Exodus 19:5

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,

Deuteronomy 32:9

32:9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people,

Jacob is his special possession. ⁵ 

Psalms 135:4

135:4 Indeed, ⁶  the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,

Israel to be his special possession. ⁷ 

The Song of Songs 2:16

Poetic Refrain: Mutual Possession

The Beloved about Her Lover:

2:16 My lover is mine and I am his;

he grazes among the lilies. ⁸ 

The Song of Songs 6:3

Poetic Refrain: Mutual Possession

The Beloved about Her Lover:

6:3 I am my lover’s ⁹  and my lover is mine; ¹⁰ 

he grazes among the lilies.

Isaiah 44:5

44:5 One will say, ‘I belong to the Lord,’

and another will use ¹¹  the name ‘Jacob.’

One will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’

and use the name ‘Israel.’” ¹² 

Jeremiah 31:33

31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ¹³  after I plant them back in the land,” ¹⁴  says the Lord. ¹⁵  “I will ¹⁶  put my law within them ¹⁷  and write it on their hearts and minds. ¹⁸  I will be their God and they will be my people. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 32:38

32:38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. ²⁰ 

Ezekiel 36:38

36:38 Like the sheep for offerings, like the sheep of Jerusalem ²¹  during her appointed feasts, so will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

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.’” ²² 

Malachi 3:17

3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ²³  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

John 17:9-10

17:9 I am praying ²⁴  on behalf of them. I am not praying ²⁵  on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me, because they belong to you. ²⁶  17:10 Everything ²⁷  I have belongs to you, ²⁸  and everything you have belongs to me, ²⁹  and I have been glorified by them. ³⁰ 

John 17:1

Jesus Prays for the Father to Glorify Him

17:1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward ³¹  to heaven ³²  and said, “Father, the time ³³  has come. Glorify your Son, so that your ³⁴  Son may glorify you –

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ³⁵  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ³⁶  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ³⁷  who are eager to do good. ³⁸ 

Titus 2:1

Conduct Consistent with Sound Teaching

2:1 But as for you, communicate the behavior that goes with ³⁹  sound teaching.

Titus 2:9-10

2:9 Slaves ⁴⁰  are to be subject to their own masters in everything, ⁴¹  to do what is wanted and not talk back, 2:10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, ⁴²  in order to bring credit to ⁴³  the teaching of God our Savior in everything.

[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.

[32:9]  ⁵ tc Heb “the portion of his inheritance.” The LXX and Smr add “Israel” and BHS suggests the reconstruction: “The Lord’s allotment is Jacob, the portion of his inheritance is Israel” (cf. NAB). While providing good parallelism, it destroys a fine chiastic structure: “allotment” (a), “his people” (b), “Jacob (b’), and “inheritance” (a’).

[135:4]  ⁶ tn Or “for.”

[135:4]  ⁷ sn His special possession. The language echoes Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18. See also Mal 3:17.

[2:16]  ⁸ sn This line may be translated either as “the one who grazes among the lilies” or as “the one who feeds [his flock] among the lilies.” The latter would picture him as a shepherd pasturing his flock among a bed of flowers which they were eating, while the former would be picturing him as a gazelle feeding among a bed of flowers. Because of the occurrence of the gazelle motif in the following verse, it is most likely that this motif is present in this verse as well. Although it seems likely that he is therefore being pictured as a gazelle eating these flowers, it is far from clear as to what this figurative picture denotes. It is possible that it conveys the peaceful nature of his relationship with her because she was earlier portrayed as a lily (e.g., 2:1).

[6:3]  ⁹ sn This is the second occurrence of the poetic refrain that occurs elsewhere in 2:16 and 7:11. The order of the first two cola are reversed from 2:16: “My beloved is mine and I am his” (2:16) but “I am my beloved’s and he is mine” (6:3). The significance of this shift depends on whether the parallelism is synonymous or climactic. This might merely be a literary variation with no rhetorical significance. On the other hand, it might signal a shift in her view of their relationship: Originally, she focused on her possession of him, now she focused on his possession of her.

[6:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I belong to my beloved, and my lover belongs to me.” Alternately, “I am devoted to my beloved, and my lover is devoted to me.”

[44:5]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text has a Qal verb form, “and another will call by the name of Jacob.” With support from Symmachus (an ancient Greek textual witness), some read the Niphal, “and another will be called by the name of Jacob.”

[44:5]  ¹² tn Heb “and by the name of Israel he will title.” Some, with support from several ancient versions, prefer to change the Piel (active) verb form to a Pual (passive), “and he will be titled by the name of Israel.”

[31:33]  ¹³ tn Heb “with the house of Israel.” All commentators agree that the term here refers to both the whole nation which was divided into the house of Israel and the house of Judah in v. 30.

[31:33]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “after those days.” Commentators are generally agreed that this refers to the return from exile and the repopulation of the land referred to in vv. 27-28 and not to something subsequent to the time mentioned in v. 30. This is the sequencing that is also presupposed in other new covenant passages such as Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28.

[31:33]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the Lord, ‘I will….’” The sentence has been reworded and restructured to avoid the awkwardness of the original style.

[31:33]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in their inward parts.” The Hebrew word here refers to the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and decisions (Jer 9:8 [9:7 HT]). It is essentially synonymous with “heart” in Hebrew psychological terms.

[31:33]  ¹⁸ tn The words “and minds” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation to bring the English psychology more into line with the Hebrew where the “heart” is the center both of knowing/thinking/reflecting and deciding/willing.

[31:33]  ¹⁹ sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[32:38]  ²⁰ sn The covenant formula setting forth the basic relationship is reinstituted along with a new covenant (v. 40). See also 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and the study note on 30:22.

[36:38]  ²¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[13:9]  ²² 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).

[3:17]  ²³ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.

[17:9]  ²⁴ tn Grk “I am asking.”

[17:9]  ²⁵ tn Grk “I am not asking.”

[17:9]  ²⁶ tn Or “because they are yours.”

[17:10]  ²⁷ tn Grk And all things.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[17:10]  ²⁸ tn Or “Everything I have is yours.”

[17:10]  ²⁹ tn Or “everything you have is mine.”

[17:10]  ³⁰ tn Or “I have been honored among them.”

[17:1]  ³¹ tn Grk “he raised his eyes” (an idiom).

[17:1]  ³² tn Or “to the sky.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven” depending on the context.

[17:1]  ³³ tn Grk “the hour.”

[17:1]  ³⁴ tc The better witnesses (א B C* W 0109 0301) have “the Son” (ὁ υἱός, Jo Juios) here, while the majority (C³ L Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï) read “your Son also” (καὶ ὁ υἱὸς σου, kai Jo Juio" sou), or “your Son” (ὁ υἱὸς σου; A D Θ 0250 1 579 pc lat sy); the second corrector of C has καὶ ὁ υἱός (“the Son also”). The longer readings appear to be predictable scribal expansions and as such should be considered secondary.

[1:20]  ³⁵ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[2:14]  ³⁶ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ³⁷ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ³⁸ tn Grk “for good works.”

[2:1]  ³⁹ tn Grk “say what is fitting for sound teaching” (introducing the behavior called for in this chapter.).

[2:9]  ⁴⁰ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.

[2:9]  ⁴¹ tn Or “to be subject to their own masters, to do what is wanted in everything.”

[2:10]  ⁴² tn Or “showing that genuine faith is productive.” At issue between these two translations is the force of ἀγαθήν (agaqhn): Is it attributive (as the text has it) or predicate (as in this note)? A number of considerations point in the direction of a predicate ἀγαθήν (e.g., separation from the noun πίστιν (pistin) by the verb, the possibility that the construction is an object-complement, etc.), though is not usually seen as an option in either translations or commentaries. Cf. ExSyn 188-89, 312-13, for a discussion. Contextually, it makes an intriguing statement, for it suggests a synthetic or synonymous parallel: “‘Slaves should be wholly subject to their masters…demonstrating that all [genuine] faith is productive, with the result [ecbatic ἵνα] that they will completely adorn the doctrine of God.’ The point of the text, then, if this understanding is correct, is an exhortation to slaves to demonstrate that their faith is sincere and results in holy behavior. If taken this way, the text seems to support the idea that saving faith does not fail, but even results in good works” (ExSyn 312-13). The translation of ἀγαθήν as an attributive adjective, however, also makes good sense.

[2:10]  ⁴³ tn Or “adorn,” “show the beauty of.”