Exodus 3:7-8

3:7 The Lord said, “I have surely seen ¹  the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ²  3:8 I have come down ³  to deliver them ⁴  from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, ⁵  to a land flowing with milk and honey, ⁶  to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ⁷ 

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ⁸  and keep ⁹  my covenant, then you will be my ¹⁰  special possession ¹¹  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ¹²  a kingdom of priests ¹³  and a holy nation.’ ¹⁴  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Numbers 14:13-14

14:13 Moses said to the Lord, “When the Egyptians hear ¹⁵  it – for you brought up this people by your power from among them – 14:14 then they will tell it to the inhabitants ¹⁶  of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among this people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, ¹⁷  that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night.

Psalms 111:9

111:9 He delivered his people; ¹⁸ 

he ordained that his covenant be observed forever. ¹⁹ 

His name is holy and awesome.

Isaiah 63:7-14

A Prayer for Divine Intervention

63:7 I will tell of the faithful acts of the Lord,

of the Lord’s praiseworthy deeds.

I will tell about all ²⁰  the Lord did for us,

the many good things he did for the family of Israel, ²¹ 

because of ²²  his compassion and great faithfulness.

63:8 He said, “Certainly they will be my people,

children who are not disloyal.” ²³ 

He became their deliverer.

63:9 Through all that they suffered, he suffered too. ²⁴ 

The messenger sent from his very presence ²⁵  delivered them.

In his love and mercy he protected ²⁶  them;

he lifted them up and carried them throughout ancient times. ²⁷ 

63:10 But they rebelled and offended ²⁸  his holy Spirit, ²⁹ 

so he turned into an enemy

and fought against them.

63:11 His people remembered the ancient times. ³⁰ 

Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea,

along with the shepherd of ³¹  his flock?

Where is the one who placed his holy Spirit among them, ³² 

63:12 the one who made his majestic power available to Moses, ³³ 

who divided the water before them,

gaining for himself a lasting reputation, ³⁴ 

63:13 who led them through the deep water?

Like a horse running on flat land ³⁵  they did not stumble.

63:14 Like an animal that goes down into a valley to graze, ³⁶ 

so the Spirit of the Lord granted them rest.

In this way ³⁷  you guided your people,

gaining for yourself an honored reputation. ³⁸ 

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ³⁹  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ⁴⁰  who are eager to do good. ⁴¹ 

Titus 2:1

Conduct Consistent with Sound Teaching

2:1 But as for you, communicate the behavior that goes with ⁴²  sound teaching.

Titus 2:9

2:9 Slaves ⁴³  are to be subject to their own masters in everything, ⁴⁴  to do what is wanted and not talk back,

Revelation 5:9

5:9 They were singing a new song: ⁴⁵ 

“You are worthy to take the scroll

and to open its seals

because you were killed, ⁴⁶ 

and at the cost of your own blood ⁴⁷  you have purchased ⁴⁸  for God

persons ⁴⁹  from every tribe, language, ⁵⁰  people, and nation.

[3:7]  ¹ tn The use of the infinitive absolute with the perfect tense intensifies the statement: I have surely seen – there is no doubt that I have seen and will do something about it.

[3:7]  ² sn Two new words are introduced now to the report of suffering: “affliction” and “pain/suffering.” These add to the dimension of the oppression of God’s people.

[3:8]  ³ sn God’s coming down is a frequent anthropomorphism in Genesis and Exodus. It expresses his direct involvement, often in the exercise of judgment.

[3:8]  ⁴ tn The Hiphil infinitive with the suffix is לְהַצִּילוֹ (lÿhatsilo, “to deliver them”). It expresses the purpose of God’s coming down. The verb itself is used for delivering or rescuing in the general sense, and snatching out of danger for the specific.

[3:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “to a land good and large”; NRSV “to a good and broad land.” In the translation the words “that is both” are supplied because in contemporary English “good and” combined with any additional descriptive term can be understood as elative (“good and large” = “very large”; “good and spacious” = “very spacious”; “good and ready” = “very ready”). The point made in the Hebrew text is that the land to which they are going is both good (in terms of quality) and large (in terms of size).

[3:8]  ⁶ tn This vibrant description of the promised land is a familiar one. Gesenius classifies “milk and honey” as epexegetical genitives because they provide more precise description following a verbal adjective in the construct state (GKC 418-19 §128.x). The land is modified by “flowing,” and “flowing” is explained by the genitives “milk and honey.” These two products will be in abundance in the land, and they therefore exemplify what a desirable land it is. The language is hyperbolic, as if the land were streaming with these products.

[3:8]  ⁷ tn Each people group is joined to the preceding by the vav conjunction, “and.” Each also has the definite article, as in other similar lists (3:17; 13:5; 34:11). To repeat the conjunction and article in the translation seems to put more weight on the list in English than is necessary to its function in identifying what land God was giving the Israelites.

[19:5]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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.

[14:13]  ¹⁵ tn The construction is unusual in that we have here a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive with no verb before it to establish the time sequence. The context requires that this be taken as a vav (ו) consecutive. It actually forms the protasis for the next verse, and would best be rendered “when…then they will say.”

[14:14]  ¹⁶ tn The singular participle is to be taken here as a collective, representing all the inhabitants of the land.

[14:14]  ¹⁷ tn “Face to face” is literally “eye to eye.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 52:8. This expresses the closest communication possible.

[111:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “redemption he sent for his people.”

[111:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he commanded forever his covenant.”

[63:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “according to all which.”

[63:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “greatness of goodness to the house of Israel which he did for them.”

[63:7]  ²² tn Heb “according to.”

[63:8]  ²³ tn Heb “children [who] do not act deceitfully.” Here the verb refers to covenantal loyalty.

[63:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in all their distress, there was distress to him” (reading לוֹ [lo] with the margin/Qere).

[63:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the messenger [or “angel”] of his face”; NIV “the angel of his presence.”

[63:9]  ²⁶ tn Or “redeemed” (KJV, NAB, NIV), or “delivered.”

[63:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “all the days of antiquity”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “days of old.”

[63:10]  ²⁸ tn Or “grieved, hurt the feelings of.”

[63:10]  ²⁹ sn The phrase “holy Spirit” occurs in the OT only here (in v. 11 as well) and in Ps 51:11 (51:13 HT), where it is associated with the divine presence.

[63:11]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and he remembered the days of antiquity, Moses, his people.” The syntax of the statement is unclear. The translation assumes that “his people” is the subject of the verb “remembered.” If original, “Moses” is in apposition to “the days of antiquity,” more precisely identifying the time period referred to. However, the syntactical awkwardness suggests that “Moses” may have been an early marginal note (perhaps identifying “the shepherd of his flock” two lines later) that has worked its way into the text.

[63:11]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew text has a plural form, which if retained and taken as a numerical plural, would probably refer to Moses, Aaron, and the Israelite tribal leaders at the time of the Exodus. Most prefer to emend the form to the singular (רָעָה, ra’ah) and understand this as a reference just to Moses.

[63:11]  ³² sn See the note at v. 10.

[63:12]  ³³ tn Heb “who caused to go at the right hand of Moses the arm of his splendor.”

[63:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “making for himself a lasting name.”

[63:13]  ³⁵ tn Heb “in the desert [or “steppe”].”

[63:14]  ³⁶ tn The words “to graze” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[63:14]  ³⁷ tn Or “so” (KJV, ASV), or “thus” (NAB, NRSV).

[63:14]  ³⁸ tn Heb “making for yourself a majestic name.”

[2:14]  ³⁹ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “for good works.”

[2:1]  ⁴² tn Grk “say what is fitting for sound teaching” (introducing the behavior called for in this chapter.).

[2:9]  ⁴³ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.

[2:9]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “to be subject to their own masters, to do what is wanted in everything.”

[5:9]  ⁴⁵ tn The redundant participle λέγοντες (legontes) has not been translated here.

[5:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Or “slaughtered”; traditionally, “slain.”

[5:9]  ⁴⁷ tn The preposition ἐν (en) is taken to indicate price here, like the Hebrew preposition ב (bet) does at times. BDAG 329 s.v. ἐν 5.b states, “The ἐν which takes the place of the gen. of price is also instrumental ἠγόρασας ἐν τῷ αἵματί σου Rv 5:9 (cp. 1 Ch 21:24 ἀγοράζω ἐν ἀργυρίῳ).”

[5:9]  ⁴⁸ tc The Greek text as it stands above (i.e., the reading τῷ θεῷ [tw qew] alone) is found in codex A. א 2050 2344 Ï sy add the term “us” (ἡμᾶς, Jhmas), either before or after τῷ θεῷ, as an attempt to clarify the object of “purchased” (ἠγόρασας, hgorasa"). A few mss (1 vg^ms) delete the reference to God altogether and simply replace it with “us” (ἡμᾶς). This too is an attempt to remove ambiguity in the phrase and provide an object for “purchased.” The shorter reading, supported by the best witness for Revelation, best accounts for the other readings.

[5:9]  ⁴⁹ tn The word “persons” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[5:9]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “and language,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.