Ezekiel 20:41

20:41 When I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, I will accept you along with your soothing aroma. I will display my holiness among you in the sight of the nations.

Ezekiel 38:22-23

38:22 I will judge him with plague and bloodshed. I will rain down on him, his troops and the many peoples who are with him a torrential downpour, hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 38:23 I will exalt and magnify myself; I will reveal myself before many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’

Numbers 20:12-13

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ¹  to show me as holy ²  before ³  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ⁴ 

20:13 These are the waters of Meribah, because the Israelites contended with the Lord, and his holiness was maintained ⁵  among them.

Psalms 46:10

46:10 He says, ⁶  “Stop your striving and recognize ⁷  that I am God!

I will be exalted ⁸  over ⁹  the nations! I will be exalted over ¹⁰  the earth!”

Isaiah 5:16

5:16 The Lord who commands armies will be exalted ¹¹  when he punishes, ¹² 

the sovereign God’s authority will be recognized when he judges. ¹³ 

Isaiah 5:1

A Love Song Gone Sour

5:1 I ¹⁴  will sing to my love –

a song to my lover about his vineyard. ¹⁵ 

My love had a vineyard

on a fertile hill. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 3:15

3:15 Why do you crush my people

and grind the faces of the poor?” ¹⁷ 

The sovereign Lord who commands armies ¹⁸  has spoken.

[20:12]  ¹ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ² sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[20:12]  ³ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ⁴ tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.

[20:13]  ⁵ tn The form is unusual – it is the Niphal preterite, and not the normal use of the Piel/Pual stem for “sanctify/sanctified.” The basic idea of “he was holy” has to be the main idea, but in this context it refers to the fact that through judging Moses God was making sure people ensured his holiness among them. The word also forms a wordplay on the name Kadesh.

[46:10]  ⁶ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[46:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “do nothing/be quiet (see 1 Sam 15:16) and know.” This statement may be addressed to the hostile nations, indicating they should cease their efforts to destroy God’s people, or to Judah, indicating they should rest secure in God’s protection. Since the psalm is an expression of Judah’s trust and confidence, it is more likely that the words are directed to the nations, who are actively promoting chaos and are in need of a rebuke.

[46:10]  ⁸ tn Elsewhere in the psalms the verb רוּם (rum, “be exalted”) when used of God, refers to his exalted position as king (Pss 18:46; 99:2; 113:4; 138:6) and/or his self-revelation as king through his mighty deeds of deliverance (Pss 21:13; 57:5, 11).

[46:10]  ⁹ tn Or “among.”

[46:10]  ¹⁰ tn Or “in.”

[5:16]  ¹¹ tn Or “elevated”; TEV “the Lord Almighty shows his greatness.”

[5:16]  ¹² tn Heb “by judgment/justice.” When God justly punishes the evildoers denounced in the preceding verses, he will be recognized as a mighty warrior.

[5:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “The holy God will be set apart by fairness.” In this context God’s holiness is his sovereign royal authority, which implies a commitment to justice (see the note on the phrase “the sovereign king of Israel” in 1:4). When God judges evildoers as they deserve, his sovereignty will be acknowledged.

[5:1]  ¹⁴ tn It is uncertain who is speaking here. Possibly the prophet, taking the role of best man, composes a love song for his friend on the occasion of his wedding. If so, יָדִיד (yadid) should be translated “my friend.” The present translation assumes that Israel is singing to the Lord. The word דוֹד (dod, “lover”) used in the second line is frequently used by the woman in the Song of Solomon to describe her lover.

[5:1]  ¹⁵ sn Israel, viewing herself as the Lord’s lover, refers to herself as his vineyard. The metaphor has sexual connotations, for it pictures her capacity to satisfy his appetite and to produce children. See Song 8:12.

[5:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “on a horn, a son of oil.” Apparently קֶרֶן (qeren, “horn”) here refers to the horn-shaped peak of a hill (BDB 902 s.v.) or to a mountain spur, i.e., a ridge that extends laterally from a mountain (HALOT 1145 s.v. קֶרֶן; H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:180). The expression “son of oil” pictures this hill as one capable of producing olive trees. Isaiah’s choice of קֶרֶן, a rare word for hill, may have been driven by paronomastic concerns, i.e., because קֶרֶן sounds like כֶּרֶם (kerem, “vineyard”).

[3:15]  ¹⁷ sn The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s outrage at what the leaders have done to the poor. He finds it almost unbelievable that they would have the audacity to treat his people in this manner.

[3:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at 1:9.