Deuteronomy 26:1-4

Presentation of the First Fruits

26:1 When ¹  you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you occupy it and live in it, 26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ²  chooses to locate his name. ³  26:3 You must go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, “I declare today to the Lord your ⁴  God that I have come into the land that the Lord ⁵  promised ⁶  to our ancestors ⁷  to give us.” 26:4 The priest will then take the basket from you ⁸  and set it before the altar of the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 26:2

26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ⁹  chooses to locate his name. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 16:1-2

The Passover-Unleavened Bread Festival

16:1 Observe the month Abib ¹¹  and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in that month ¹²  he ¹³  brought you out of Egypt by night. 16:2 You must sacrifice the Passover animal ¹⁴  (from the flock or the herd) to the Lord your God in the place where he ¹⁵  chooses to locate his name.

Isaiah 28:4

28:4 The withering flower, its beautiful splendor,

situated at the head of a rich valley,

will be like an early fig before harvest –

as soon as someone notices it,

he grabs it and swallows it. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 24:1-3

Good Figs and Bad Figs

24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. ¹⁷  24:2 One basket had very good-looking figs in it. They looked like those that had ripened early. ¹⁸  The other basket had very bad-looking figs in it, so bad they could not be eaten. 24:3 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I answered, “I see figs. The good ones look very good. But the bad ones look very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”

Jeremiah 40:10

40:10 I for my part will stay at Mizpah to represent you before the Babylonians ¹⁹  whenever they come to us. You for your part go ahead and harvest the wine, the dates, the figs, ²⁰  and the olive oil, and store them in jars. Go ahead and settle down in the towns that you have taken over.” ²¹ 

Micah 7:1

Micah Laments Judah’s Sin

7:1 I am depressed! ²² 

Indeed, ²³  it is as if the summer fruit has been gathered,

and the grapes have been harvested. ²⁴ 

There is no grape cluster to eat,

no fresh figs that I crave so much. ²⁵ 

[26:1]  ¹ tn Heb “and it will come to pass that.”

[26:2]  ² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[26:2]  ³ sn The place where he chooses to locate his name. This is a circumlocution for the central sanctuary, first the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. See Deut 12:1-14 and especially the note on the word “you” in v. 14.

[26:3]  ⁴ tc For the MT reading “your God,” certain LXX mss have “my God,” a contextually superior rendition followed by some English versions (e.g., NAB, NASB, TEV). Perhaps the text reflects dittography of the kaf (כ) at the end of the word with the following preposition כִּי (ki).

[26:3]  ⁵ tc The Syriac adds “your God” to complete the usual formula.

[26:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “swore on oath.”

[26:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 7, 15).

[26:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “your hand.”

[26:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[26:2]  ¹⁰ sn The place where he chooses to locate his name. This is a circumlocution for the central sanctuary, first the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. See Deut 12:1-14 and especially the note on the word “you” in v. 14.

[16:1]  ¹¹ sn The month Abib, later called Nisan (Neh 2:1; Esth 3:7), corresponds to March-April in the modern calendar.

[16:1]  ¹² tn Heb “in the month Abib.” The demonstrative “that” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[16:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[16:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “sacrifice the Passover” (so NASB). The word “animal” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[16:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “which the one seeing sees, while still it is in his hand he swallows it.”

[24:1]  ¹⁷ sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597 b.c. and included the priest Ezekiel.

[24:2]  ¹⁸ sn See Isa 28:4; Hos 9:10.

[40:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[40:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “summer fruit.” “Summer fruit” is meaningless to most modern readers; dates and figs are what is involved.

[40:10]  ²¹ tn This plus “Things will go well with you” is in essence the substance of the oath. The pronouns are emphatic, “And I, behold I will stay…and you, you may gather.” The imperatives in the second half of the verse are more a form of permission than of command or advice (cf. NJPS, REB, TEV and compare the usage in 40:4 and the references in the translator’s note there).

[7:1]  ²² tn Heb “woe to me!” In light of the image that follows, perhaps one could translate, “I am disappointed.”

[7:1]  ²³ tn Or “for.”

[7:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I am like the gathering of the summer fruit, like the gleanings of the harvest.” Micah is not comparing himself to the harvested fruit. There is an ellipsis here, as the second half of the verse makes clear. The idea is, “I am like [one at the time] the summer fruit is gathered and the grapes are harvested.”

[7:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “my appetite craves.”