Deuteronomy 13:17

13:17 You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. ¹  Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors.

Deuteronomy 13:2

13:2 and the sign or wonder should come to pass concerning what he said to you, namely, “Let us follow other gods” – gods whom you have not previously known – “and let us serve them.”

Deuteronomy 21:14

21:14 If you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go ²  where she pleases. You cannot in any case sell ³  her; ⁴  you must not take advantage of ⁵  her, since you have already humiliated ⁶  her.

Isaiah 40:2

40:2 “Speak kindly to ⁷  Jerusalem, ⁸  and tell her

that her time of warfare is over, ⁹ 

that her punishment is completed. ¹⁰ 

For the Lord has made her pay double ¹¹  for all her sins.”

Joel 2:13

2:13 Return to the Lord your God,

for he is merciful and compassionate,

slow to anger and boundless in loyal love ¹²  – often relenting from calamitous punishment. ¹³ 

Joel 2:18

The Lord’s Response

2:18 Then the Lord became ¹⁴  zealous for his land;

he had compassion on his people.

John 3:9-10

3:9 Nicodemus replied, ¹⁵  “How can these things be?” ¹⁶  3:10 Jesus answered, ¹⁷  “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things? ¹⁸ 

Zechariah 6:8

6:8 Then he cried out to me, “Look! The ones going to the northland have brought me ¹⁹  peace about the northland.” ²⁰ 

[13:17]  ¹ tn Or “anything that has been put under the divine curse”; Heb “anything of the ban” (cf. NASB). See note on the phrase “divine judgment” in Deut 2:34.

[21:14]  ² sn Heb “send her off.” The Hebrew term שִׁלַּחְתָּה (shillakhtah) is a somewhat euphemistic way of referring to divorce, the matter clearly in view here (cf. Deut 22:19, 29; 24:1, 3; Jer 3:1; Mal 2:16). This passage does not have the matter of divorce as its principal objective, so it should not be understood as endorsing divorce generally. It merely makes the point that if grounds for divorce exist (see Deut 24:1-4), and then divorce ensues, the husband could in no way gain profit from it.

[21:14]  ³ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates by the words “in any case.”

[21:14]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text includes “for money.” This phrase has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[21:14]  ⁵ tn Or perhaps “must not enslave her” (cf. ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); Heb “[must not] be tyrannical over.”

[21:14]  ⁶ sn You have humiliated her. Since divorce was considered rejection, the wife subjected to it would “lose face” in addition to the already humiliating event of having become a wife by force (21:11-13). Furthermore, the Hebrew verb translated “humiliated” here (עָנָה, ’anah), commonly used to speak of rape (cf. Gen 34:2; 2 Sam 13:12, 14, 22, 32; Judg 19:24), likely has sexual overtones as well. The woman may not be enslaved or abused after the divorce because it would be double humiliation (see also E. H. Merrill, Deuteronomy [NAC], 291).

[40:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is personified as a woman.

[40:2]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[40:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “that she is filled [with] her warfare.” Some understand צָבָא (tsavah, “warfare”) as meaning “hard service” or “compulsory labor” in this context.

[40:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “that her punishment is accepted [as satisfactory].”

[40:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for she has received from the hand of the Lord double.” The principle of the double portion in punishment is also seen in Jer 16:18; 17:18 and Rev 18:6. For examples of the double portion in Israelite law, see Exod 22:4, 7, 9 (double restitution by a thief) and Deut 21:17 (double inheritance portion for the firstborn).

[2:13]  ¹² tn Heb “and great of loyal love.”

[2:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he relents from calamity.”

[2:18]  ¹⁴ tn The time-frame entertained by the verbs of v.18 constitutes a crux interpretum in this chapter. The Hebrew verb forms used here are preterites with vav consecutive and are most naturally understood as describing a past situation. However, some modern English versions render these verbs as futures (e.g., NIV, NASV), apparently concluding that the context requires a future reference. According to Joüon 2:363 §112.h, n.1 Ibn Ezra explained the verbs of Joel 2:18 as an extension of the so-called prophetic perfect; as such, a future fulfillment was described with a past tense as a rhetorical device lending certainty to the fulfillment. But this lacks adequate precedent and is very unlikely from a syntactical standpoint. It seems better to take the verbs in the normal past sense of the preterite. This would require a vantage point for the prophet at some time after the people had responded favorably to the Lord’s call for repentance and after the Lord had shown compassion and forgiveness toward his people, but before the full realization of God’s promises to restore productivity to the land. In other words, it appears from the verbs of vv. 18-19 that at the time of Joel’s writing this book the events of successive waves of locust invasion and conditions of drought had almost run their course and the people had now begun to turn to the Lord.

[3:9]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “Nicodemus answered and said to him.”

[3:9]  ¹⁶ sn “How can these things be?” is Nicodemus’ answer. It is clear that at this time he has still not grasped what Jesus is saying. Note also that this is the last appearance of Nicodemus in the dialogue. Having served the purpose of the author, at this point he disappears from the scene. As a character in the narrative, he has served to illustrate the prevailing Jewish misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching about the necessity of a new, spiritual birth from above. Whatever parting words Nicodemus might have had with Jesus, the author does not record them.

[3:10]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “Jesus answered and said to him.”

[3:10]  ¹⁸ sn Jesus’ question “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?” implies that Nicodemus had enough information at his disposal from the OT scriptures to have understood Jesus’ statements about the necessity of being born from above by the regenerating work of the Spirit. Isa 44:3-5 and Ezek 37:9-10 are passages Nicodemus might have known which would have given him insight into Jesus’ words. Another significant passage which contains many of these concepts is Prov 30:4-5.

[6:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “my spirit.” The subject appears to be the Lord who exclaims here that the horsemen have accomplished their task of bringing peace.

[6:8]  ²⁰ sn The immediate referent of peace about the northland is to the peace brought by Persia’s conquest of Babylonia, a peace that allowed the restoration of the Jewish people (cf. 2 Chr 36:22-23; Isa 44:28; 45:1-2). However, there is also an eschatological dimension, referring to a time when there will be perfect and universal peace.