Exodus 8:22

8:22 But on that day I will mark off ¹  the land of Goshen, where my people are staying, ²  so that no swarms of flies will be there, that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of this land. ³ 

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ⁴  and keep ⁵  my covenant, then you will be my ⁶  special possession ⁷  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ⁸  a kingdom of priests ⁹  and a holy nation.’ ¹⁰  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Exodus 34:10

34:10 He said, “See, I am going to make ¹¹  a covenant before all your people. I will do wonders such as have not been done ¹²  in all the earth, nor in any nation. All the people among whom you live will see the work of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am doing with you. ¹³ 

Numbers 23:9

23:9 For from the top of the rocks I see them; ¹⁴ 

from the hills I watch them. ¹⁵ 

Indeed, a nation that lives alone,

and it will not be reckoned ¹⁶  among the nations.

Deuteronomy 4:7

4:7 In fact, what other great nation has a god so near to them like the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

Deuteronomy 4:34

4:34 Or has God ¹⁷  ever before tried to deliver ¹⁸  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ¹⁹  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ²⁰  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

Deuteronomy 4:2

4:2 Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to ²¹  you.

Deuteronomy 7:23

7:23 The Lord your God will give them over to you; he will throw them into a great panic ²²  until they are destroyed.

Deuteronomy 7:1

The Dispossession of Nonvassals

7:1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, ²³  Girgashites, ²⁴  Amorites, ²⁵  Canaanites, ²⁶  Perizzites, ²⁷  Hivites, ²⁸  and Jebusites, ²⁹  seven ³⁰  nations more numerous and powerful than you –

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ³¹  I am giving ³²  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ³³  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ³⁴ 

Psalms 147:20

147:20 He has not done so with any other nation;

they are not aware of his regulations.

Praise the Lord!

Psalms 147:2

147:2 The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, ³⁵ 

and gathers the exiles of Israel.

Colossians 1:17

1:17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together ³⁶  in him.

[8:22]  ¹ tn Or “distinguish.” וְהִפְלֵיתִי (vÿhifleti) is the Hiphil perfect of פָּלָה (palah). The verb in Hiphil means “to set apart, make separate, make distinct.” God was going to keep the flies away from Goshen – he was setting that apart. The Greek text assumed that the word was from פָּלֵא (pale’), and translated it something like “I will marvelously glorify.”

[8:22]  ² tn The relative clause modifies the land of Goshen as the place “in which my people are dwelling.” But the normal word for “dwelling” is not used here. Instead, עֹמֵד (’omed) is used, which literally means “standing.” The land on which Israel stood was spared the flies and the hail.

[8:22]  ³ tn Or “of the earth” (KJV, ASV, NAB).

[19:5]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[34:10]  ¹¹ tn Here again is a use of the futur instans participle; the deictic particle plus the pronoun precedes the participle, showing what is about to happen.

[34:10]  ¹² tn The verb here is בָּרָא (bara’, “to create”). The choice of this verb is to stress that these wonders would be supernaturally performed, for the verb is used only with God as the subject.

[34:10]  ¹³ sn The idea is that God will be doing awesome things in dealing with them, i.e., to fulfill his program.

[23:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “him,” but here it refers to the Israelites (Israel).

[23:9]  ¹⁵ sn Balaam reports his observation of the nation of Israel spread out below him in the valley. Based on that vision, and the Lord’s word, he announces the uniqueness of Israel – they are not just like one of the other nations. He was correct, of course; they were the only people linked with the living God by covenant.

[23:9]  ¹⁶ tn The verb could also be taken as a reflexive – Israel does not consider itself as among the nations, meaning, they consider themselves to be unique.

[4:34]  ¹⁷ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

[4:34]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

[4:34]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

[4:34]  ²⁰ tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

[4:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “commanding.”

[7:23]  ²² tn Heb “he will confuse them (with) great confusion.” The verb used here means “shake, stir up” (see Ruth 1:19; 1 Sam 4:5; 1 Kgs 1:45; Ps 55:2); the accompanying cognate noun refers to confusion, unrest, havoc, or panic (1 Sam 5:9, 11; 14:20; 2 Chr 15:5; Prov 15:16; Isa 22:5; Ezek 7:7; 22:5; Amos 3:9; Zech 14:13).

[7:1]  ²³ sn Hittites. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 b.c.) they were at their zenith, establishing outposts and colonies near and far. Some elements were obviously in Canaan at the time of the Conquest (1400-1350 b.c.).

[7:1]  ²⁴ sn Girgashites. These cannot be ethnically identified and are unknown outside the OT. They usually appear in such lists only when the intention is to have seven groups in all (see also the note on the word “seven” later in this verse).

[7:1]  ²⁵ sn Amorites. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200 b.c. or thereabouts.

[7:1]  ²⁶ sn Canaanites. These were the indigenous peoples of the land, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000 b.c.). The OT identifies them as descendants of Ham (Gen 10:6), the only Hamites to have settled north and east of Egypt.

[7:1]  ²⁷ sn Perizzites. This is probably a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).

[7:1]  ²⁸ sn Hivites. These are usually thought to be the same as the Hurrians, a people well-known in ancient Near Eastern texts. They are likely identical to the Horites (see note on the term “Horites” in Deut 2:12).

[7:1]  ²⁹ sn Jebusites. These inhabited the hill country, particularly in and about Jerusalem (cf. Num 13:29; Josh 15:8; 2 Sam 5:6; 24:16).

[7:1]  ³⁰ sn Seven. This is an ideal number in the OT, one symbolizing fullness or completeness. Therefore, the intent of the text here is not to be precise and list all of Israel’s enemies but simply to state that Israel will have a full complement of foes to deal with. For other lists of Canaanites, some with fewer than seven peoples, see Exod 3:8; 13:5; 23:23, 28; 33:2; 34:11; Deut 20:17; Josh 3:10; 9:1; 24:11. Moreover, the “Table of Nations” (Gen 10:15-19) suggests that all of these (possibly excepting the Perizzites) were offspring of Canaan and therefore Canaanites.

[8:1]  ³¹ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ³² tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ³³ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[147:2]  ³⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:17]  ³⁶ tn BDAG 973 s.v. συνίστημι B.3 suggests “continue, endure, exist, hold together” here.