Deuteronomy 4:11

4:11 You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it ¹  and yet dark with a thick cloud. ² 

Deuteronomy 4:2

4:2 Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to ³  you.

Deuteronomy 6:1-11

Exhortation to Keep the Covenant Principles

6:1 Now these are the commandments, ⁴  statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed ⁵  6:2 and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments ⁶  that I am giving ⁷  you – you, your children, and your grandchildren – all your lives, to prolong your days. 6:3 Pay attention, Israel, and be careful to do this so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in number ⁸  – as the Lord, God of your ancestors, ⁹  said to you, you will have a land flowing with milk and honey.

The Essence of the Covenant Principles

6:4 Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! ¹⁰  6:5 You must love ¹¹  the Lord your God with your whole mind, ¹²  your whole being, ¹³  and all your strength. ¹⁴ 

Exhortation to Teach the Covenant Principles

6:6 These words I am commanding you today must be kept in mind, 6:7 and you must teach ¹⁵  them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ¹⁶  as you lie down, and as you get up. 6:8 You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm ¹⁷  and fasten them as symbols ¹⁸  on your forehead. 6:9 Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and gates. ¹⁹ 

Exhortation to Worship the Lord Exclusively

6:10 Then when the Lord your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you – a land with large, fine cities you did not build, 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,

Psalms 18:8-11

18:8 Smoke ascended from ²⁰  his nose; ²¹ 

fire devoured as it came from his mouth; ²² 

he hurled down fiery coals. ²³ 

18:9 He made the sky sink ²⁴  as he descended;

a thick cloud was under his feet.

18:10 He mounted ²⁵  a winged angel ²⁶  and flew;

he glided ²⁷  on the wings of the wind. ²⁸ 

18:11 He shrouded himself in darkness, ²⁹ 

in thick rain clouds. ³⁰ 

Psalms 97:2

97:2 Dark clouds surround him;

equity and justice are the foundation of his throne. ³¹ 

[4:11]  ¹ tn Heb “a mountain burning with fire as far as the heart of the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[4:11]  ² tn Heb “darkness, cloud, and heavy cloud.”

[4:2]  ³ tn Heb “commanding.”

[6:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “commandment.” The word מִצְוָה (mitsvah) again is in the singular, serving as a comprehensive term for the whole stipulation section of the book. See note on the word “commandments” in 5:31.

[6:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “where you are going over to possess it” (so NASB); NRSV “that you are about to cross into and occupy.”

[6:2]  ⁶ tn Here the terms are not the usual חֻקִּים (khuqqim) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim; as in v. 1) but חֻקֹּת (khuqqot, “statutes”) and מִצְוֹת (mitsot, “commandments”). It is clear that these terms are used interchangeably and that their technical precision ought not be overly stressed.

[6:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “commanding.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation.

[6:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “may multiply greatly” (so NASB, NRSV); the words “in number” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 10, 18, 23).

[6:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord, our God, the Lord, one.” (1) One option is to translate: “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT). This would be an affirmation that the Lord was the sole object of their devotion. This interpretation finds support from the appeals to loyalty that follow (vv. 5, 14). (2) Another option is to translate: “The Lord is our God, the Lord is unique.” In this case the text would be affirming the people’s allegiance to the Lord, as well as the Lord’s superiority to all other gods. It would also imply that he is the only one worthy of their worship. Support for this view comes from parallel texts such as Deut 7:9 and 10:17, as well as the use of “one” in Song 6:8-9, where the starstruck lover declares that his beloved is unique (literally, “one,” that is, “one of a kind”) when compared to all other women.

[6:5]  ¹¹ tn The verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) in this setting communicates not so much an emotional idea as one of covenant commitment. To love the Lord is to be absolutely loyal and obedient to him in every respect, a truth Jesus himself taught (cf. John 14:15). See also the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

[6:5]  ¹² tn Heb “heart.” In OT physiology the heart (לֵב, לֵבָב; levav, lev) was considered the seat of the mind or intellect, so that one could think with one’s heart. See A. Luc, NIDOTTE 2:749-54.

[6:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “soul”; “being.” Contrary to Hellenistic ideas of a soul that is discrete and separate from the body and spirit, OT anthropology equated the “soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) with the person himself. It is therefore best in most cases to translate נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) as “being” or the like. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 10-25; D. Fredericks, NIDOTTE 3:133-34.

[6:5]  ¹⁴ sn For NT variations on the Shema see Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-30; Luke 10:27.

[6:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “repeat” (so NLT). If from the root I שָׁנַן (shanan), the verb means essentially to “engrave,” that is, “to teach incisively” (Piel); note NAB “Drill them into your children.” Cf. BDB 1041-42 s.v.

[6:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”

[6:8]  ¹⁷ sn Tie them as a sign on your forearm. Later Jewish tradition referred to the little leather containers tied to the forearms and foreheads as tefillin. They were to contain the following passages from the Torah: Exod 13:1-10, 11-16; Deut 6:5-9; 11:13-21. The purpose was to serve as a “sign” of covenant relationship and obedience.

[6:8]  ¹⁸ sn Fasten them as symbols on your forehead. These were also known later as tefillin (see previous note) or phylacteries (from the Greek term). These box-like containers, like those on the forearms, held the same scraps of the Torah. It was the hypocritical practice of wearing these without heartfelt sincerity that caused Jesus to speak scathingly about them (cf. Matt 23:5).

[6:9]  ¹⁹ sn The Hebrew term מְזוּזֹת (mÿzuzot) refers both to the door frames and to small cases attached on them containing scripture texts (always Deut 6:4-9 and 11:13-21; and sometimes the decalogue; Exod 13:1-10, 11-16; and Num 10:35-36). See J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPSTC), 443-44.

[18:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “within”; or “[from] within.” For a discussion of the use of the preposition -בְּ (bÿ) here, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 163-64.

[18:8]  ²¹ tn Or “in his anger.” The noun אַף (’af) can carry the abstract meaning “anger,” but the parallelism (note “from his mouth”) suggests the more concrete meaning “nose” here. See also v. 15, “the powerful breath of your nose.”

[18:8]  ²² tn Heb “fire from his mouth devoured.” In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the two perfect verbal forms in the verse.

[18:8]  ²³ tn Heb “coals burned from him.” Perhaps the psalmist pictures God’s fiery breath igniting coals (cf. Job 41:21), which he then hurls as weapons (cf. Ps 120:4).

[18:9]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew verb נָטָה (natah) can carry the sense “[cause to] bend, bow down.” For example, Gen 49:15 pictures Issachar as a donkey that “bends” its shoulder or back under a burden. Here the Lord causes the sky, pictured as a dome or vault, to sink down as he descends in the storm.

[18:10]  ²⁵ tn Or “rode upon.”

[18:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “a cherub.” Because of the typical associations of the word “cherub” in English with chubby winged babies, the term has been rendered “winged angel” in the translation.

[18:10]  ²⁷ tc 2 Sam 22:11 reads “appeared” (from רָאָה, ra’ah); the relatively rare verb דָאָה (da’ah, “glide”) is more difficult and probably the original reading here in Ps 18.

[18:10]  ²⁸ sn The wings of the wind. Verse 10 may depict (1) the Lord riding a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option (2) is that two different vehicles (a cherub and the wind) are envisioned. Yet another option (3) is that the wind is personified as a cherub. For a discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in v. 10, see M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.

[18:11]  ²⁹ tc Heb “he made darkness his hiding place around him, his covering.” 2 Sam 22:12 reads, “he made darkness around him coverings,” omitting “his hiding place” and pluralizing “covering.” Ps 18:11 may include a conflation of synonyms (“his hiding place” and “his covering”) or 2 Sam 22:12 may be the result of haplography/homoioarcton. Note that three successive words in Ps 18:11 begin with the Hebrew letter samek: סִתְרוֹ סְבִיבוֹתָיו סֻכָּתוֹ (sitro sÿvivotayv sukkato).

[18:11]  ³⁰ tc Heb “darkness of water, clouds of clouds.” The noun “darkness” (חֶשְׁכַת, kheshkhat) is probably a corruption of an original reading חשׁרת, a form that is preserved in 2 Sam 22:12. The latter is a construct form of חַשְׁרָה (khashrah, “sieve”) which occurs only here in the OT. A cognate Ugaritic noun means “sieve,” and a related verb חָשַׁר (khashar, “to sift”) is attested in postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic. The phrase חַשְׁרַת מַיִם (khashrat mayim) means literally “a sieve of water.” It pictures the rain clouds as a sieve through which the rain falls to the ground (see F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry [SBLDS], 146, n. 33).

[97:2]  ³¹ sn The Lord’s throne symbolizes his kingship.