Genesis 17:7-8

17:7 I will confirm ¹  my covenant as a perpetual ²  covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ³  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ⁴  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ⁵  possession. I will be their God.”

Leviticus 26:42

26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ⁶  and I will remember the land.

Numbers 14:34

14:34 According to the number of the days you have investigated this land, forty days – one day for a year – you will suffer for ⁷  your iniquities, forty years, and you will know what it means to thwart me. ⁸ 

Psalms 89:34

89:34 I will not break ⁹  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 14:21

14:21 For the honor of your name, ¹¹  do not treat Jerusalem ¹²  with contempt.

Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. ¹³ 

Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it! ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 33:20-21

33:20 “I, Lord, make the following promise: ¹⁵  ‘I have made a covenant with the day ¹⁶  and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people ¹⁷  could break that covenant 33:21 could my covenant with my servant David and my covenant with the Levites ever be broken. So David will by all means always have a descendant to occupy his throne as king and the Levites will by all means always have priests who will minister before me. ¹⁸ 

Zechariah 11:10

11:10 Then I took my staff “Pleasantness” and cut it in two to annul my covenant that I had made with all the people.

[17:7]  ¹ tn The verb קוּם (qum, “to arise, to stand up”) in the Hiphil verbal stem means “to confirm, to give effect to, to carry out” (i.e., a covenant or oath; see BDB 878-79 s.v. קוּם).

[17:7]  ² tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ³ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[17:8]  ⁴ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

[17:8]  ⁵ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[26:42]  ⁶ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[14:34]  ⁷ tn Heb “you shall bear.”

[14:34]  ⁸ tn The phrase refers to the consequences of open hostility to God, or perhaps abandonment of God. The noun תְּנוּאָה (tÿnu’ah) occurs in Job 33:10 (perhaps). The related verb occurs in Num 30:6 HT (30:5 ET) and 32:7 with the sense of “disallow, discourage.” The sense of the expression adopted in this translation comes from the meticulous study of R. Loewe, “Divine Frustration Exegetically Frustrated,” Words and Meanings, 137-58.

[89:34]  ⁹ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[14:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “For the sake of your name.”

[14:21]  ¹² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:21]  ¹³ tn English versions quite commonly supply “us” as an object for the verb in the first line. This is probably wrong. The Hebrew text reads: “Do not treat with contempt for the sake of your name; do not treat with disdain your glorious throne.” This is case of poetic parallelism where the object is left hanging until the second line. For an example of this see Prov 13:1 in the original and consult E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 103-4. There has also been some disagreement whether “your glorious throne” refers to the temple (as in 17:12) or Jerusalem (as in 3:17). From the beginning of the prayer in v. 19 where a similar kind of verb has been used with respect to Zion/Jerusalem it would appear that the contextual referent is Jerusalem. The absence of an object from the first line makes it possible to retain part of the metaphor in the translation and still convey some meaning.

[14:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Remember, do not break your covenant with us.”

[33:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the Lord is speaking so the first person introduction has again been adopted. The content of the verse shows that it is a promise to David (vv. 21-22) and the Levites based on a contrary to fact condition (v. 20). See further the translator’s note at the end of the next verse for explanation of the English structure adopted here.

[33:20]  ¹⁶ tn The word יוֹמָם (yomam) is normally an adverb meaning “daytime, by day, daily.” However, here and in v. 25 and in Jer 15:9 it means “day, daytime” (cf. BDB 401 s.v. יוֹמָם 1).

[33:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you.” The pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43; 33:10.

[33:21]  ¹⁸ tn The very complex and elliptical syntax of the original Hebrew of vv. 20-21 has been broken down to better conform with contemporary English style. The text reads somewhat literally (after the addition of a couple of phrases which have been left out by ellipsis): “Thus says the Lord, ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that there is not to be daytime and night in their proper time then also my covenant can be broken with my servant David so that there is not to him a son reigning upon his throne [and also my covenant can be broken] with the Levites [so there are not] priests who minister to me.” The two phrases in brackets are elliptical, the first serving double duty for the prepositional phrase “with the Levites” as well as “with David” and the second serving double duty with the noun “priests” which parallels “a son.” The noun “priests” is not serving here as appositional because that phrase is always “the priests, the Levites,” never “the Levites, the priests.”