Deuteronomy 6:1-2

Exhortation to Keep the Covenant Principles

6:1 Now these are the commandments, ¹  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 ²  6:2 and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments ³  that I am giving ⁴  you – you, your children, and your grandchildren – all your lives, to prolong your days.

Deuteronomy 11:13

11:13 Now, if you pay close attention ⁵  to my commandments that I am giving you today and love ⁶  the Lord your God and serve him with all your mind and being, ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 11:22

11:22 For if you carefully observe all of these commandments ⁸  I am giving you ⁹  and love the Lord your God, live according to his standards, ¹⁰  and remain loyal to him,

Exodus 15:26

15:26 He said, “If you will diligently obey ¹¹  the Lord your God, and do what is right ¹²  in his sight, and pay attention ¹³  to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all ¹⁴  the diseases ¹⁵  that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the Lord, am your healer.” ¹⁶ 

Psalms 119:4

119:4 You demand that your precepts

be carefully kept. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 119:1

Psalm 119 ¹⁸ 

א (Alef)

119:1 How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, ¹⁹ 

who obey ²⁰  the law of the Lord.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²¹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Titus 3:8

Summary of the Letter

3:8 This saying ²²  is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on such truths, ²³  so that those who have placed their faith in God may be intent on engaging in good works. These things are good and beneficial for all people.

Hebrews 6:11

6:11 But we passionately want each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the fulfillment of your hope until the end,

Hebrews 6:2

6:2 teaching about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Hebrews 1:5-10

The Son Is Superior to Angels

1:5 For to which of the angels did God ²⁴  ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? ²⁵  And in another place ²⁶  he says, ²⁷  “I will be his father and he will be my son.” ²⁸  1:6 But when he again brings ²⁹  his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!” ³⁰  1:7 And he says ³¹  of the angels, “He makes ³²  his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” ³³  1:8 but of ³⁴  the Son he says, ³⁵ 

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, ³⁶ 

and a righteous scepter ³⁷  is the scepter of your kingdom.

1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

So God, your God, has anointed you over your companions ³⁸  with the oil of rejoicing.” ³⁹ 

1:10 And,

“You founded the earth in the beginning, Lord, ⁴⁰ 

and the heavens are the works of your hands.

Hebrews 3:14

3:14 For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence ⁴¹  firm until the end.

[6:1]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “where you are going over to possess it” (so NASB); NRSV “that you are about to cross into and occupy.”

[6:2]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “commanding.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation.

[11:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “if hearing, you will hear.” The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute to emphasize the verbal idea. The translation renders this emphasis with the word “close.”

[11:13]  ⁶ tn Again, the Hebrew term אָהַב (’ahav) draws attention to the reciprocation of divine love as a condition or sign of covenant loyalty (cf. Deut 6:5).

[11:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “heart and soul” or “heart and being.” See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.

[11:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “this commandment.” See note at Deut 5:30.

[11:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “commanding you to do it.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation and “to do it” has been left untranslated.

[11:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “walk in all his ways” (so KJV, NIV); TEV “do everything he commands.”

[15:26]  ¹¹ tn The construction uses the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense of שָׁמַע (shama’). The meaning of the verb is idiomatic here because it is followed by “to the voice of Yahweh your God.” When this is present, the verb is translated “obey.” The construction is in a causal clause. It reads, “If you will diligently obey.” Gesenius points out that the infinitive absolute in a conditional clause also emphasizes the importance of the condition on which the consequence depends (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[15:26]  ¹² tn The word order is reversed in the text: “and the right in his eyes you do,” or, “[if] you do what is right in his eyes.” The conditional idea in the first clause is continued in this clause.

[15:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “give ear.” This verb and the next are both perfect tenses with the vav (ו) consecutive; they continue the sequence of the original conditional clause.

[15:26]  ¹⁴ tn The substantive כָּל־ (kol, “all of”) in a negative clause can be translated “none of.”

[15:26]  ¹⁵ sn The reference is no doubt to the plagues that Yahweh has just put on them. These will not come on God’s true people. But the interesting thing about a conditional clause like this is that the opposite is also true – “if you do not obey, then I will bring these diseases.”

[15:26]  ¹⁶ tn The form is רֹפְאֶךָ (rofÿ’ekha), a participle with a pronominal suffix. The word is the predicate after the pronoun “I”: “I [am] your healer.” The suffix is an objective genitive – the Lord heals them.

[119:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you, you commanded your precepts, to keep, very much.”

[119:1]  ¹⁸ sn Psalm 119. The psalmist celebrates God’s law and the guidance it provides his people. He expresses his desire to know God’s law thoroughly so that he might experience the blessings that come to those who obey it. This lengthy psalm exhibits an elaborate acrostic pattern. The psalm is divided into twenty-two sections (corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each of which is comprised of eight verses. Each of the verses in the first section (vv. 1-8) begins with the letter alef (א), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern continues throughout the psalm as each new section highlights a successive letter of the alphabet. Each verse in section two (vv. 9-16) begins with the second letter of the alphabet, each verse in section three (vv. 17-24) with the third letter, etc. This rigid pattern creates a sense of order and completeness and may have facilitated memorization.

[119:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness of those who are blameless of way.”

[119:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “walk in.”

[1:1]  ²¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[3:8]  ²² sn This saying (Grk “the saying”) refers to the preceding citation (Titus 3:4-7). See 1 Tim 1:15; 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tim 2:11 for other occurrences of this phrase.

[3:8]  ²³ tn Grk “concerning these things.”

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn Grk “I have begotten you.”

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn Grk “And again,” quoting another OT passage.

[1:5]  ²⁷ tn The words “he says” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to make a complete English sentence. In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but English does not normally employ such long and complex sentences.

[1:5]  ²⁸ tn Grk “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.”

[1:6]  ²⁹ 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]  ³⁰ sn A quotation combining themes from Deut 32:43 and Ps 97:7.

[1:7]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Grk “He who makes.”

[1:7]  ³³ sn A quotation from Ps 104:4.

[1:8]  ³⁴ tn Or “to.”

[1:8]  ³⁵ tn The verb “he says” (λέγει, legei) is implied from the λέγει of v. 7.

[1:8]  ³⁶ tn Or possibly, “Your throne is God forever and ever.” This translation is quite doubtful, however, since (1) in the context the Son is being contrasted to the angels and is presented as far better than they. The imagery of God being the Son’s throne would seem to be of God being his authority. If so, in what sense could this not be said of the angels? In what sense is the Son thus contrasted with the angels? (2) The μέν…δέ (men…de) construction that connects v. 7 with v. 8 clearly lays out this contrast: “On the one hand, he says of the angels…on the other hand, he says of the Son.” Thus, although it is grammatically possible that θεός (qeos) in v. 8 should be taken as a predicate nominative, the context and the correlative conjunctions are decidedly against it. Hebrews 1:8 is thus a strong affirmation of the deity of Christ.

[1:8]  ³⁷ tn Grk “the righteous scepter,” but used generically.

[1:9]  ³⁸ sn God…has anointed you over your companions. God’s anointing gives the son a superior position and authority over his fellows.

[1:9]  ³⁹ sn A quotation from Ps 45:6-7.

[1:10]  ⁴⁰ sn You founded the earth…your years will never run out. In its original setting Ps 102:25-27 refers to the work of God in creation, but here in Hebrews 1:10-12 the writer employs it in reference to Christ, the Lord, making a strong argument for the essential deity of the Son.

[3:14]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “the beginning of the confidence.”