]  ¹⁰ sn The Lord’s throne is in heaven. The psalmist is confident that the Lord reigns as sovereign king, “keeps an eye on” all people, and responds in a just manner to the godly and wicked.

[11:4]  ¹¹ sn His eyes. The anthropomorphic language draws attention to God’s awareness of and interest in the situation on earth. Though the enemies are hidden by the darkness (v. 2), the Lord sees all.

[11:4]  ¹² tn The two Hebrew imperfect verbal forms in this verse describe the Lord’s characteristic activity.

[11:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “eyelids.”

[11:4]  ¹⁴ tn For other uses of the verb in this sense, see Job 7:18; Pss 7:9; 26:2; 139:23.

[11:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “test the sons of men.”

[15:3]  ¹⁶ sn The proverb uses anthropomorphic language to describe God’s exacting and evaluating knowledge of all people.

[15:3]  ¹⁷ tn The form צֹפוֹת (tsofot, “watching”) is a feminine plural participle agreeing with “eyes.” God’s watching eyes comfort good people but convict evil.

[4:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “these seven.” Eyes are clearly intended in the ellipsis as v. 10b shows. As in 3:9 the idea is God’s omniscience. He who knows the end from the beginning rejoices at the completion of his purposes.

[4:10]  ¹⁹ tn This term is traditionally translated “plumb line” (so NASB, NIV, NLT; cf. KJV, NRSV “plummet”), but it is more likely that the Hebrew בְּדִיל (bÿdil) is to be derived not from בָּדַל (badal), “to divide,” but from a root meaning “tin.” This finds support in the ancient Near Eastern custom of placing inscriptions on tin plates in dedicatory foundation deposits.