Ezekiel 39:25

39:25 “Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Now I will restore ¹  the fortunes of Jacob, and I will have mercy on the entire house of Israel. I will be zealous for my holy name.

Deuteronomy 29:20

29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ²  will rage ³  against that man; all the curses ⁴  written in this scroll will fall upon him ⁵  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ⁶ 

Isaiah 42:13

42:13 The Lord emerges like a hero,

like a warrior he inspires himself for battle; ⁷ 

he shouts, yes, he yells,

he shows his enemies his power. ⁸ 

Joel 2:18

The Lord’s Response

2:18 Then the Lord became ⁹  zealous for his land;

he had compassion on his people.

Zechariah 1:14

1:14 Turning to me, the messenger then said, “Cry out that the Lord who rules over all says, ‘I am very much moved ¹⁰  for Jerusalem and for Zion.

[39:25]  ¹ tn Heb “cause to return.”

[29:20]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

[29:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the entire oath.”

[29:20]  ⁵ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

[29:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”

[42:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “like a man of war he stirs up zeal” (NIV similar).

[42:13]  ⁸ tn Or perhaps, “he triumphs over his enemies” (cf. NIV); NLT “will crush all his enemies.”

[2:18]  ⁹ tn The time-frame entertained by the verbs of v.18 constitutes a crux interpretum in this chapter. The Hebrew verb forms used here are preterites with vav consecutive and are most naturally understood as describing a past situation. However, some modern English versions render these verbs as futures (e.g., NIV, NASV), apparently concluding that the context requires a future reference. According to Joüon 2:363 §112.h, n.1 Ibn Ezra explained the verbs of Joel 2:18 as an extension of the so-called prophetic perfect; as such, a future fulfillment was described with a past tense as a rhetorical device lending certainty to the fulfillment. But this lacks adequate precedent and is very unlikely from a syntactical standpoint. It seems better to take the verbs in the normal past sense of the preterite. This would require a vantage point for the prophet at some time after the people had responded favorably to the Lord’s call for repentance and after the Lord had shown compassion and forgiveness toward his people, but before the full realization of God’s promises to restore productivity to the land. In other words, it appears from the verbs of vv. 18-19 that at the time of Joel’s writing this book the events of successive waves of locust invasion and conditions of drought had almost run their course and the people had now begun to turn to the Lord.

[1:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “jealous for” (so KJV, ASV); NIV, NRSV “very jealous for”; CEV “very protective of.” The meaning is that Jerusalem/Zion is the special object of God’s grace and purposes. This results in his unusual protection of his people, a protection not accorded others with whom he does not have such a close relationship.