Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹  and keep ²  my covenant, then you will be my ³  special possession ⁴  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ⁵  a kingdom of priests ⁶  and a holy nation.’ ⁷  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Deuteronomy 7:7-8

The Basis of Israel’s Election

7:7 It is not because you were more numerous than all the other peoples that the Lord favored and chose you – for in fact you were the least numerous of all peoples. 7:8 Rather it is because of his ⁸  love ⁹  for you and his faithfulness to the promise ¹⁰  he solemnly vowed ¹¹  to your ancestors ¹²  that the Lord brought you out with great power, ¹³  redeeming ¹⁴  you from the place of slavery, from the power ¹⁵  of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 9:5

9:5 It is not because of your righteousness, or even your inner uprightness, ¹⁶  that you have come here to possess their land. Instead, because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out ahead of you in order to confirm the promise he ¹⁷  made on oath to your ancestors, ¹⁸  to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 14:2

14:2 For you are a people holy ¹⁹  to the Lord your God. He ²⁰  has chosen you to be his people, prized ²¹  above all others on the face of the earth.

Malachi 1:2

1:2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?”

“Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob

Matthew 11:26

11:26 Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will. ²² 

John 15:16

15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you ²³  and appointed you to go and bear ²⁴  fruit, fruit that remains, ²⁵  so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.

Romans 9:13-18

9:13 just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” ²⁶ 

9:14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! 9:15 For he says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ²⁷  9:16 So then, ²⁸  it does not depend on human desire or exertion, ²⁹  but on God who shows mercy. 9:17 For the scripture says to Pharaoh: ³⁰  “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” ³¹  9:18 So then, ³²  God ³³  has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden. ³⁴ 

Romans 11:29

11:29 For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

Romans 11:1

Israel’s Rejection not Complete nor Final

11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

Colossians 4:7

Personal Greetings and Instructions

4:7 Tychicus, a dear brother, faithful minister, and fellow slave ³⁵  in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. ³⁶ 

Philippians 1:6

1:6 For I am sure of this very thing, ³⁷  that the one ³⁸  who began a good work in ³⁹  you will perfect it ⁴⁰  until the day of Christ Jesus.

[19:5]  ¹ tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.

[19:5]  ² tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”

[19:5]  ³ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ⁴ tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.

[19:6]  ⁵ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ⁶ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ⁷ tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[7:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “the Lord’s.” See note on “He” in 7:6.

[7:8]  ⁹ tn For the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) as a term of choice or election, see note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

[7:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “oath.” This is a reference to the promises of the so-called “Abrahamic Covenant” (cf. Gen 15:13-16).

[7:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “swore on oath.”

[7:8]  ¹² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13).

[7:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “by a strong hand” (NAB similar); NLT “with such amazing power.”

[7:8]  ¹⁴ sn Redeeming you from the place of slavery. The Hebrew verb translated “redeeming” (from the root פָּדָה, padah) has the idea of redemption by the payment of a ransom. The initial symbol of this was the Passover lamb, offered by Israel to the Lord as ransom in exchange for deliverance from bondage and death (Exod 12:1-14). Later, the firstborn sons of Israel, represented by the Levites, became the ransom (Num 3:11-13). These were all types of the redemption effected by the death of Christ who described his atoning work as “a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28; cf. 1 Pet 1:18).

[7:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NRSV), a metaphor for power or domination.

[9:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “uprightness of your heart” (so NASB, NRSV). The Hebrew word צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “righteousness”), though essentially synonymous here with יֹשֶׁר (yosher, “uprightness”), carries the idea of conformity to an objective standard. The term יֹשֶׁר has more to do with an inner, moral quality (cf. NAB, NIV “integrity”). Neither, however, was grounds for the Lord’s favor. As he states in both vv. 4-5, the main reason he allowed Israel to take this land was the sinfulness of the Canaanites who lived there (cf. Gen 15:16).

[9:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fathers.”

[14:2]  ¹⁹ tn Or “set apart.”

[14:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[14:2]  ²¹ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[11:26]  ²² tn Grk “for (to do) thus was well-pleasing before you,” BDAG 325 s.v. ἔμπροσθεν 1.b.δ; speaking of something taking place “before” God is a reverential way of avoiding direct connection of the action to him.

[15:16]  ²³ sn You did not choose me, but I chose you. If the disciples are now elevated in status from slaves to friends, they are friends who have been chosen by Jesus, rather than the opposite way round. Again this is true of all Christians, not just the twelve, and the theme that Christians are “chosen” by God appears frequently in other NT texts (e.g., Rom 8:33; Eph 1:4ff.; Col 3:12; and 1 Pet 2:4). Putting this together with the comments on 15:14 one may ask whether the author sees any special significance at all for the twelve. Jesus said in John 6:70 and 13:18 that he chose them, and 15:27 makes clear that Jesus in the immediate context is addressing those who have been with him from the beginning. In the Fourth Gospel the twelve, as the most intimate and most committed followers of Jesus, are presented as the models for all Christians, both in terms of their election and in terms of their mission.

[15:16]  ²⁴ tn Or “and yield.”

[15:16]  ²⁵ sn The purpose for which the disciples were appointed (“commissioned”) is to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains. The introduction of the idea of “going” at this point suggests that the fruit is something more than just character qualities in the disciples’ own lives, but rather involves fruit in the lives of others, i.e., Christian converts. There is a mission involved (cf. John 4:36). The idea that their fruit is permanent, however, relates back to vv. 7-8, as does the reference to asking the Father in Jesus’ name. It appears that as the imagery of the vine and the branches develops, the “fruit” which the branches produce shifts in emphasis from qualities in the disciples’ own lives in John 15:2, 4, 5 to the idea of a mission which affects the lives of others in John 15:16. The point of transition would be the reference to fruit in 15:8.

[9:13]  ²⁶ sn A quotation from Mal 1:2-3.

[9:15]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Exod 33:19.

[9:16]  ²⁸ sn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

[9:16]  ²⁹ tn Grk “So then, [it does] not [depend] on the one who desires nor on the one who runs.”

[9:17]  ³⁰ sn Paul uses a typical rabbinic formula here in which the OT scriptures are figuratively portrayed as speaking to Pharaoh. What he means is that the scripture he cites refers (or can be applied) to Pharaoh.

[9:17]  ³¹ sn A quotation from Exod 9:16.

[9:18]  ³² sn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

[9:18]  ³³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:18]  ³⁴ tn Grk “So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.”

[4:7]  ³⁵ tn See the note on “fellow slave” in 1:7.

[4:7]  ³⁶ tn Grk “all things according to me.”

[1:6]  ³⁷ tn Grk “since I am sure of this very thing.” The verse begins with an adverbial participle that is dependent on the main verb in v. 3 (“I thank”). Paul here gives one reason for his thankfulness.

[1:6]  ³⁸ tn The referent is clearly God from the overall context of the paragraph and the mention of “the day of Christ Jesus” at the end, which would be redundant if Christ were referred to here.

[1:6]  ³⁹ tn Or “among.”

[1:6]  ⁴⁰ tn The word “it” is not in the Greek text but has been supplied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.