Deuteronomy 28:2-14

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ²  28:4 Your children ³  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁴  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ⁵  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ⁶  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ⁷  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ⁸  and obey him. ⁹  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ¹⁰  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ¹¹  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ¹²  promised your ancestors ¹³  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ¹⁴  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 28:13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ¹⁵  commandments which I am urging ¹⁶  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹⁷  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ¹⁸  them.

Deuteronomy 28:2

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹⁹  if you obey the Lord your God:

Deuteronomy 6:11

6:11 houses filled with choice things you did not accumulate, hewn out cisterns you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant – and you eat your fill,

Job 8:6-7

8:6 if you become ²⁰  pure ²¹  and upright, ²² 

even now he will rouse himself ²³  for you,

and will restore ²⁴  your righteous abode. ²⁵ 

8:7 Your beginning ²⁶  will seem so small,

since your future will flourish. ²⁷ 

Psalms 1:3

1:3 He is like ²⁸  a tree planted by flowing streams; ²⁹ 

it ³⁰  yields ³¹  its fruit at the proper time, ³² 

and its leaves never fall off. ³³ 

He succeeds in everything he attempts. ³⁴ 

Psalms 91:10

91:10 No harm will overtake ³⁵  you;

no illness ³⁶  will come near your home. ³⁷ 

[28:2]  ¹ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[28:3]  ² tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:6]  ⁴ sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.

[28:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

[28:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

[28:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.

[28:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).

[28:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ¹² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[28:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

[28:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

[28:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in order to serve.”

[28:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[8:6]  ²⁰ tn A verb form needs to be supplied here. Bildad is not saying to Job, “If you are pure [as you say you are].” Bildad is convinced that Job is a sinner. Therefore, “If you become pure” makes more sense here.

[8:6]  ²¹ tn Or “innocent” (i.e., acquitted).

[8:6]  ²² tn Many commentators delete this colon as a moralizing gloss on v. 5; but the phrase makes good sense, and simply serves as another condition. Besides, the expression is in the LXX.

[8:6]  ²³ tn The verb יָעִיר (ya’ir, “rouse, stir up”) is a strong anthropomorphism. The LXX has “he will answer your prayer” (which is probably only the LXX’s effort to avoid the anthropomorphism [D. J. A. Clines, Job (WBC), 198]). A reading of “watch over you” has been adopted because of parallel texts (see H. L. Ginsberg, “Two North Canaanite Letters from Ugarit,” BASOR 72 [1938]: 18-19; and H. N. Richardson, “A Ugaritic Letter of a King to His Mother,” JBL 66 [1947]: 321-24). Others suggest “his light will shine on you” or “he will bestow health on you.” But the idea of “awake” is common enough in the Bible to be retained here.

[8:6]  ²⁴ tn The Piel of שָׁלַם (shalam) means “to make good; to repay; to restore something to its wholeness; to reestablish.” The best understanding here would be “restore [Job] to his place.” Some take the verb in the sense of “reward [Job himself] with a righteous habitation.”

[8:6]  ²⁵ tn The construct נְוַת (nÿvat) is feminine; only the masculine occurs in Hebrew. But the meaning “abode of your righteousness” is clear enough. The righteousness of Job is pictured as inhabiting an estate, or it pictures the place where Job lives as a righteous man. A translation “rightful habitation” would mean “the habitation that you deserve” – if you are righteous.

[8:7]  ²⁶ tn The reference to “your beginning” is a reference to Job’s former estate of wealth and peace. The reference to “latter end” is a reference to conditions still in the future. What Job had before will seem so small in comparison to what lies ahead.

[8:7]  ²⁷ tn The verb has the idea of “to grow”; here it must mean “to flourish; to grow considerably” or the like. The statement is not so much a prophecy; rather Bildad is saying that “if Job had recourse to God, then….” This will be fulfilled, of course, at the end of the book.

[1:3]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries the same characteristic force as the imperfect in the preceding verse. According to the psalmist, the one who studies and obeys God’s commands typically prospers.

[1:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “channels of water.”

[1:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “which.”

[1:3]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew imperfect verbal forms in v. 3 draw attention to the typical nature of the actions/states they describe.

[1:3]  ³² tn Heb “in its season.”

[1:3]  ³³ tn Or “fade”; “wither.”

[1:3]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and all which he does prospers”; or “and all which he does he causes to prosper.” (The simile of the tree does not extend to this line.) It is not certain if the Hiphil verbal form (יַצְלִיחַ, yatsliakh) is intransitive-exhibitive (“prospers”) or causative (“causes to prosper”) here. If the verb is intransitive, then כֹּל (kol, “all, everything”) is the subject. If the verb is causative, then the godly individual or the Lord himself is the subject and כֹּל is the object. The wording is reminiscent of Josh 1:8, where the Lord tells Joshua: “This law scroll must not leave your lips! You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper (literally, “cause your way to prosper”) and be successful.”

[91:10]  ³⁵ tn Or “confront.”

[91:10]  ³⁶ tn For this sense of the Hebrew term נגע see Ps 38:11.

[91:10]  ³⁷ tn Heb “your tent.”