Exodus 32:10

32:10 So now, leave me alone ¹  so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them, and I will make from you a great nation.”

Deuteronomy 9:14

9:14 Stand aside ²  and I will destroy them, obliterating their very name from memory, ³  and I will make you into a stronger and more numerous nation than they are.”

Deuteronomy 25:19

25:19 So when the Lord your God gives you relief from all the enemies who surround you in the land he ⁴  is giving you as an inheritance, ⁵  you must wipe out the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven ⁶  – do not forget! ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 29:20

29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ⁸  will rage ⁹  against that man; all the curses ¹⁰  written in this scroll will fall upon him ¹¹  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ¹² 

Psalms 56:8

56:8 You keep track of my misery. ¹³ 

Put my tears in your leather container! ¹⁴ 

Are they not recorded in your scroll? ¹⁵ 

Psalms 69:28

69:28 May their names be deleted from the scroll of the living! ¹⁶ 

Do not let their names be listed with the godly! ¹⁷ 

Psalms 139:16

139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. ¹⁸ 

All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll

before one of them came into existence. ¹⁹ 

Ezekiel 13:9

13:9 My hand will be against the prophets who see delusion and announce lying omens. They will not be included in the council ²⁰  of my people, nor be written in the registry ²¹  of the house of Israel, nor enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord.

Daniel 12:1

12:1 “At that time Michael,

the great prince who watches over your people, ²² 

will arise. ²³ 

There will be a time of distress

unlike any other from the nation’s beginning ²⁴ 

up to that time.

But at that time your own people,

all those whose names are ²⁵  found written in the book,

will escape.

Romans 9:3

9:3 For I could wish ²⁶  that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, ²⁷  my fellow countrymen, ²⁸ 

Philippians 4:3

4:3 Yes, I say also to you, true companion, ²⁹  help them. They have struggled together in the gospel ministry ³⁰  along with me and Clement and my other coworkers, whose names are in the book of life.

Revelation 3:5

3:5 The one who conquers ³¹  will be dressed like them ³²  in white clothing, ³³  and I will never ³⁴  erase ³⁵  his name from the book of life, but ³⁶  will declare ³⁷  his name before my Father and before his angels.

Revelation 17:8

17:8 The beast you saw was, and is not, but is about to come up from the abyss ³⁸  and then go to destruction. The ³⁹  inhabitants of the earth – all those whose names have not been written in the book of life since the foundation of the world – will be astounded when they see that ⁴⁰  the beast was, and is not, but is to come.

Revelation 21:27

21:27 but ⁴¹  nothing ritually unclean ⁴²  will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable ⁴³  or practices falsehood, ⁴⁴  but only those whose names ⁴⁵  are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Revelation 22:19

22:19 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life ⁴⁶  and in the holy city that are described in this book.

[32:10]  ¹ tn The imperative, from the word “to rest” (נוּחַ, nuakh), has the sense of “leave me alone, let me be.” It is a directive for Moses not to intercede for the people. B. S. Childs (Exodus [OTL], 567) reflects the Jewish interpretation that there is a profound paradox in God’s words. He vows the severest punishment but then suddenly conditions it on Moses’ agreement. “Let me alone that I may consume them” is the statement, but the effect is that he has left the door open for intercession. He allows himself to be persuaded – that is what a mediator is for. God could have slammed the door (as when Moses wanted to go into the promised land). Moreover, by alluding to the promise to Abraham God gave Moses the strongest reason to intercede.

[9:14]  ² tn Heb “leave me alone.”

[9:14]  ³ tn Heb “from under heaven.”

[25:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “ the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[25:19]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “to possess it.”

[25:19]  ⁶ tn Or “from beneath the sky.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[25:19]  ⁷ sn This command is fulfilled in 1 Sam 15:1-33.

[29:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.

[29:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

[29:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the entire oath.”

[29:20]  ¹¹ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

[29:20]  ¹² tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”

[56:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “my wandering you count, you.” The Hebrew term נֹד (nod, “wandering,” derived from the verbal root נוֹד, nod, “to wander”; cf. NASB) here refers to the psalmist’s “changeable circumstances of life” and may be translated “misery.” The verb סָפַר (safar, “count”) probably carries the nuance “assess” here. Cf. NIV “my lament”; NRSV “my tossings.”

[56:8]  ¹⁴ tn Traditionally “your bottle.” Elsewhere the Hebrew word נֹאד (no’d, “leather container”) refers to a container made from animal skin which is used to hold wine or milk (see Josh 9:4, 13; Judg 4:19; 1 Sam 16:20). If such a container is metaphorically in view here, then the psalmist seems to be asking God to store up his tears as a reminder of his suffering.

[56:8]  ¹⁵ tn The word “recorded” is supplied in the translation for clarification. The rhetorical question assumes a positive response (see the first line of the verse).

[69:28]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “let them be wiped out of the scroll of the living.”

[69:28]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and with the godly let them not be written.”

[139:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Your eyes saw my shapeless form.” The Hebrew noun גֹּלֶם (golem) occurs only here in the OT. In later Hebrew the word refers to “a lump, a shapeless or lifeless substance,” and to “unfinished matter, a vessel wanting finishing” (Jastrow 222 s.v. גּוֹלֶם). The translation employs the dynamic rendering “when I was inside the womb” to clarify that the speaker was still in his mother’s womb at the time he was “seen” by God.

[139:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and on your scroll all of them were written, [the] days [which] were formed, and [there was] not one among them.” This “scroll” may be the “scroll of life” mentioned in Ps 69:28 (see the note on the word “living” there).

[13:9]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew term may refer to the secret council of the Lord (Jer 23:18; Job 15:8), but here it more likely refers to a human council comprised of civic leaders (Gen 49:6; Jer 6:11; 15:17 Ps 64:3; 111:1).

[13:9]  ²¹ tn The reference here is probably to a civil list (as in Ezra 2:16; Neh 7:64) rather than to a “book of life” (Exod 32:32; Isa 4:3; Ps 69:29; Dan 12:1). This registry may have been established at the making of David’s census (2 Sam 24:2, 9).

[12:1]  ²² tn Heb “stands over the sons of your people.”

[12:1]  ²³ tn Heb “will stand up.”

[12:1]  ²⁴ tn Or “from the beginning of a nation.”

[12:1]  ²⁵ tn The words “whose names are” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarification.

[9:3]  ²⁶ tn Or “For I would pray.” The implied condition is “if this could save my fellow Jews.”

[9:3]  ²⁷ tn Grk “brothers.” See BDAG 18-19 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.b.

[9:3]  ²⁸ tn Grk “my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

[4:3]  ²⁹ tn Or “faithful fellow worker.” This is more likely a descriptive noun, although some scholars interpret the word σύζυγος (suzugos) here as a proper name (“Syzygos”), L&N 42.45.

[4:3]  ³⁰ tn Grk “in the gospel,” a metonymy in which the gospel itself is substituted for the ministry of making the gospel known.

[3:5]  ³¹ tn Or “who overcomes.”

[3:5]  ³² tn Grk “thus.”

[3:5]  ³³ tn Or “white robes.”

[3:5]  ³⁴ tn The negation here is with οὐ μή (ou mh), the strongest possible form of negation in Koine Greek.

[3:5]  ³⁵ tn Or “will never wipe out.”

[3:5]  ³⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[3:5]  ³⁷ tn Grk “will confess.”

[17:8]  ³⁸ tn On this term BDAG 2 s.v. ἄβυσσος 2 states, “netherworld, abyss, esp. the abode of the dead Ro 10:7 (Ps 106:26) and of demons Lk 8:31; dungeon where the devil is kept Rv 20:3; abode of the θηρίον, the Antichrist 11:7; 17:8; of ᾿Αβαδδών (q.v.), the angel of the underworld 9:11…φρέαρ τῆς ἀ. 9:1f; capable of being sealed 9:1; 20:1, 3.”

[17:8]  ³⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[17:8]  ⁴⁰ tn Some translations take the ὅτι (Joti) here as causal: “because he was, and is not, but is to come” (so NIV, NRSV), but it is much more likely that the subject of the ὅτι clause has been assimilated into the main clause: “when they see the beast, that he was…” = “when they see that the beast was” (so BDAG 732 s.v. ὅτι 1.f, where Rev 17:8 is listed).

[21:27]  ⁴¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[21:27]  ⁴² tn Here BDAG 552 s.v. κοινός 2 states, “pert. to being of little value because of being common, common, ordinary, profane…b. specifically, of that which is ceremonially impure: Rv 21:27.”

[21:27]  ⁴³ tn Or “what is abhorrent”; Grk “who practices abominations.”

[21:27]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “practicing abomination or falsehood.” Because of the way βδέλυγμα (bdelugma) has been translated (“does what is detestable”) it was necessary to repeat the idea from the participle ποιῶν (poiwn, “practices”) before the term “falsehood.” On this term, BDAG 1097 s.v. ψεῦδος states, “ποιεῖν ψεῦδος practice (the things that go with) falsehood Rv 21:27; 22:15.” Cf. Rev 3:9.

[21:27]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “those who are written”; the word “names” is implied.

[22:19]  ⁴⁶ tc The Textus Receptus, on which the KJV rests, reads “the book” of life (ἀπὸ βίβλου, apo biblou) instead of “the tree” of life. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the NT he had access to no Greek mss for the last six verses of Revelation. So he translated the Latin Vulgate back into Greek at this point. As a result he created seventeen textual variants which were not in any Greek mss. The most notorious of these is this reading. It is thus decidedly inauthentic, while “the tree” of life, found in the best and virtually all Greek mss, is clearly authentic. The confusion was most likely due to an intra-Latin switch: The form of the word for “tree” in Latin in this passage is ligno; the word for “book” is libro. The two-letter difference accounts for an accidental alteration in some Latin mss; that “book of life” as well as “tree of life” is a common expression in the Apocalypse probably accounts for why this was not noticed by Erasmus or the KJV translators. (This textual problem is not discussed in NA²⁷.)