Deuteronomy 30:3-4

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 ¹  has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, ²  from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.

Nehemiah 1:8-10

1:8 Please recall the word you commanded your servant Moses: ‘If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations. ³  1:9 But if you repent ⁴  and obey ⁵  my commandments and do them, then even if your dispersed people are in the most remote location, ⁶  I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen for my name to reside.’ 1:10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your mighty strength and by your powerful hand.

Isaiah 27:12

27:12 At that time ⁷  the Lord will shake the tree, ⁸  from the Euphrates River ⁹  to the Stream of Egypt. Then you will be gathered up one by one, O Israelites. ¹⁰ 

Amos 9:9

9:9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground. ¹¹ 

Romans 9:6-8

9:6 It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel, ¹²  9:7 nor are all the children Abraham’s true descendants; rather “through Isaac will your descendants be counted.” ¹³  9:8 This means ¹⁴  it is not the children of the flesh ¹⁵  who are the children of God; rather, the children of promise are counted as descendants.

Romans 11:1-7

Israel’s Rejection not Complete nor Final

11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 11:2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew! Do you not know what the scripture says about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 11:3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left and they are seeking my life!” ¹⁶  11:4 But what was the divine response ¹⁷  to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand people ¹⁸  who have not bent the knee to Baal.” ¹⁹ 

11:5 So in the same way at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 11:6 And if it is by grace, it is no longer by works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. 11:7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was diligently seeking, but the elect obtained it. The ²⁰  rest were hardened,

[30:3]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[30:4]  ² 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.

[1:8]  ³ tn Heb “peoples.”

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “turn to me.”

[1:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “keep.” See the note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “at the end of the heavens.”

[27:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “and it will be in that day.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[27:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “the Lord will beat out.” The verb is used of beating seeds or grain to separate the husk from the kernel (see Judg 6:11; Ruth 2:17; Isa 28:27), and of beating the olives off the olive tree (Deut 24:20). The latter metaphor may be in view here, where a tree metaphor has been employed in the preceding verses. See also 17:6.

[27:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “the river,” a frequent designation in the OT for the Euphrates. For clarity most modern English versions substitute the name “Euphrates” for “the river” here.

[27:12]  ¹⁰ sn The Israelites will be freed from exile (likened to beating the olives off the tree) and then gathered (likened to collecting the olives).

[9:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “like being shaken with a sieve, and a pebble does not fall to the ground.” The meaning of the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror), translated “pebble,” is unclear here. In 2 Sam 17:13 it appears to refer to a stone. If it means “pebble,” then the sieve described in v. 6 allows the grain to fall into a basket while retaining the debris and pebbles. However, if one interprets צְרוֹר as a “kernel of grain” (cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT) then the sieve is constructed to retain the grain and allow the refuse and pebbles to fall to the ground. In either case, the simile supports the last statement in v. 8 by making it clear that God will distinguish between the righteous (the grain) and the wicked (the pebbles) when he judges, and will thereby preserve a remnant in Israel. Only the sinners will be destroyed (v. 10).

[9:6]  ¹² tn Grk “For not all those who are from Israel are Israel.”

[9:7]  ¹³ tn Grk “be called.” The emphasis here is upon God’s divine sovereignty in choosing Isaac as the child through whom Abraham’s lineage would be counted as opposed to Ishmael.

[9:8]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “That is,” or “That is to say.”

[9:8]  ¹⁵ tn Because it forms the counterpoint to “the children of promise” the expression “children of the flesh” has been retained in the translation.

[11:3]  ¹⁶ sn A quotation from 1 Kgs 19:10, 14.

[11:4]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “the revelation,” “the oracle.”

[11:4]  ¹⁸ tn The Greek term here is ἀνήρ (anhr), which only exceptionally is used in a generic sense of both males and females. In this context, it appears to be a generic usage (“people”) since when Paul speaks of a remnant of faithful Israelites (“the elect,” v. 7), he is not referring to males only. It can also be argued, however, that it refers only to adult males here (“men”), perhaps as representative of all the faithful left in Israel.

[11:4]  ¹⁹ sn A quotation from 1 Kgs 19:18.

[11:7]  ²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.