Exodus 15:14-16

15:14 The nations will hear ¹  and tremble;

anguish ²  will seize ³  the inhabitants of Philistia.

15:15 Then the chiefs of Edom will be terrified, ⁴ 

trembling will seize ⁵  the leaders of Moab,

and the inhabitants of Canaan will shake.

15:16 Fear and dread ⁶  will fall ⁷  on them;

by the greatness ⁸  of your arm they will be as still as stone ⁹ 

until ¹⁰  your people pass by, O Lord,

until the people whom you have bought ¹¹  pass by.

Deuteronomy 2:25

2:25 This very day I will begin to fill all the people of the earth ¹²  with dread and to terrify them when they hear about you. They will shiver and shake in anticipation of your approach.” ¹³ 

Psalms 9:20

9:20 Terrify them, Lord! ¹⁴ 

Let the nations know they are mere mortals! ¹⁵  (Selah)

Psalms 48:4-6

48:4 For ¹⁶  look, the kings assemble; ¹⁷ 

they advance together.

48:5 As soon as they see, ¹⁸  they are shocked; ¹⁹ 

they are terrified, they quickly retreat. ²⁰ 

48:6 Look at them shake uncontrollably, ²¹ 

like a woman writhing in childbirth. ²² 

Psalms 99:1

Psalm 99 ²³ 

99:1 The Lord reigns!

The nations tremble. ²⁴ 

He sits enthroned above the winged angels; ²⁵ 

the earth shakes. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 5:22

5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.

“You should tremble in awe before me! ²⁷ 

I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,

a permanent barrier that it can never cross.

Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.

They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 33:9

33:9 All the nations will hear about all the good things which I will do to them. This city will bring me fame, honor, and praise before them for the joy that I bring it. The nations will tremble in awe at all the peace and prosperity that I will provide for it.’ ²⁹ 

Micah 7:15-17

7:15 “As in the days when you departed from the land of Egypt,

I will show you ³⁰  miraculous deeds.” ³¹ 

7:16 Nations will see this and be disappointed by ³²  all their strength,

they will put their hands over their mouths,

and act as if they were deaf. ³³ 

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ³⁴ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ³⁵ 

they will be terrified ³⁶  of you. ³⁷ 

Revelation 11:11-13

11:11 But ³⁸  after three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and tremendous fear seized ³⁹  those who were watching them. 11:12 Then ⁴⁰  they ⁴¹  heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: “Come up here!” So the two prophets ⁴²  went up to heaven in a cloud while ⁴³  their enemies stared at them. 11:13 Just then ⁴⁴  a major earthquake took place and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand people ⁴⁵  were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

[15:14]  ¹ tn This verb is a prophetic perfect, assuming that the text means what it said and this song was sung at the Sea. So all these countries were yet to hear of the victory.

[15:14]  ² tn The word properly refers to “pangs” of childbirth. When the nations hear, they will be terrified.

[15:14]  ³ tn The verb is again a prophetic perfect.

[15:15]  ⁴ tn This is a prophetic perfect.

[15:15]  ⁵ tn This verb is imperfect tense.

[15:16]  ⁶ tn The two words can form a nominal hendiadys, “a dreadful fear,” though most English versions retain the two separate terms.

[15:16]  ⁷ tn The form is an imperfect.

[15:16]  ⁸ tn The adjective is in construct form and governs the noun “arm” (“arm” being the anthropomorphic expression for what God did). See GKC 428 §132.c.

[15:16]  ⁹ sn For a study of the words for fear, see N. Waldman, “A Comparative Note on Exodus 15:14-16,” JQR 66 (1976): 189-92.

[15:16]  ¹⁰ tn Clauses beginning with עַד (’ad) express a limit that is not absolute, but only relative, beyond which the action continues (GKC 446-47 §138.g).

[15:16]  ¹¹ tn The verb קָנָה (qanah) here is the verb “acquire, purchase,” and probably not the homonym “to create, make” (see Gen 4:1; Deut 32:6; and Prov 8:22).

[2:25]  ¹² tn Heb “under heaven” (so NIV, NRSV).

[2:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “from before you.”

[9:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “place, Lord, terror with regard to them.” The Hebrew term מוֹרָה (morah, “terror”) is an alternative form of מוֹרָא (mora’; a reading that appears in some mss and finds support in several ancient textual witnesses).

[9:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “let the nations know they [are] man[kind]”; i.e., mere human beings (as opposed to God).

[48:4]  ¹⁶ tn The logical connection between vv. 3-4 seems to be this: God is the protector of Zion and reveals himself as the city’s defender – this is necessary because hostile armies threaten the city.

[48:4]  ¹⁷ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 4-6 are understood as descriptive. In dramatic style (note הִנֵּה, hinneh, “look”) the psalm describes an enemy attack against the city as if it were occurring at this very moment. Another option is to take the perfects as narrational (“the kings assembled, they advanced”), referring to a particular historical event, such as Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701 b.c. (cf. NIV, NRSV). Even if one translates the verses in a dramatic-descriptive manner (as the present translation does), the Lord’s victory over the Assyrians was probably what served as the inspiration of the description (see v. 8).

[48:5]  ¹⁸ tn The object of “see” is omitted, but v. 3b suggests that the Lord’s self-revelation as the city’s defender is what they see.

[48:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they look, so they are shocked.” Here כֵּן (ken, “so”) has the force of “in the same measure.”

[48:5]  ²⁰ tn The translation attempts to reflect the staccato style of the Hebrew text, where the main clauses of vv. 4-6 are simply juxtaposed without connectives.

[48:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “trembling seizes them there.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[48:6]  ²² tn Heb “[with] writhing like one giving birth.”

[99:1]  ²³ sn Psalm 99. The psalmist celebrates the Lord’s just rule and recalls how he revealed himself to Israel’s leaders.

[99:1]  ²⁴ tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 1 are understood here as indicating the nations’ characteristic response to the reality of the Lord’s kingship. Another option is to take them as jussives: “let the nations tremble…let the earth shake!”

[99:1]  ²⁵ sn Winged angels (Heb “cherubs”). Cherubs, as depicted in the OT, possess both human and animal (lion, ox, and eagle) characteristics (see Ezek 1:10; 10:14, 21; 41:18). They are pictured as winged creatures (Exod 25:20; 37:9; 1 Kgs 6:24-27; Ezek 10:8, 19) and serve as the very throne of God when the ark of the covenant is in view (Ps 99:1; see Num 7:89; 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15). The picture of the Lord seated on the cherubs suggests they might be used by him as a vehicle, a function they carry out in Ezek 1:22-28 (the “living creatures” mentioned here are identified as cherubs in Ezek 10:20). In Ps 18:10 the image of a cherub serves to personify the wind.

[99:1]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew verb נוּט (nut) occurs only here in the OT, but the meaning can be determined on the basis of the parallelism with רָגַז (ragaz, “tremble”) and evidence from the cognate languages (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 121).

[5:22]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.

[5:22]  ²⁸ tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.

[33:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “And it [the city] will be to me for a name for joy and for praise and for honor before all the nations of the earth which will hear of all the good things which I will do for them and which will be in awe and tremble for all the good things and all the peace [or prosperity] which I will do for them.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down to better conform with contemporary English style.

[7:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “him.” This probably refers to Israel in a collective sense. Because the switch from direct address to the third person is awkward, some prefer to emend the suffix to a second person form. In any case, it is necessary to employ a second person pronoun in the translation to maintain the connection for the English reader.

[7:15]  ³¹ sn I will show you miraculous deeds. In this verse the Lord responds to the petition of v. 14 with a brief promise of deliverance.

[7:16]  ³² tn Or “be ashamed of.”

[7:16]  ³³ tn Heb “and their ears will be deaf.” Apparently this means the opposing nations will be left dumbfounded by the Lord’s power. Their inability to respond will make them appear to be deaf mutes.

[7:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

[7:17]  ³⁵ tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

[7:17]  ³⁶ tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

[7:17]  ³⁷ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.

[11:11]  ³⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[11:11]  ³⁹ tn Grk “fell upon.”

[11:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[11:12]  ⁴¹ tn Though the nearest antecedent to the subject of ἤκουσαν (hkousan) is the people (“those who were watching them”), it could also be (based on what immediately follows) that the two prophets are the ones who heard the voice.

[11:12]  ⁴² tn Grk “they”; the referent (the two prophets) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:12]  ⁴³ tn The conjunction καί (kai) seems to be introducing a temporal clause contemporaneous in time with the preceding clause.

[11:13]  ⁴⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[11:13]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “seven thousand names of men.”