Genesis 24:48

24:48 Then I bowed down and worshiped the Lord. I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me on the right path to find the granddaughter ¹  of my master’s brother for his son.

Genesis 24:52

24:52 When Abraham’s servant heard their words, he bowed down to the ground before the Lord.

Genesis 22:5

22:5 So he ²  said to his servants, “You two stay ³  here with the donkey while ⁴  the boy and I go up there. We will worship ⁵  and then return to you.” ⁶ 

Exodus 4:31

4:31 and the people believed. When they heard ⁷  that the Lord had attended to ⁸  the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground. ⁹ 

Exodus 12:27

12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ¹⁰  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ¹¹  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ¹²  to the ground,

Exodus 34:8

34:8 Moses quickly bowed ¹³  to the ground and worshiped

Exodus 34:1

The New Tablets of the Covenant

34:1 ¹⁴ The Lord said to Moses, “Cut out ¹⁵  two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write ¹⁶  on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you smashed.

Exodus 29:20

29:20 and you are to kill the ram and take some of its blood and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron, on the tip of the right ear of his sons, on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, ¹⁷  and then splash the blood all around on the altar.

Exodus 29:2

29:2 and ¹⁸  bread made without yeast, and perforated cakes without yeast mixed with oil, and wafers without yeast spread ¹⁹  with oil – you are to make them using ²⁰  fine wheat flour.

Exodus 20:18

20:18 All the people were seeing ²¹  the thundering and the lightning, and heard ²²  the sound of the horn, and saw ²³  the mountain smoking – and when ²⁴  the people saw it they trembled with fear ²⁵  and kept their distance. ²⁶ 

Exodus 29:30

29:30 The priest who succeeds him ²⁷  from his sons, when he first comes ²⁸  to the tent of meeting to minister in the Holy Place, is to wear them for seven days. ²⁹ 

Nehemiah 8:6

8:6 Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people replied “Amen! Amen!” as they lifted their hands. Then they bowed down and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.

Psalms 22:29

22:29 All of the thriving people ³⁰  of the earth will join the celebration and worship; ³¹ 

all those who are descending into the grave ³²  will bow before him,

including those who cannot preserve their lives. ³³ 

Psalms 66:4

66:4 All the earth worships ³⁴  you

and sings praises to you!

They sing praises to your name!” (Selah)

Psalms 72:9

72:9 Before him the coastlands ³⁵  will bow down,

and his enemies will lick the dust. ³⁶ 

Psalms 95:6

95:6 Come! Let’s bow down and worship! ³⁷ 

Let’s kneel before the Lord, our creator!

Micah 6:6

6:6 With what should I ³⁸  enter the Lord’s presence?

With what ³⁹  should I bow before the sovereign God? ⁴⁰ 

Should I enter his presence with burnt offerings,

with year-old calves?

Philippians 2:10

2:10 so that at the name of Jesus

every knee will bow

– in heaven and on earth and under the earth –

[24:48]  ¹ tn Heb “daughter.” Rebekah was actually the granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham’s brother. One can either translate the Hebrew term בַּת (bat) as “daughter,” in which case the term אָח (’akh) must be translated more generally as “relative” rather than “brother” (cf. NASB, NRSV) or one can translate בַּת as “granddaughter,” in which case אָח may be translated “brother” (cf. NIV).

[22:5]  ² tn Heb “And Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

[22:5]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb is masculine plural, referring to the two young servants who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on the journey.

[22:5]  ⁴ tn The disjunctive clause (with the compound subject preceding the verb) may be circumstantial and temporal.

[22:5]  ⁵ tn This Hebrew word literally means “to bow oneself close to the ground.” It often means “to worship.”

[22:5]  ⁶ sn It is impossible to know what Abraham was thinking when he said, “we will…return to you.” When he went he knew (1) that he was to sacrifice Isaac, and (2) that God intended to fulfill his earlier promises through Isaac. How he reconciled those facts is not clear in the text. Heb 11:17-19 suggests that Abraham believed God could restore Isaac to him through resurrection.

[4:31]  ⁷ tc The LXX (Greek OT) has “and they rejoiced,” probably reading וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ (vayyismÿkhu) instead of what the MT reading, וַיִּשְׂמְעוּ (vayyismÿ’u, “and they heard”). To rejoice would have seemed a natural response of the people at the news, and the words sound similar in Hebrew.

[4:31]  ⁸ tn Or “intervened for.” The word פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been translated “visited,” which is open to many interpretations. It means that God intervened in the life of the Israelites to bless them with the fulfillment of the promises. It says more than that he took notice of them, took pity on them, or remembered them. He had not yet fulfilled the promises, but he had begun to act by calling Moses and Aaron. The translation “attended to” attempts to capture that much.

[4:31]  ⁹ tn The verb וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ (vayyishtakhavu) is usually rendered “worshiped.” More specifically, the verbal root חָוָה (khava) in the hishtaphel stem means “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” While there is nothing wrong with giving it a general translation of “worship,” it may be better in a passage like this to take it in conjunction with the other verb (“bow”) as a verbal hendiadys, using it as an adverb to that verb. The implication is certainly that they prayed, or praised, and performed some other aspect of worship, but the text may just be describing it from their posture of worship. With this response, all the fears of Moses are swept aside – they believed and they were thankful to God.

[12:27]  ¹⁰ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

[12:27]  ¹¹ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

[12:27]  ¹² tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.

[34:8]  ¹³ tn The first two verbs form a hendiadys: “he hurried…he bowed,” meaning “he quickly bowed down.”

[34:1]  ¹⁴ sn The restoration of the faltering community continues in this chapter. First, Moses is instructed to make new tablets and take them to the mountain (1-4). Then, through the promised theophany God proclaims his moral character (5-8). Moses responds with the reiteration of the intercession (8), and God responds with the renewal of the covenant (10-28). To put these into expository form, as principles, the chapter would run as follows: I. God provides for spiritual renewal (1-4), II. God reminds people of his moral standard (5-9), III. God renews his covenant promises and stipulations (10-28).

[34:1]  ¹⁵ tn The imperative is followed by the preposition with a suffix expressing the ethical dative; it strengthens the instruction for Moses. Interestingly, the verb “cut out, chisel, hew,” is the same verb from which the word for a “graven image” is derived – פָּסַל (pasal).

[34:1]  ¹⁶ tn The perfect tense with vav consecutive makes the value of this verb equal to an imperfect tense, probably a simple future here.

[29:20]  ¹⁷ sn By this ritual the priests were set apart completely to the service of God. The ear represented the organ of hearing (as in “ears you have dug” in Ps 40 or “awakens my ear” in Isa 50), and this had to be set apart to God so that they could hear the Word of God. The thumb and the hand represented the instrument to be used for all ministry, and so everything that they “put their hand to” had to be dedicated to God and appropriate for his service. The toe set the foot apart to God, meaning that the walk of the priest had to be consecrated – where he went, how he conducted himself, what life he lived, all belonged to God now.

[29:2]  ¹⁸ sn This will be for the minkhah (מִנְחָה) offering (Lev 2), which was to accompany the animal sacrifices.

[29:2]  ¹⁹ tn Or “anointed” (KJV, ASV).

[29:2]  ²⁰ tn The “fine flour” is here an adverbial accusative, explaining the material from which these items were made. The flour is to be finely sifted, and from the wheat, not the barley, which was often the material used by the poor. Fine flour, no leaven, and perfect animals, without blemishes, were to be gathered for this service.

[20:18]  ²¹ tn The participle is used here for durative action in the past time (GKC 359 §116.o).

[20:18]  ²² tn The verb “to see” (רָאָה, ra’ah) refers to seeing with all the senses, or perceiving. W. C. Kaiser suggests that this is an example of the figure of speech called zeugma because the verb “saw” yokes together two objects, one that suits the verb and the other that does not. So, the verb “heard” is inserted here to clarify (“Exodus,” EBC 2:427).

[20:18]  ²³ tn The verb “saw” is supplied here because it is expected in English (see the previous note on “heard”).

[20:18]  ²⁴ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated as a temporal clause to the following clause, which receives the prominence.

[20:18]  ²⁵ tn The meaning of נוּעַ (nua’) is “to shake, sway to and fro” in fear. Compare Isa 7:2 – “and his heart shook…as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.”

[20:18]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and they stood from/at a distance.”

[29:30]  ²⁷ tn Heb “after him”; NCV, NLT “after Aaron.”

[29:30]  ²⁸ tn The text just has the relative pronoun and the imperfect tense. It could be translated “who comes/enters.” But the context seems to indicate that this would be when he first comes to the tent to begin his tenure as High Priest, and so a temporal clause makes this clear. “First” has been supplied.

[29:30]  ²⁹ tn “Seven days” is an adverbial accusative of time. The ritual of ordination is to be repeated for seven days, and so they are to remain there in the court in full dress.

[22:29]  ³⁰ tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the Lord.

[22:29]  ³¹ tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the Lord will receive universal worship. The mood is one of wishful thinking and anticipation; this is not prophecy in the strict sense.

[22:29]  ³² tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.

[22:29]  ³³ tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”

[66:4]  ³⁴ tn Or “bows down to.” The prefixed verbal forms in v. 4 are taken (1) as imperfects expressing what is typical. Another option (2) is to interpret them as anticipatory (“all the earth will worship you”) or (3) take them as jussives, expressing a prayer or wish (“may all the earth worship you”).

[72:9]  ³⁵ tn Or “islands.” The term here refers metonymically to those people who dwell in these regions.

[72:9]  ³⁶ sn As they bow down before him, it will appear that his enemies are licking the dust.

[95:6]  ³⁷ tn Heb “kneel down.”

[6:6]  ³⁸ sn With what should I enter the Lord’s presence? The prophet speaks again, playing the role of an inquisitive worshiper who wants to know what God really desires from his followers.

[6:6]  ³⁹ tn The words “with what” do double duty in the parallelism and are supplied in the second line of the translation for clarification.

[6:6]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “the exalted God.”