Genesis 28:16-17

28:16 Then Jacob woke up ¹  and thought, ²  “Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!” 28:17 He was afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! This is nothing else than the house of God! This is the gate of heaven!”

Exodus 3:5

3:5 God ³  said, “Do not approach any closer! ⁴  Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ⁵  ground.” ⁶ 

Leviticus 10:3

10:3 Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke: ‘Among the ones close to me I will show myself holy, ⁷  and in the presence of all the people I will be honored.’” ⁸  So Aaron kept silent.

Joshua 5:15

5:15 The commander of the Lord’s army answered Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, because the place where you stand is holy.” Joshua did so.

Joshua 5:2

A New Generation is Circumcised

5:2 At that time the Lord told Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites once again.” ⁹ 

Joshua 1:16

1:16 They told Joshua, “We will do everything you say. We will go wherever you send us.

Psalms 89:7

89:7 a God who is honored ¹⁰  in the great angelic assembly, ¹¹ 

and more awesome than ¹²  all who surround him?

Isaiah 1:12-20

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ¹³ 

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ¹⁴  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ¹⁵ 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ¹⁶ 

1:14 I hate your new moon festivals and assemblies;

they are a burden

that I am tired of carrying.

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ¹⁷ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ¹⁸ 

1:16 ¹⁹ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ²⁰ 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

1:17 Learn to do what is right!

Promote justice!

Give the oppressed reason to celebrate! ²¹ 

Take up the cause of the orphan!

Defend the rights of the widow! ²² 

1:18 ²³ Come, let’s consider your options,” ²⁴  says the Lord.

“Though your sins have stained you like the color red,

you can become ²⁵  white like snow;

though they are as easy to see as the color scarlet,

you can become ²⁶  white like wool. ²⁷ 

1:19 If you have a willing attitude and obey, ²⁸ 

then you will again eat the good crops of the land.

1:20 But if you refuse and rebel,

you will be devoured ²⁹  by the sword.”

Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ³⁰ 

Isaiah 1:1

Heading

1:1 Here is the message about Judah and Jerusalem ³¹  that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz during the time when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah reigned over Judah. ³² 

Colossians 1:22

1:22 but now he has reconciled you ³³  by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him –

Hebrews 12:28-29

12:28 So since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us give thanks, and through this let us offer worship pleasing to God in devotion and awe. 12:29 For our God is indeed a devouring fire. ³⁴ 

[28:16]  ¹ tn Heb “woke up from his sleep.” This has been simplified in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[28:16]  ² tn Heb “said.”

[3:5]  ³ tn Heb “And he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:5]  ⁴ sn Even though the Lord was drawing near to Moses, Moses could not casually approach him. There still was a barrier between God and human, and God had to remind Moses of this with instructions. The removal of sandals was, and still is in the East, a sign of humility and reverence in the presence of the Holy One. It was a way of excluding the dust and dirt of the world. But it also took away personal comfort and convenience and brought the person more closely in contact with the earth.

[3:5]  ⁵ sn The word קֹדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holy”) indicates “set apart, distinct, unique.” What made a mountain or other place holy was the fact that God chose that place to reveal himself or to reside among his people. Because God was in this place, the ground was different – it was holy.

[3:5]  ⁶ tn The causal clause includes within it a typical relative clause, which is made up of the relative pronoun, then the independent personal pronoun with the participle, and then the preposition with the resumptive pronoun. It would literally be “which you are standing on it,” but the relative pronoun and the resumptive pronoun are combined and rendered, “on which you are standing.”

[10:3]  ⁷ tn The Niphal verb of the Hebrew root קָדַשׁ (qadash) can mean either “to be treated as holy” (so here, e.g., BDB 873 s.v. קָּדַשׁ, LXX, NASB, and NEB) or “to show oneself holy” (so here, e.g., HALOT 1073 s.v. קדשׁnif.1, NIV, NRSV, NLT; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:595, 601-3; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 133-34). The latter rendering seems more likely here since, in the immediate context, the Lord himself had indeed shown himself to be holy by the way he responded to the illegitimate incense offering of Nadab and Abihu. They had not treated the Lord as holy, so the Lord acted on his own behalf to show that he was indeed holy.

[10:3]  ⁸ tn In this context the Niphal of the Hebrew root כָּבֵד (kaved) can mean “to be honored” (e.g., NASB and NIV here), “be glorified” (ASV, NRSV and NLT here), or “glorify oneself, show one’s glory” (cf. NAB; e.g., specifically in this verse HALOT 455 s.v. כבדnif.3; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:595, 603-4; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 126, 134). Comparing this clause with the previous one (see the note above), the point may be that when the Lord shows himself to be holy as he has done in 10:1-2, this results in him being honored (i.e., reverenced, feared, treated with respect) among the people. This suggests the passive rendering. It is possible, however, that one should use the reflexive rendering here as in the previous clause. If so, the passage means that the Lord showed both his holiness and his glory in one outbreak against Nadab and Abihu.

[5:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “return, circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” The Hebrew term שׁוּב (shuv, “return”) is used here in an adverbial sense to indicate the repetition of an action.

[89:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “feared.”

[89:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the great assembly of the holy ones.”

[89:7]  ¹² tn Or perhaps “feared by.”

[1:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “When you come to appear before me, who requires this from your hand, trampling of my courtyards?” The rhetorical question sarcastically makes the point that God does not require this parade of livestock. The verb “trample” probably refers to the eager worshipers and their sacrificial animals walking around in the temple area.

[1:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ¹⁵ sn Notice some of the other practices that Yahweh regards as “detestable”: homosexuality (Lev 18:22-30; 20:13), idolatry (Deut 7:25; 13:15), human sacrifice (Deut 12:31), eating ritually unclean animals (Deut 14:3-8), sacrificing defective animals (Deut 17:1), engaging in occult activities (Deut 18:9-14), and practicing ritual prostitution (1 Kgs 14:23).

[1:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “sin and assembly” (these two nouns probably represent a hendiadys). The point is that their attempts at worship are unacceptable to God because the people’s everyday actions in the socio-economic realm prove they have no genuine devotion to God (see vv. 16-17).

[1:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ¹⁸ sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[1:16]  ¹⁹ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ²⁰ sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[1:17]  ²¹ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The translation assumes an emendation of חָמוֹץ (khamots, “oppressor [?]”) to חָמוּץ (khamuts, “oppressed”), a passive participle from II חָמַץ (khamats, “oppress”; HALOT 329 s.v. II חמץ) and takes the verb II אָשַׁר (’ashar) in the sense of “make happy” (the delocutive Piel, meaning “call/pronounce happy,” is metonymic here, referring to actually effecting happiness). The parallelism favors this interpretation, for the next two lines speak of positive actions on behalf of the destitute. The other option is to retain the MT pointing and translate, “set right the oppressor,” but the nuance “set right” is not clearly attested elsewhere for the verb I אשׁר. This verb does appear as a participle in Isa 3:12 and 9:16 with the meaning “to lead or guide.” If it can mean to “lead” or “rebuke/redirect” in this verse, the prophet could be contrasting this appeal for societal reformation (v. 17c) with a command to reorder their personal lives (v. 17a-b). J. A. Motyer (The Prophecy of Isaiah, 47) suggests that these three statements (v. 17a-c) provide “the contrast between the two ends of imperfect society, the oppressor and the needy, the one inflicting and the other suffering the hurt. Isaiah looks for a transformed society wherever it needs transforming.”

[1:17]  ²² tn This word refers to a woman who has lost her husband, by death or divorce. The orphan and widow are often mentioned in the OT as epitomizing the helpless and impoverished who have been left without the necessities of life due to the loss of a family provider.

[1:18]  ²³ sn The Lord concludes his case against Israel by offering them the opportunity to be forgiven and by setting before them the alternatives of renewed blessing (as a reward for repentance) and final judgment (as punishment for persistence in sin).

[1:18]  ²⁴ tn Traditionally, “let us reason together,” but the context suggests a judicial nuance. The Lord is giving the nation its options for the future.

[1:18]  ²⁵ tn The imperfects must be translated as modal (indicating capability or possibility) to bring out the conditional nature of the offer. This purification will only occur if the people repent and change their ways.

[1:18]  ²⁶ tn The imperfects must be translated as modal (indicating capability or possibility) to bring out the conditional nature of the offer. This purification will only occur if the people repent and change their ways.

[1:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “though your sins are like red, they will become white like snow; though they are red like scarlet, they will be like wool.” The point is not that the sins will be covered up, though still retained. The metaphorical language must be allowed some flexibility and should not be pressed into a rigid literalistic mold. The people’s sins will be removed and replaced by ethical purity. The sins that are now as obvious as the color red will be washed away and the ones who are sinful will be transformed.

[1:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “listen”; KJV “obedient”; NASB “If you consent and obey.”

[1:20]  ²⁹ sn The wordplay in the Hebrew draws attention to the options. The people can obey, in which case they will “eat” v. 19 (תֹּאכֵלוּ [to’khelu], Qal active participle of אָכַל) God’s blessing, or they can disobey, in which case they will be devoured (Heb “eaten,” תְּאֻכְּלוּ, [tÿ’ukkÿlu], Qal passive/Pual of אָכַל) by God’s judgment.

[1:20]  ³⁰ tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” The introductory כִּי (ki) may be asseverative (as reflected in the translation) or causal/explanatory, explaining why the option chosen by the people will become reality (it is guaranteed by the divine word).

[1:1]  ³¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:1]  ³² tn Heb “The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

[1:22]  ³³ tc Some of the better representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts have a passive verb here instead of the active ἀποκατήλλαξεν (apokathllaxen, “he has reconciled”): ἀποκατηλλάγητε (apokathllaghte) in (Ì⁴⁶) B, ἀποκατήλλακται [sic] (apokathllaktai) in 33, and ἀποκαταλλαγέντες (apokatallagente") in D* F G. Yet the active verb is strongly supported by א A C D² Ψ 048 075 [0278] 1739 1881 Ï lat sy. Internally, the passive creates an anacoluthon in that it looks back to the accusative ὑμᾶς (Juma", “you”) of v. 21 and leaves the following παραστῆσαι (parasthsai) dangling (“you were reconciled…to present you”). The passive reading is certainly the harder reading. As such, it may well explain the rise of the other readings. At the same time, it is possible that the passive was produced by scribes who wanted some symmetry between the ποτε (pote, “at one time”) of v. 21 and the νυνὶ δέ (nuni de, “but now”) of v. 22: Since a passive periphrastic participle is used in v. 21, there may have a temptation to produce a corresponding passive form in v. 22, handling the ὑμᾶς of v. 21 by way of constructio ad sensum. Since παραστῆσαι occurs ten words later, it may not have been considered in this scribal modification. Further, the Western reading (ἀποκαταλλαγέντες) hardly seems to have arisen from ἀποκατηλλάγητε (contra TCGNT 555). As difficult as this decision is, the preferred reading is the active form because it is superior externally and seems to explain the rise of all forms of the passive readings.

[12:29]  ³⁴ sn A quotation from Deut 4:24; 9:3.