Genesis 6:18

6:18 but I will confirm ¹  my covenant with you. You will enter ²  the ark – you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

Genesis 17:7

17:7 I will confirm ³  my covenant as a perpetual ⁴  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. ⁵ 

Exodus 6:4

6:4 I also established my covenant with them ⁶  to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as resident foreigners. ⁷ 

Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ⁸ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ⁹  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ¹⁰ 

Ezekiel 16:62

16:62 I will establish my covenant with you, and then you will know that I am the Lord.

Luke 1:72

1:72 He has done this ¹¹  to show mercy ¹²  to our ancestors, ¹³ 

and to remember his holy covenant ¹⁴  –

[6:18]  ¹ tn The Hebrew verb וַהֲקִמֹתִי (vahaqimoti) is the Hiphil perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive (picking up the future sense from the participles) from קוּם (qum, “to rise up”). This may refer to the confirmation or fulfillment of an earlier promise, but it is more likely that it anticipates the unconditional promise made to humankind following the flood (see Gen 9:9, 11, 17).

[6:18]  ² tn The perfect verb form with vav (ו) consecutive is best understood as specific future, continuing God’s description of what will happen (see vv. 17-18a).

[17:7]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[6:4]  ⁶ tn The statement refers to the making of the covenant with Abraham (Gen 15 and following) and confirming it with the other patriarchs. The verb הֲקִמֹתִי (haqimoti) means “set up, establish, give effect to, conclude” a covenant agreement. The covenant promised the patriarchs a great nation, a land – Canaan, and divine blessing. They lived with those promises, but now their descendants were in bondage in Egypt. God’s reference to the covenant here is meant to show the new revelation through redemption will start to fulfill the promises and show what the reality of the name Yahweh is to them.

[6:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the land of their sojournings.” The noun מְגֻרִים (mÿgurim) is a reminder that the patriarchs did not receive the promises. It is also an indication that those living in the age of promise did not experience the full meaning of the name of the covenant God. The “land of their sojournings” is the land of Canaan where the family lived (גּרוּ, garu) as foreigners, without owning property or having the rights of kinship with the surrounding population.

[55:3]  ⁸ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ⁹ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”

[1:72]  ¹¹ tn The words “He has done this” (referring to the raising up of the horn of salvation from David’s house) are not in the Greek text, but are supplied to allow a new sentence to be started in the translation. The Greek sentence is lengthy and complex at this point, while contemporary English uses much shorter sentences.

[1:72]  ¹² sn Mercy refers to God’s loyal love (steadfast love) by which he completes his promises. See Luke 1:50.

[1:72]  ¹³ tn Or “our forefathers”; Grk “our fathers.” This begins with the promise to Abraham (vv. 55, 73), and thus refers to many generations of ancestors.

[1:72]  ¹⁴ sn The promises of God can be summarized as being found in the one promise (the oath that he swore) to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3).