Genesis 17:7

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 

Exodus 20:6

20:6 and showing covenant faithfulness ⁴  to a thousand generations ⁵  of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Exodus 34:6-7

34:6 The Lord passed by before him and proclaimed: ⁶  “The Lord, the Lord, ⁷  the compassionate and gracious ⁸  God, slow to anger, ⁹  and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness, ¹⁰  34:7 keeping loyal love for thousands, ¹¹  forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished, responding to the transgression ¹²  of fathers by dealing with children and children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”

Psalms 31:19

31:19 How great is your favor, ¹³ 

which you store up for your loyal followers! ¹⁴ 

In plain sight of everyone you bestow it on those who take shelter ¹⁵  in you. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 85:9

85:9 Certainly his loyal followers will soon experience his deliverance; ¹⁷ 

then his splendor will again appear in our land. ¹⁸ 

Psalms 103:11

103:11 For as the skies are high above the earth,

so his loyal love towers ¹⁹  over his faithful followers. ²⁰ 

Psalms 103:17-18

103:17 But the Lord continually shows loyal love to his faithful followers, ²¹ 

and is faithful to their descendants, ²² 

103:18 to those who keep his covenant,

who are careful to obey his commands. ²³ 

Psalms 115:13

115:13 He will bless his loyal followers, ²⁴ 

both young and old. ²⁵ 

Psalms 118:4

118:4 Let the loyal followers of the Lord ²⁶  say,

“Yes, his loyal love endures!”

Psalms 145:19

145:19 He satisfies the desire ²⁷  of his loyal followers; ²⁸ 

he hears their cry for help and delivers them.

Psalms 147:11

147:11 The Lord takes delight in his faithful followers, ²⁹ 

and in those who wait for his loyal love.

Malachi 3:16-18

3:16 Then those who respected ³⁰  the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord took notice. ³¹  A scroll ³²  was prepared before him in which were recorded the names of those who respected the Lord and honored his name. 3:17 “They will belong to me,” says the Lord who rules over all, “in the day when I prepare my own special property. ³³  I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 3:18 Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between ³⁴  the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.

Revelation 19:5

19:5 Then ³⁵  a voice came from the throne, saying:

“Praise our God

all you his servants,

and all you who fear Him,

both the small and the great!”

[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.”

[20:6]  ⁴ tn Literally “doing loyal love” (עֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד, ’oseh khesed). The noun refers to God’s covenant loyalty, his faithful love to those who belong to him. These are members of the covenant, recipients of grace, the people of God, whom God will preserve and protect from evil and its effects.

[20:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “to thousands” or “to thousandth.” After “tenth,” Hebrew uses cardinal numbers for ordinals also. This statement is the antithesis of the preceding line. The “thousands” or “thousandth [generation]” are those who love Yahweh and keep his commands. These are descendants from the righteous, and even associates with them, who benefit from the mercy that God extends to his people. S. R. Driver (Exodus, 195) says that this passage teaches that God’s mercy transcends his wrath; in his providence the beneficial consequences of a life of goodness extend indefinitely further than the retribution that is the penalty for persisting in sin. To say that God’s loyal love extends to thousands of generations or the thousandth generation is parallel to saying that it endures forever (Ps. 118). See also Exod 34:7; Deut 5:10; 7:9; Ps 18:51; Jer 32:18.

[34:6]  ⁶ tn Here is one of the clearest examples of what it means “to call on the name of the Lord,” as that clause has been translated traditionally (וַיִּקְרָא בְשֵׁם יְהוָה, vayyiqra’ vÿshem yÿhvah). It seems more likely that it means “to make proclamation of Yahweh by name.” Yahweh came down and made a proclamation – and the next verses give the content of what he said. This cannot be prayer or praise; it is a proclamation of the nature or attributes of God (which is what his “name” means throughout the Bible). Attempts to make Moses the subject of the verb are awkward, for the verb is repeated in v. 6 with Yahweh clearly doing the proclaiming.

[34:6]  ⁷ sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 439) suggests that these two names be written as a sentence: “Yahweh, He is Yahweh.” In this manner it reflects “I am that I am.” It is impossible to define his name in any other way than to make this affirmation and then show what it means.

[34:6]  ⁸ tn See Exod 33:19.

[34:6]  ⁹ sn This is literally “long of anger.” His anger prolongs itself, allowing for people to repent before punishment is inflicted.

[34:6]  ¹⁰ sn These two words (“loyal love” and “truth”) are often found together, occasionally in a hendiadys construction. If that is the interpretation here, then it means “faithful covenant love.” Even if they are left separate, they are dual elements of a single quality. The first word is God’s faithful covenant love; the second word is God’s reliability and faithfulness.

[34:7]  ¹¹ tn That is, “for thousands of generations.”

[34:7]  ¹² sn As in the ten commandments (20:5-6), this expression shows that the iniquity and its punishment will continue in the family if left unchecked. This does not go on as long as the outcomes for good (thousands versus third or fourth generations), and it is limited to those who hate God.

[31:19]  ¹³ tn Or “How abundant are your blessings!”

[31:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for those who fear you.”

[31:19]  ¹⁵ tn “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 2:12; 5:11-12; 34:21-22).

[31:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you work [your favor] for the ones seeking shelter in you before the sons of men.”

[85:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “certainly his deliverance [is] near to those who fear him.”

[85:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to dwell, glory, in our land.” “Glory” is the subject of the infinitive. The infinitive with -לְ (lÿ), “to dwell,” probably indicates result here (“then”). When God delivers his people and renews his relationship with them, he will once more reveal his royal splendor in the land.

[103:11]  ¹⁹ tn For this sense of the verb גָבַר (gavar), see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 17, 19.

[103:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “those who fear him.”

[103:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “but the loyal love of the Lord [is] from everlasting to everlasting over those who fear him.”

[103:17]  ²² tn Heb “and his righteousness to sons of sons.”

[103:18]  ²³ tn Heb “to those who remember his precepts to do them.”

[115:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the fearers of the Lord.”

[115:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the small along with the great.” The translation assumes that “small” and “great” here refer to age (see 2 Chr 15:13). Another option is to translate “both the insignificant and the prominent” (see Job 3:19; cf. NEB “high and low alike”).

[118:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “fearers of the Lord.” See Ps 15:4.

[145:19]  ²⁷ tn In this context “desire” refers to the followers’ desire to be delivered from wicked enemies.

[145:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the desire of those who fear him, he does.”

[147:11]  ²⁹ tn Heb “those who fear him.”

[3:16]  ³⁰ tn Or “fear” (so NAB); NRSV “revered”; NCV “honored.”

[3:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “heard and listened”; NAB “listened attentively.”

[3:16]  ³² sn The scroll mentioned here is a “memory book” (סֵפֶר זִכָּרוֹן, sefer zikkaron) in which the Lord keeps an ongoing record of the names of all the redeemed (see Exod 32:32; Isa 4:3; Dan 12:1; Rev 20:12-15).

[3:17]  ³³ sn The Hebrew word סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah, “special property”) is a technical term referring to all the recipients of God’s redemptive grace, especially Israel (Exod 19:5; Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18). The Lord says here that he will not forget even one individual in the day of judgment and reward.

[3:18]  ³⁴ tn Heb “you will see between.” Cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT “see the difference.”

[19:5]  ³⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.