Deuteronomy 8:2

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ¹  has brought you these forty years through the desert ²  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 13:3

13:3 You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer, ³  for the Lord your God will be testing you to see if you love him ⁴  with all your mind and being. ⁵ 

Proverbs 17:3

17:3 The crucible ⁶  is for refining ⁷  silver and the furnace ⁸  is for gold,

likewise ⁹  the Lord tests ¹⁰  hearts.

Zechariah 13:9

13:9 Then I will bring the remaining third into the fire;

I will refine them like silver is refined

and will test them like gold is tested.

They will call on my name and I will answer;

I will say, ‘These are my people,’

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” ¹¹ 

Malachi 3:2-3

3:2 Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can keep standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, ¹²  like a launderer’s soap. 3:3 He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.

Hebrews 11:17

11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He had received the promises, ¹³  yet he was ready to offer up ¹⁴  his only son.

Hebrews 11:1

People Commended for Their Faith

11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see.

Hebrews 1:6-7

1:6 But when he again brings ¹⁵  his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!” ¹⁶  1:7 And he says ¹⁷  of the angels, “He makes ¹⁸  his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” ¹⁹ 

Hebrews 1:1

Introduction: God Has Spoken Fully and Finally in His Son

1:1 After God spoke long ago ²⁰  in various portions ²¹  and in various ways ²²  to our ancestors ²³  through the prophets,

Hebrews 5:10

5:10 and he was designated ²⁴  by God as high priest in the order of Melchizedek. ²⁵ 

[8:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ² tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[13:3]  ³ tn Heb “or dreamer of dreams.” See note on this expression in v. 1.

[13:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[13:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “all your heart and soul” (so NRSV, CEV, NLT); or “heart and being” (NCV “your whole being”). See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.

[17:3]  ⁶ sn The noun מַצְרֵף (matsref) means “a place or instrument for refining” (cf. ASV, NASB “the refining pot”). The related verb, which means “to melt, refine, smelt,” is used in scripture literally for refining and figuratively for the Lord’s purifying and cleansing and testing people.

[17:3]  ⁷ tn The term “refining” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[17:3]  ⁸ sn The term כּוּר (cur) describes a “furnace” or “smelting pot.” It can be used figuratively for the beneficial side of affliction (Isa 48:10).

[17:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “and.” Most English versions treat this as an adversative (“but”).

[17:3]  ¹⁰ sn The participle בֹּחֵן (bokhen, “tests”) in this emblematic parallelism takes on the connotations of the crucible and the furnace. When the Lord “tests” human hearts, the test, whatever form it takes, is designed to improve the value of the one being tested. Evil and folly will be removed when such testing takes place.

[13:9]  ¹¹ sn The expression I will say ‘It is my people,’ and they will say ‘the Lord is my God’ is reminiscent of the restoration of Israel predicted by Hosea, who said that those who had been rejected as God’s people would be reclaimed and once more become his sons and daughters (Hos 2:23).

[3:2]  ¹² sn The refiner’s fire was used to purify metal and refine it by melting it and allowing the dross, which floated to the top, to be scooped off.

[11:17]  ¹³ tn Here “received the promises” refers to the pledges themselves, not to the things God promised.

[11:17]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “he was offering up.” The tense of this verb indicates the attempt or readiness to sacrifice Isaac without the actual completion of the deed.

[1:6]  ¹⁵ tn Or “And again when he brings.” The translation adopted in the text looks forward to Christ’s second coming to earth. Some take “again” to introduce the quotation (as in 1:5) and understand this as Christ’s first coming, but this view does not fit well with Heb 2:7. Others understand it as his exaltation/ascension to heaven, but this takes the phrase “into the world” in an unlikely way.

[1:6]  ¹⁶ sn A quotation combining themes from Deut 32:43 and Ps 97:7.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ sn The Greek correlative conjunctions μέν and δέ (men and de) emphasize the contrastive parallelism of vs. 7 (what God says about the angels) over against vv. 8-9 and vv. 10-12 (what God says about the son).

[1:7]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “He who makes.”

[1:7]  ¹⁹ sn A quotation from Ps 104:4.

[1:1]  ²⁰ tn Or “spoke formerly.”

[1:1]  ²¹ tn Or “parts.” The idea is that God’s previous revelation came in many parts and was therefore fragmentary or partial (L&N 63.19), in comparison with the final and complete revelation contained in God’s Son. However, some interpret πολυμερῶς (polumerw") in Heb 1:1 to mean “on many different occasions” and would thus translate “many times” (L&N 67.11). This is the option followed by the NIV: “at many times and in various ways.” Finally, this word is also understood to refer to the different manners in which something may be done, and would then be translated “in many different ways” (L&N 89.81). In this last case, the two words πολυμερῶς and πολυτρόπως (polutropw") mutually reinforce one another (“in many and various ways,” NRSV).

[1:1]  ²² tn These two phrases are emphasized in Greek by being placed at the beginning of the sentence and by alliteration.

[1:1]  ²³ tn Grk “to the fathers.”

[5:10]  ²⁴ tn Grk “having been designated,” continuing the thought of Heb 5:9.

[5:10]  ²⁵ sn The phrase in the order of Melchizedek picks up the quotation from Ps 110:4 in Heb 5:6.