Deuteronomy 30:2-6

30:2 Then if you and your descendants ¹  turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being ²  just as ³  I am commanding you today, 30:3 the Lord your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he ⁴  has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, ⁵  from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 30:5 Then he ⁶  will bring you to the land your ancestors ⁷  possessed and you also will possess it; he will do better for you and multiply you more than he did your ancestors. 30:6 The Lord your God will also cleanse ⁸  your heart and the hearts of your descendants ⁹  so that you may love him ¹⁰  with all your mind and being and so that you may live.

Jeremiah 29:12-14

29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ¹¹  I will hear your prayers. ¹²  29:13 When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, ¹³  29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ ¹⁴  says the Lord. ¹⁵  ‘Then I will reverse your plight ¹⁶  and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ¹⁷  ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

Hosea 14:1-4

Prophetic Call to Genuine Repentance

14:1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,

for your sin has been your downfall! ¹⁸ 

14:2 Return to the Lord and repent! ¹⁹ 

Say to him: “Completely ²⁰  forgive our iniquity;

accept ²¹  our penitential prayer, ²² 

that we may offer the praise of our lips as sacrificial bulls. ²³ 

14:3 Assyria cannot save us;

we will not ride warhorses.

We will never again say, ‘Our gods’

to what our own hands have made.

For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!” ²⁴ 

Divine Promise to Relent from Judgment and to Restore Blessings

14:4 “I will heal their waywardness ²⁵ 

and love them freely, ²⁶ 

for my anger will turn ²⁷  away from them.

Joel 2:12-13

An Appeal for Repentance

2:12 “Yet even now,” the Lord says,

“return to me with all your heart –

with fasting, weeping, and mourning.

Tear your hearts, ²⁸ 

not just your garments!”

2:13 Return to the Lord your God,

for he is merciful and compassionate,

slow to anger and boundless in loyal love ²⁹  – often relenting from calamitous punishment. ³⁰ 

[30:2]  ¹ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “children.”

[30:2]  ² tn Or “heart and soul” (also in vv. 6, 10).

[30:2]  ³ tn Heb “according to all.”

[30:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[30:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “are at the farthest edge of the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[30:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[30:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “fathers” (also later in this verse and in vv. 9, 20).

[30:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “circumcise” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “will give you and your descendents obedient hearts.” See note on the word “cleanse” in Deut 10:16.

[30:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[30:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[29:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “come and pray to me.” This is an example of verbal hendiadys where two verb formally joined by “and” convey a main concept with the second verb functioning as an adverbial qualifier.

[29:12]  ¹² tn Or “You will call out to me and come to me in prayer and I will hear your prayers.” The verbs are vav consecutive perfects and can be taken either as unconditional futures or as contingent futures. See GKC 337 §112.kk and 494 §159.g and compare the usage in Gen 44:22 for the use of the vav consecutive perfects in contingent futures. The conditional clause in the middle of 29:13 and the deuteronomic theology reflected in both Deut 30:1-5 and 1 Kgs 8:46-48 suggest that the verbs are continent futures here. For the same demand for wholehearted seeking in these contexts which presuppose exile see especially Deut 30:2, 1 Kgs 8:48.

[29:13]  ¹³ tn Or “If you wholeheartedly seek me”; Heb “You will seek me and find [me] because you will seek me with all your heart.” The translation attempts to reflect the theological nuances of “seeking” and “finding” and the psychological significance of “heart” which refers more to intellectual and volitional concerns in the OT than to emotional ones.

[29:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will let myself be found by you.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 594 s.v. מָצָא Niph.1.f and compare the usage in Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:2. The Greek version already noted that nuance when it translated the phrase “I will manifest myself to you.”

[29:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “restore your fortune.” Alternately, “I will bring you back from exile.” This idiom occurs twenty-six times in the OT and in several cases it is clearly not referring to return from exile but restoration of fortunes (e.g., Job 42:10; Hos 6:11–7:1; Jer 33:11). It is often followed as here by “regather” or “bring back” (e.g., Jer 30:3; Ezek 29:14) so it is often misunderstood as “bringing back the exiles.” The versions (LXX, Vulg., Tg., Pesh.) often translate the idiom as “to go away into captivity,” deriving the noun from שְׁבִי (shÿvi, “captivity”). However, the use of this expression in Old Aramaic documents of Sefire parallels the biblical idiom: “the gods restored the fortunes of the house of my father again” (J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire [BibOr], 100-101, 119-20). The idiom means “to turn someone's fortune, bring about change” or “to reestablish as it was” (HALOT 1386 s.v. 3.c). In Ezek 16:53 it is paralleled by the expression “to restore the situation which prevailed earlier.” This amounts to restitutio in integrum, which is applicable to the circumstances surrounding the return of the exiles.

[29:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[14:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “For you have stumbled in your iniquity”; NASB, NRSV “because of your iniquity.”

[14:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Take words with you and return to the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[14:2]  ²⁰ tn The word order כָּל־תִּשָּׂא עָוֹן (kol-tisa’ ’avon) is syntactically awkward. The BHS editors suggest rearranging the word order: תִּשָּׂא כָּל־עוֹן (“Forgive all [our] iniquity!”). However, Gesenius suggests that כָּל (“all”) does not function as the construct in the genitive phrase כָּל־עוֹן (“all [our] iniquity”); it functions adverbially modifying the verb תִּשָּׂא (“Completely forgive!”; see GKC 415 §128.e).

[14:2]  ²¹ sn The repetition of the root לָקַח (laqakh) creates a striking wordplay in 14:2. If Israel will bring (לָקַח) its confession to God, he will accept (לָקַח) repentant Israel and completely forgive its sin.

[14:2]  ²² tn Heb “and accept [our] speech.” The word טוֹב (tov) is often confused with the common homonymic root I טוֹב (tov, “good”; BDB 373 s.v. I טוֹב). However, this is probably IV טוֹב (tov, “word, speech”; HALOT 372 s.v. IV טוֹב), a hapax legomenon that is related to the verb טבב (“to speak”; HALOT 367 s.v. טבב) and the noun טִבָּה (tibbah, “rumor”; HALOT 367 s.v. טִבָּה). The term טוֹב (“word; speech”) refers to the repentant prayer mentioned in 14:1-3. Most translations relate it to I טוֹב and treat it as (1) accusative direct object: “accept that which is good” (RSV, NJPS), “Accept our good sacrifices” (CEV), or (2) adverbial accusative of manner: “receive [us] graciously” (KJV, NASB, NIV). Note TEV, however, which follows the suggestion made here: “accept our prayer.”

[14:2]  ²³ tc The MT reads פָרִים (farim, “bulls”), but the LXX reflects פְּרִי (pÿri, “fruit”), a reading followed by NASB, NIV, NRSV: “that we may offer the fruit of [our] lips [as sacrifices to you].” Although the Greek expression in Heb 13:15 (καρπὸν χειλέων, karpon xeilewn, “the fruit of lips”) reflects this LXX phrase, the MT makes good sense as it stands; NT usage of the LXX should not be considered decisive in resolving OT textual problems. The noun פָרִים (parim, “bulls”) functions as an adverbial accusative of state.

[14:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “For the orphan is shown compassion by you.” The present translation takes “orphan” as a figurative reference to Israel, which is specified in the translation for clarity.

[14:4]  ²⁵ sn The noun מְשׁוּבָתָה (mÿshuvatah, “waywardness”; cf. KJV “backsliding”) is from the same root as שׁוּבָה (shuvah, “return!”) in 14:1[2]. This repetition of שׁוּב (shuv) creates a wordplay which emphasizes reciprocity: if Israel will return (שׁוּבָה, shuvah) to the Lord, he will cure her of the tendency to turn away (מְשׁוּבָתָה) from him.

[14:4]  ²⁶ tn The noun נְדָבָה (nÿdavah, “voluntariness; free-will offering”) is an adverbial accusative of manner: “freely, voluntarily” (BDB 621 s.v. נְדָבָה 1). Cf. CEV “without limit”; TEV “with all my heart”; NLT “my love will know no bounds.”

[14:4]  ²⁷ sn The verb שָׁב, shav, “will turn” (Qal perfect 3rd person masculine singular from שׁוּב, shuv, “to turn”) continues the wordplay on שׁוּב in 14:1-4[2-5]. If Israel will “return” (שׁוּב) to the Lord, he will heal Israel’s tendency to “turn away” (מְשׁוּבָתָה, mÿshuvatah) and “turn” (שָׁב) from his anger.

[2:12]  ²⁸ sn The figurative language calls for genuine repentance, and not merely external ritual that goes through the motions.

[2:13]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and great of loyal love.”

[2:13]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and he relents from calamity.”