Deuteronomy 4:27

4:27 Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you ¹  among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

Leviticus 26:22

26:22 I will send the wild animals ²  against you and they will bereave you of your children, ³  annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population ⁴  so that your roads will become deserted.

Leviticus 26:2

26:2 You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence ⁵  my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

Leviticus 13:7

13:7 If, however, the scab is spreading further ⁶  on the skin after he has shown himself to the priest for his purification, then he must show himself to the priest a second time.

Leviticus 24:14

24:14 “Bring the one who cursed outside the camp, and all who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the whole congregation is to stone him to death. ⁷ 

Nehemiah 7:4

7:4 Now the city was spread out ⁸  and large, and there were not a lot of people in it. ⁹  At that time houses had not been rebuilt.

Isaiah 1:9

1:9 If the Lord who commands armies ¹⁰  had not left us a few survivors,

we would have quickly become like Sodom, ¹¹ 

we would have become like Gomorrah.

Isaiah 24:6

24:6 So a treaty curse ¹²  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ¹³ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ¹⁴ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹⁶  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ¹⁷  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 52:28-30

52:28 Here is the official record of the number of people ¹⁹  Nebuchadnezzar carried into exile: In the seventh year, ²⁰  3,023 Jews; 52:29 in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, ²¹  832 people from Jerusalem; 52:30 in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, ²²  Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.

Mark 13:20

13:20 And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved. But because of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut them ²³  short.

Romans 9:27-29

9:27 And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children ²⁴  of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved, 9:28 for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.” ²⁵  9:29 Just ²⁶  as Isaiah predicted,

“If the Lord of armies ²⁷  had not left us descendants,

we would have become like Sodom,

and we would have resembled Gomorrah.” ²⁸ 

[4:27]  ¹ tn Heb “you will be left men (i.e., few) of number.”

[26:22]  ² tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.

[26:22]  ³ tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[26:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “and diminish you.”

[26:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “and my sanctuary you shall fear.” Cf. NCV “respect”; CEV “honor.”

[13:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “And if spreading [infinitive absolute] it spreads [finite verb].” For the infinitive absolute used to highlight contrast rather than emphasis see GKC 343 §113.p.

[24:14]  ⁷ tn The words “to death” are supplied in the translation as a clarification; they are clearly implied from v. 16.

[7:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “wide of two hands.”

[7:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “the people were few in its midst.”

[1:9]  ¹⁰ tn Traditionally, “the Lord of hosts.” The title pictures God as the sovereign king who has at his disposal a multitude of attendants, messengers, and warriors to do his bidding. In some contexts, like this one, the military dimension of his rulership is highlighted. In this case, the title pictures him as one who leads armies into battle against his enemies.

[1:9]  ¹¹ tc The translation assumes that כִּמְעָט (kim’at, “quickly,” literally, “like a little”) goes with what follows, contrary to the MT accents, which take it with what precedes. In this case, one could translate the preceding line, “If the Lord who commands armies had not left us a few survivors.” If כִּמְעָט goes with the preceding line (following the MT accents), this expression highlights the idea that there would only be a few survivors (H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:20; H. Zobel, TDOT 8:456). Israel would not be almost like Sodom but exactly like Sodom.

[24:6]  ¹² sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ¹³ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ¹⁴ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[42:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[52:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “these are the people.”

[52:28]  ²⁰ sn This would be 597 b.c.

[52:29]  ²¹ sn This would be 586 b.c.

[52:30]  ²² sn This would be 581 b.c.

[13:20]  ²³ tn Grk “the days.”

[9:27]  ²⁴ tn Grk “sons.”

[9:28]  ²⁵ tc In light of the interpretive difficulty of this verse, a longer reading seems to have been added to clarify the meaning. The addition, in the middle of the sentence, makes the whole verse read as follows: “For he will execute his sentence completely and quickly in righteousness, because the Lord will do it quickly on the earth.” The shorter reading is found largely in Alexandrian mss (Ì⁴⁶ א* A B 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), while the longer reading is found principally in Western and Byzantine mss (א² D F G Ψ 33 Ï lat). The longer reading follows Isa 10:22-23 (LXX) verbatim, while Paul in the previous verse quoted the LXX loosely. This suggests the addition was made by a copyist trying to make sense out of a difficult passage rather than by the author himself.

[9:29]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[9:29]  ²⁷ tn Traditionally, “Lord of hosts”; Grk “Lord Sabaoth,” which means “Lord of the [heavenly] armies,” sometimes translated more generally as “Lord Almighty.”

[9:29]  ²⁸ sn A quotation from Isa 1:9.