Ezekiel 16:8

16:8 “‘Then I passed by you and watched you, noticing ¹  that you had reached the age for love. ²  I spread my cloak ³  over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.

Ezekiel 16:20

16:20 “‘You took your sons and your daughters whom you bore to me and you sacrificed them ⁴  as food for the idols to eat. As if your prostitution not enough,

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ⁵  and keep ⁶  my covenant, then you will be my ⁷  special possession ⁸  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ⁹  a kingdom of priests ¹⁰  and a holy nation.’ ¹¹  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Psalms 45:11-16

45:11 Then ¹²  the king will be attracted by ¹³  your beauty.

After all, he is your master! Submit ¹⁴  to him! ¹⁵ 

45:12 Rich people from Tyre ¹⁶ 

will seek your favor by bringing a gift. ¹⁷ 

45:13 The princess ¹⁸  looks absolutely magnificent, ¹⁹ 

decked out in pearls and clothed in a brocade trimmed with gold. ²⁰ 

45:14 In embroidered robes she is escorted to the king.

Her attendants, the maidens of honor who follow her,

are led before you. ²¹ 

45:15 They are bubbling with joy as they walk in procession

and enter the royal palace. ²² 

45:16 Your ²³  sons will carry ²⁴  on the dynasty of your ancestors; ²⁵ 

you will make them princes throughout the land.

Jeremiah 2:2-3

2:2 “Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: ²⁶  ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have fond memories of you, ²⁷  how devoted you were to me in your early years. ²⁸  I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted. 2:3 Israel was set apart to the Lord; they were like the first fruits of a harvest to him. ²⁹  All who tried to devour them were punished; disaster came upon them,” says the Lord.’”

Romans 7:4

7:4 So, my brothers and sisters, ³⁰  you also died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you could be joined to another, to the one who was raised from the dead, to bear fruit to God. ³¹ 

[16:8]  ¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a participle.

[16:8]  ² tn See similar use of this term in Ezek 23:17; Prov 7:16; Song of Songs 4:10; 7:13.

[16:8]  ³ tn Heb “wing” or “skirt.” The gesture symbolized acquiring a woman in early Arabia (similarly, see Deut 22:30; Ruth 3:9).

[16:20]  ⁴ sn The sacrifice of children was prohibited in Lev 18:21; 20:2; Deut 12:31; 18:10.

[19:5]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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.

[45:11]  ¹² tn After the preceding imperatives, the jussive verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive is best understood as introducing a purpose (“so that the king might desire your beauty”) or result clause (see the present translation and cf. also NASB). The point seems to be this: The bride might tend to be homesick, which in turn might cause her to mourn and diminish her attractiveness. She needs to overcome this temptation to unhappiness and enter into the marriage with joy. Then the king will be drawn to her natural beauty.

[45:11]  ¹³ tn Or “desire.”

[45:11]  ¹⁴ tn Or “bow down.”

[45:11]  ¹⁵ sn Submit to him. The poet here makes the point that the young bride is obligated to bring pleasure to her new husband. Though a foreign concept to modern western culture, this was accepted as the cultural norm in the psalmist’s day.

[45:12]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[45:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and a daughter of Tyre with a gift, your face they will appease, the rich of people.” The phrase “daughter of Tyre” occurs only here in the OT. It could be understood as addressed to the bride, indicating she was a Phoenician (cf. NEB). However, often in the OT the word “daughter,” when collocated with the name of a city or country, is used to personify the referent (see, for example, “Daughter Zion” in Ps 9:14, and “Daughter Babylon” in Ps 137:8). If that is the case here, then “Daughter Tyre” identifies the city-state of Tyre as the place from which the rich people come (cf. NRSV). The idiom “appease the face” refers to seeking one’s favor (see Exod 32:11; 1 Sam 13:12; 1 Kgs 13:6; 2 Kgs 13:4; 2 Chr 33:12; Job 11:19; Ps 119:58; Prov 19:6; Jer 26:19; Dan 9:13; Zech 7:2; 8:21-22; Mal 1:9).

[45:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “[the] daughter of a king.”

[45:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[is] completely glorious.”

[45:13]  ²⁰ tc Heb “within, from settings of gold, her clothing.” The Hebrew term פְּנִימָה (pÿnimah, “within”), if retained, would go with the preceding line and perhaps refer to the bride being “within” the palace or her bridal chamber (cf. NIV, NRSV). Since the next two lines refer to her attire (see also v. 9b), it is preferable to emend the form to פְּנִינִיהָּ (“her pearls”) or to פְּנִינִים (“pearls”). The mem (מ) prefixed to “settings” is probably dittographic.

[45:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “virgins after her, her companions, are led to you.” Some emend לָךְ (lakh, “to you”) to לָהּ (lah, “to her,” i.e., the princess), because the princess is now being spoken of in the third person (vv. 13-14a), rather than being addressed directly (as in vv. 10-12). However, the ambiguous suffixed form לָךְ need not be taken as second feminine singular. The suffix can be understood as a pausal second masculine singular form, addressed to the king. The translation assumes this to be the case; note that the king is addressed once more in vv. 16-17, where the second person pronouns are masculine.

[45:15]  ²² tn Heb “they are led with joy and happiness, they enter the house of the king.”

[45:16]  ²³ tn The pronoun is second masculine singular, indicating the king is being addressed from this point to the end of the psalm.

[45:16]  ²⁴ tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as jussive and the statement interpreted as a prayer, “May your sons carry on the dynasty of your ancestors!” The next line could then be taken as a relative clause, “[your sons] whom you will make princes throughout the land.”

[45:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in place of your fathers will be your sons.”

[2:2]  ²⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “I remember to/for you.”

[2:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the loyal love of your youth.”

[2:3]  ²⁹ sn Heb “the first fruits of his harvest.” Many commentators see the figure here as having theological significance for the calling of the Gentiles. It is likely, however, that in this context the metaphor – here rendered as a simile – is intended to bring out the special relationship and inviolability that Israel had with God. As the first fruits were the special possession of the Lord, to be eaten only by the priests and off limits to the common people, so Israel was God’s special possession and was not to be “eaten” by the nations.

[7:4]  ³⁰ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[7:4]  ³¹ tn Grk “that we might bear fruit to God.”