Deuteronomy 4:9

Reminder of the Horeb Covenant

4:9 Again, however, pay very careful attention, ¹  lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9

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 ²  them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ³  as you lie down, and as you get up. 6:8 You should tie them as a reminder on your forearm ⁴  and fasten them as symbols ⁵  on your forehead. 6:9 Inscribe them on the doorframes of your houses and gates. ⁶ 

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ⁷  I am giving ⁸  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ⁹  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 30:16-20

30:16 What ¹¹  I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess. ¹²  30:17 However, if you ¹³  turn aside and do not obey, but are lured away to worship and serve other gods, 30:18 I declare to you this very day that you will certainly ¹⁴  perish! You will not extend your time in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. ¹⁵  30:19 Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! 30:20 I also call on you ¹⁶  to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually ¹⁷  in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Psalms 119:11

119:11 In my heart I store up ¹⁸  your words, ¹⁹ 

so I might not sin against you.

Psalms 119:16

119:16 I find delight ²⁰  in your statutes;

I do not forget your instructions. ²¹ 

Psalms 119:34

119:34 Give me understanding so that I might observe your law,

and keep it with all my heart. ²² 

Psalms 119:47-48

119:47 I will find delight in your commands,

which I love.

119:48 I will lift my hands to ²³  your commands,

which I love,

and I will meditate on your statutes.

Isaiah 51:17

51:17 Wake up! Wake up!

Get up, O Jerusalem!

You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you,

which was full of his anger! ²⁴ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 31:33

31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ²⁶  after I plant them back in the land,” ²⁷  says the Lord. ²⁸  “I will ²⁹  put my law within them ³⁰  and write it on their hearts and minds. ³¹  I will be their God and they will be my people. ³² 

John 14:21-24

14:21 The person who has my commandments and obeys ³³  them is the one who loves me. ³⁴  The one ³⁵  who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal ³⁶  myself to him.”

14:22 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) ³⁷  said, ³⁸  “what has happened that you are going to reveal ³⁹  yourself to us and not to the world?” 14:23 Jesus replied, ⁴⁰  “If anyone loves me, he will obey ⁴¹  my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. ⁴²  14:24 The person who does not love me does not obey ⁴³  my words. And the word ⁴⁴  you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.

[4:9]  ¹ tn Heb “watch yourself and watch your soul carefully.”

[6:7]  ² 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]  ³ tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”

[6:8]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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.

[8:1]  ⁷ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[30:16]  ¹¹ tc A number of LXX mss insert before this verse, “if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God,” thus translating אֲשֶׁר (’asher) as “which” and the rest as “I am commanding you today, to love,” etc., “then you will live,” etc.

[30:16]  ¹² tn Heb “which you are going there to possess it.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[30:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “your heart,” as a metonymy for the person.

[30:18]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “certainly.”

[30:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to go there to possess it.”

[30:20]  ¹⁶ tn The words “I also call on you” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 19-20 are one long sentence, which the translation divides into two.

[30:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he is your life and the length of your days to live.”

[119:11]  ¹⁸ tn Or “hide.”

[119:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “your word.” Some medieval Hebrew mss as well as the LXX read the plural, “your words.”

[119:16]  ²⁰ tn The imperfects in this verse emphasize the attitude the psalmist maintains toward God’s law. Another option is to translate with the future tense, “I will find delight…I will not forget.”

[119:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “your word.” Many medieval Hebrew mss as well as the LXX read the plural here.

[119:34]  ²² tn The two prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) conjunctive indicate purpose/result after the introductory imperative.

[119:48]  ²³ tn Lifting the hands is often associated with prayer (Pss 28:2; 63:4; Lam 2:19). (1) Because praying to God’s law borders on the extreme, some prefer to emend the text to “I lift up my hands to you,” eliminating “your commands, which I love” as dittographic. In this view these words were accidentally repeated from the previous verse. (2) However, it is possible that the psalmist closely associates the law with God himself because he views the law as the expression of the divine will. (3) Another option is that “lifting the hands” does not refer to prayer here, but to the psalmist’s desire to receive and appropriate the law. (4) Still others understand this to be an action praising God’s commands (so NCV; cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[51:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[31:33]  ²⁶ tn Heb “with the house of Israel.” All commentators agree that the term here refers to both the whole nation which was divided into the house of Israel and the house of Judah in v. 30.

[31:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “after those days.” Commentators are generally agreed that this refers to the return from exile and the repopulation of the land referred to in vv. 27-28 and not to something subsequent to the time mentioned in v. 30. This is the sequencing that is also presupposed in other new covenant passages such as Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28.

[31:33]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ²⁹ tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the Lord, ‘I will….’” The sentence has been reworded and restructured to avoid the awkwardness of the original style.

[31:33]  ³⁰ tn Heb “in their inward parts.” The Hebrew word here refers to the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and decisions (Jer 9:8 [9:7 HT]). It is essentially synonymous with “heart” in Hebrew psychological terms.

[31:33]  ³¹ tn The words “and minds” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation to bring the English psychology more into line with the Hebrew where the “heart” is the center both of knowing/thinking/reflecting and deciding/willing.

[31:33]  ³² sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[14:21]  ³³ tn Or “keeps.”

[14:21]  ³⁴ tn Grk “obeys them, that one is the one who loves me.”

[14:21]  ³⁵ tn Grk “And the one.” Here the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated to improve the English style.

[14:21]  ³⁶ tn Or “will disclose.”

[14:22]  ³⁷ tn Grk “(not Iscariot).” The proper noun (Judas) has been repeated for clarity and smoothness in English style.

[14:22]  ³⁸ tn Grk “said to him.”

[14:22]  ³⁹ tn Or “disclose.”

[14:23]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[14:23]  ⁴¹ tn Or “will keep.”

[14:23]  ⁴² tn Grk “we will come to him and will make our dwelling place with him.” The context here is individual rather than corporate indwelling, so the masculine singular pronoun has been retained throughout v. 23. It is important to note, however, that the pronoun is used generically here and refers equally to men, women, and children.

[14:24]  ⁴³ tn Or “does not keep.”

[14:24]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “the message.”