Deuteronomy 28:9-14

28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ¹  and obey him. ²  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ³  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ⁴  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ⁵  promised your ancestors ⁶  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; ⁷  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 ⁸  commandments which I am urging ⁹  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹⁰  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ¹¹  them.

Isaiah 5:26

5:26 He lifts a signal flag for a distant nation, ¹² 

he whistles for it to come from the far regions of the earth.

Look, they ¹³  come quickly and swiftly.

Jeremiah 34:1

The Lord Makes an Ominous Promise to Zedekiah

34:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah while King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was attacking Jerusalem ¹⁴  and the towns around it with a large army. This army consisted of troops from his own army and from the kingdoms and peoples of the lands under his dominion. ¹⁵ 

Daniel 2:40-43

2:40 Then there will be a fourth kingdom, one strong like iron. Just like iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything, and as iron breaks in pieces ¹⁶  all of these metals, ¹⁷  so it will break in pieces and crush the others. ¹⁸  2:41 In that you were seeing feet and toes ¹⁹  partly of wet clay ²⁰  and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom. Some of the strength of iron will be in it, for you saw iron mixed with wet clay. ²¹  2:42 In that the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, the latter stages of this kingdom will be partly strong and partly fragile. 2:43 And ²²  in that you saw iron mixed with wet clay, so people will be mixed ²³  with one another ²⁴  without adhering to one another, just as ²⁵  iron does not mix with clay.

Joel 3:2

3:2 Then I will gather all the nations,

and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. ²⁶ 

I will enter into judgment ²⁷  against them there

concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance, ²⁸ 

whom they scattered among the nations.

They partitioned my land,

Matthew 22:7

22:7 The ²⁹  king was furious! He sent his soldiers, and they put those murderers to death ³⁰  and set their city ³¹  on fire.

Luke 2:1

The Census and the Birth of Jesus

2:1 Now ³²  in those days a decree ³³  went out from Caesar ³⁴  Augustus ³⁵  to register ³⁶  all the empire ³⁷  for taxes.

[28:9]  ¹ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ² tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

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

[28:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

[28:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

[28:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in order to serve.”

[5:26]  ¹² tc The Hebrew text has literally, “for nations from a distance.” The following verses use singular forms to describe this nation, so the final mem (ם) on לְגּוֹיִם (lÿgoyim) may be enclitic or dittographic. In the latter case one could read לְגוֹי מֵרָחוֹק (lÿgoy merakhoq, “for a nation from a distance”; see Deut 28:49; Joel 3:8). Another possibility is to emend the text from לַגּוֹיִם מֵרָחוֹק (laggoyim merakhoq) to לְגוֹי מִמֶּרְחָק (lÿgoy mimmerkhaq, “for a nation from a distant place”) a phrase which occurs in Jer 5:15. In this case an error of misdivision has occurred in MT, the mem of the prefixed preposition being accidentally taken as a plural ending on the preceding word.

[5:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “he.” Singular forms are used throughout vv. 26-30 to describe this nation, but for stylistic reasons the translation uses the plural for these collective singulars.

[34:1]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[34:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord while Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under the dominion of his hand and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its towns, saying.” The sentence is obviously too long and the qualifiers obviously too ill-defined to translate literally. This same introductory formula has occurred in 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1; 32:1 but without such a long introductory phrase. It is generally agreed that the phrase “all the peoples” should be seen as a parallel term to “all the kingdoms” under the qualifying “under the dominion of his hand/ control” and what is referred to are contingent forces supplied by these vassal kingdoms and peoples under the terms of their vassal treaties with Nebuchadnezzar. Some of the nature of the make-up of these forces may be seen from a reference to Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders in the earlier attacks on Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim (2 Kgs 24:2).

[2:40]  ¹⁶ tc Theodotion and the Vulgate lack the phrase “and as iron breaks in pieces.”

[2:40]  ¹⁷ tn The Aramaic text does not have this word, but it has been added in the translation for clarity.

[2:40]  ¹⁸ tn The words “the others” are supplied from the context.

[2:41]  ¹⁹ tc The LXX lacks “and toes.”

[2:41]  ²⁰ tn Aram “potter’s clay.”

[2:41]  ²¹ tn Aram “clay of clay” (also in v. 43).

[2:43]  ²² tc The present translation reads the conjunction, with most medieval Hebrew MSS, LXX, Vulgate, and the Qere. The Kethib lacks the conjunction.

[2:43]  ²³ sn The reference to people being mixed is usually understood to refer to intermarriage.

[2:43]  ²⁴ tn Aram “with the seed of men.”

[2:43]  ²⁵ tc The present translation reads הֵיךְ דִּי (hekh diy) rather than the MT הֵא־כְדִי (he’-khÿdi). It is a case of wrong word division.

[3:2]  ²⁶ sn There is a play on words here. Jehoshaphat in Hebrew means “the Lord has judged,” and the next line in v. 2 further explicates this thought. The location of this valley is uncertain (cf. v. 12). Many interpreters have understood the Valley of Jehoshaphat to be the Kidron Valley, located on the east side of old Jerusalem. Since this is described as a scene of future messianic activity and judgment, many Jews and Muslims have desired to be buried in the vicinity, a fact attested to in modern times by the presence of many graves in the area. A variation of this view is mentioned by Eusebius, Onomasticon 1:10. According to this view, the Valley of Jehoshaphat is located in the Hinnom Valley, on the south side of the old city. Yet another view is held by many modern scholars, who understand the reference to this valley to be one of an idealized and nonliteral scene of judgment.

[3:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “I will execute judgment.”

[3:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “concerning my people and my inheritance Israel.”

[22:7]  ²⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[22:7]  ³⁰ tn Grk “he sent his soldiers, destroyed those murderers.” The verb ἀπώλεσεν (apwlesen) is causative, indicating that the king was the one behind the execution of the murderers. In English the causative idea is not expressed naturally here; either a purpose clause (“he sent his soldiers to put those murderers to death”) or a relative clause (“he sent his soldier who put those murderers to death”) is preferred.

[22:7]  ³¹ tn The Greek text reads here πόλις (polis), which could be translated “town” or “city.” The prophetic reference is to the city of Jerusalem, so “city” is more appropriate here.

[2:1]  ³² tn Grk “Now it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[2:1]  ³³ sn This decree was a formal decree from the Roman Senate.

[2:1]  ³⁴ tn Or “from the emperor” (“Caesar” is a title for the Roman emperor).

[2:1]  ³⁵ sn Caesar Augustus refers to Octavian, who was Caesar from 27 b.c. to a.d. 14. He was known for his administrative prowess.

[2:1]  ³⁶ tn Grk “that all the empire should be registered for taxes.” The passive infinitive ἀπογράφεσθαι (apografesqai) has been rendered as an active in the translation to improve the English style. The verb is regarded as a technical term for official registration in tax lists (BDAG 108 s.v. ἀπογράφω a).

[2:1]  ³⁷ tn Grk “the whole (inhabited) world,” but this was a way to refer to the Roman empire (L&N 1.83).