Deuteronomy 20:5

20:5 Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, ¹  “Who among you ²  has built a new house and not dedicated ³  it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else ⁴  dedicate it.

Deuteronomy 20:1

Laws Concerning War with Distant Enemies

20:1 When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry ⁵  and troops ⁶  who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you.

Deuteronomy 8:1-2

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ⁷  I am giving ⁸  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ⁹  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹⁰  8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ¹¹  has brought you these forty years through the desert ¹²  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 7:5

7:5 Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ¹³  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ¹⁴  and burn up their idols.

Deuteronomy 7:9

7:9 So realize that the Lord your God is the true God, ¹⁵  the faithful God who keeps covenant faithfully ¹⁶  with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

Ezra 6:16-17

6:16 The people ¹⁷  of Israel – the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles ¹⁸  – observed the dedication of this temple of God with joy. 6:17 For the dedication of this temple of God they offered one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and twelve male goats for the sin of all Israel, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.

Nehemiah 12:27

The Wall of Jerusalem is Dedicated

12:27 At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, ¹⁹  they sought out the Levites from all the places they lived ²⁰  to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication joyfully with songs of thanksgiving and songs accompanied by cymbals, harps, and lyres.

Nehemiah 12:43

12:43 And on that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced, for God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard from far away.

Psalms 30:1

Psalm 30 ²¹ 

A psalm – a song used at the dedication of the temple; ²²  by David.

30:1 I will praise you, O Lord, for you lifted me up, ²³ 

and did not allow my enemies to gloat ²⁴  over me.

John 10:22

Jesus at the Feast of Dedication

10:22 Then came the feast of the Dedication ²⁵  in Jerusalem. ²⁶ 

[20:5]  ¹ tn Heb “people” (also in vv. 8, 9).

[20:5]  ² tn Heb “Who [is] the man” (also in vv. 6, 7, 8).

[20:5]  ³ tn The Hebrew term חָנַךְ (khanakh) occurs elsewhere only with respect to the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 8:63 = 2 Chr 7:5). There it has a religious connotation which, indeed, may be the case here as well. The noun form (חָנֻכָּה, khanukah) is associated with the consecration of the great temple altar (2 Chr 7:9) and of the postexilic wall of Jerusalem (Neh 12:27). In Maccabean times the festival of Hanukkah was introduced to celebrate the rededication of the temple following its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1 Macc 4:36-61).

[20:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “another man.”

[20:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “horse and chariot.”

[20:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “people.”

[8:1]  ⁷ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[8:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ¹² tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[7:5]  ¹³ sn Sacred pillars. The Hebrew word (מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) denotes a standing pillar, usually made of stone. Its purpose was to mark the presence of a shrine or altar thought to have been visited by deity. Though sometimes associated with pure worship of the Lord (Gen 28:18, 22; 31:13; 35:14; Exod 24:4), these pillars were usually associated with pagan cults and rituals (Exod 23:24; 34:13; Deut 12:3; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:10; Hos 3:4; 10:1; Jer 43:13).

[7:5]  ¹⁴ sn Sacred Asherah poles. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], as here). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[7:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the God.” The article here expresses uniqueness; cf. TEV “is the only God”; NLT “is indeed God.”

[7:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “who keeps covenant and loyalty.” The syndetic construction of בְּרִית (bÿrit) and חֶסֶד (khesed) should be understood not as “covenant” plus “loyalty” but as an adverbial construction in which חֶסֶד (“loyalty”) modifies the verb שָׁמַר (shamar, “keeps”).

[6:16]  ¹⁷ tn Aram “sons of.”

[6:16]  ¹⁸ tn Aram “sons of the exile.”

[12:27]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[12:27]  ²⁰ tn Heb “from all their places.” The words “they lived” are implied.

[30:1]  ²¹ sn Psalm 30. The author thanks the Lord for delivering him from death and urges others to join him in praise. The psalmist experienced divine discipline for a brief time, but when he cried out for help the Lord intervened and restored his favor.

[30:1]  ²² tn Heb “a song of the dedication of the house.” The referent of “house” is unclear. It is possible that David wrote this psalm for the dedication ceremony of Solomon’s temple. Another possibility is that the psalm was used on the occasion of the dedication of the second temple following the return from exile, or on the occasion of the rededication of the temple in Maccabean times.

[30:1]  ²³ tn Elsewhere the verb דָּלָה (dalah) is used of drawing water from a well (Exod 2:16, 19; Prov 20:5). The psalmist was trapped in the pit leading to Sheol (see v. 3), but the Lord hoisted him up. The Piel stem is used here, perhaps suggesting special exertion on the Lord’s part.

[30:1]  ²⁴ tn Or “rejoice.”

[10:22]  ²⁵ tn That is, Hanukkah or the ‘Festival of Lights.’ The Greek name for the feast, τὰ ἐγκαίνια (ta enkainia), literally means “renewal” and was used to translate Hanukkah which means “dedication.” The Greek noun, with its related verbs, was the standard term used in the LXX for the consecration of the altar of the Tabernacle (Num 7:10-11), the altar of the temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 8:63; 2 Chr 7:5), and the altar of the second temple (Ezra 6:16). The word is thus connected with the consecration of all the houses of God in the history of the nation of Israel.

[10:22]  ²⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.