Hebrews 13:20

Benediction and Conclusion

13:20 Now may the God of peace who by the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ,

Psalms 18:19-20

18:19 He brought me out into a wide open place;

he delivered me because he was pleased with me. ¹ 

18:20 The Lord repaid ²  me for my godly deeds; ³ 

he rewarded ⁴  my blameless behavior. ⁵ 

Psalms 22:21

22:21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lion, ⁶ 

and from the horns of the wild oxen! ⁷ 

You have answered me! ⁸ 

Psalms 22:24

22:24 For he did not despise or detest the suffering ⁹  of the oppressed; ¹⁰ 

he did not ignore him; ¹¹ 

when he cried out to him, he responded. ¹² 

Psalms 40:1-3

Psalm 40 ¹³ 

For the music director; By David, a psalm.

40:1 I relied completely ¹⁴  on the Lord,

and he turned toward me

and heard my cry for help.

40:2 He lifted me out of the watery pit, ¹⁵ 

out of the slimy mud. ¹⁶ 

He placed my feet on a rock

and gave me secure footing. ¹⁷ 

40:3 He gave me reason to sing a new song, ¹⁸ 

praising our God. ¹⁹ 

May many see what God has done,

so that they might swear allegiance to him and trust in the Lord! ²⁰ 

Psalms 69:13-16

69:13 O Lord, may you hear my prayer and be favorably disposed to me! ²¹ 

O God, because of your great loyal love,

answer me with your faithful deliverance! ²² 

69:14 Rescue me from the mud! Don’t let me sink!

Deliver me ²³  from those who hate me,

from the deep water!

69:15 Don’t let the current overpower me!

Don’t let the deep swallow me up!

Don’t let the pit ²⁴  devour me! ²⁵ 

69:16 Answer me, O Lord, for your loyal love is good! ²⁶ 

Because of your great compassion, turn toward me!

Isaiah 49:8

49:8 This is what the Lord says:

“At the time I decide to show my favor, I will respond to you;

in the day of deliverance I will help you;

I will protect you ²⁷  and make you a covenant mediator for people, ²⁸ 

to rebuild ²⁹  the land ³⁰ 

and to reassign the desolate property.

John 11:42

11:42 I knew that you always listen to me, ³¹  but I said this ³²  for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

John 17:4-5

17:4 I glorified you on earth by completing ³³  the work you gave me to do. ³⁴  17:5 And now, Father, glorify me at your side ³⁵  with the glory I had with you before the world was created. ³⁶ 

[18:19]  ¹ tn Or “delighted in me.”

[18:20]  ² tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not imperfect.

[18:20]  ³ tn Heb “according to my righteousness.” As vv. 22-24 make clear, the psalmist refers here to his unwavering obedience to God’s commands. In these verses the psalmist explains that the Lord was pleased with him and willing to deliver him because he had been loyal to God and obedient to his commandments. Ancient Near Eastern literature contains numerous parallels. A superior (a god or king) would typically reward a subject (a king or the servant of a king, respectively) for loyalty and obedience. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 211-13.

[18:20]  ⁴ tn The unreduced Hiphil prefixed verbal form appears to be an imperfect, in which case the psalmist would be generalizing. However, both the preceding and following contexts (see especially v. 24) suggest he is narrating his experience. Despite its unreduced form, the verb is better taken as a preterite. For other examples of unreduced Hiphil preterites, see Pss 55:14a; 68:9a, 10b; 80:8a; 89:43a; 107:38b; 116:6b.

[18:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “according to the purity of my hands he repaid to me.” “Hands” suggest activity and behavior.

[22:21]  ⁶ sn The psalmist again compares his enemies to vicious dogs and ferocious lions (see vv. 13, 16).

[22:21]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term רֵמִים (remim) appears to be an alternate spelling of רְאֵמִים (rÿ’emim, “wild oxen”; see BDB 910 s.v. רְאֵם).

[22:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “and from the horns of the wild oxen you answer me.” Most take the final verb with the preceding prepositional phrase. Some understand the verb form as a relatively rare precative perfect, expressing a wish or request (see IBHS 494-95 §30.5.4c, d). However, not all grammarians are convinced that the perfect is used as a precative in biblical Hebrew. (See the discussion at Ps 3:7.) Others prefer to take the perfect in its usual indicative sense. The psalmist, perhaps in response to an oracle of salvation, affirms confidently that God has answered him, assuring him that deliverance is on the way. The present translation takes the prepositional phrase as parallel to the preceding “from the mouth of the lion” and as collocated with the verb “rescue” at the beginning of the verse. “You have answered me” is understood as a triumphant shout which marks a sudden shift in tone and introduces the next major section of the psalm. By isolating the statement syntactically, the psalmist highlights the declaration.

[22:24]  ⁹ tn Or “affliction”; or “need.”

[22:24]  ¹⁰ sn In this verse the psalmist refers to himself in the third person and characterizes himself as oppressed.

[22:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he did not hide his face from him.” For other uses of the idiom “hide the face” meaning “ignore,” see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9. Sometimes the idiom carries the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 27:9; 88:14).

[22:24]  ¹² tn Heb “heard.”

[40:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 40. The psalmist combines a song of thanksgiving for a recent act of divine deliverance (vv. 1-11) with a confident petition for renewed divine intervention (vv. 12-17).

[40:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “relying, I relied.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verbal form to emphasize the verbal idea. The emphasis is reflected in the translation through the adverb “completely.” Another option is to translate, “I waited patiently” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[40:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “cistern of roaring.” The Hebrew noun בּוֹר (bor, “cistern, pit”) is used metaphorically here of Sheol, the place of death, which is sometimes depicted as a raging sea (see Ps 18:4, 15-16). The noun שָׁאוֹן (sha’on, “roaring”) refers elsewhere to the crashing sound of the sea’s waves (see Ps 65:7).

[40:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the mud of mud.” The Hebrew phrase translated “slimy mud” employs an appositional genitive. Two synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[40:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he established my footsteps.”

[40:3]  ¹⁸ sn A new song was appropriate because the Lord had intervened in the psalmist’s experience in a fresh and exciting way.

[40:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and he placed in my mouth a new song, praise to our God.”

[40:3]  ²⁰ tn Heb “may many see and fear and trust in the Lord.” The translation assumes that the initial prefixed verbal form is a jussive (“may many see”), rather than an imperfect (“many will see”). The following prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) conjunctive are taken as indicating purpose or result (“so that they might swear allegiance…and trust”) after the introductory jussive.

[69:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “as for me, [may] my prayer be to you, O Lord, [in] a time of favor.”

[69:13]  ²² tn Heb “O God, in the abundance of your loyal love, answer me in the faithfulness of your deliverance.”

[69:14]  ²³ tn Heb “let me be delivered.”

[69:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “well,” which here symbolizes the place of the dead (cf. Ps 55:23).

[69:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “do not let the well close its mouth upon me.”

[69:16]  ²⁶ tn Or “pleasant”; or “desirable.”

[49:8]  ²⁷ tn The translation assumes the verb is derived from the root נָצָר (natsar, “protect”). Some prefer to derive it from the root יָצָר (yatsar, “form”).

[49:8]  ²⁸ tn Heb “a covenant of people.” A person cannot literally be a covenant; בְּרִית (bÿrit) is probably metonymic here, indicating a covenant mediator. Here עָם (’am, “people”) appears to refer to Israel. See the note at 42:6.

[49:8]  ²⁹ tn The Hiphil of קוּם (qum, “arise”) is probably used here in the sense of “rebuild.”

[49:8]  ³⁰ tn The “land” probably stands by metonymy for the ruins within it.

[11:42]  ³¹ tn Grk “that you always hear me.”

[11:42]  ³² tn The word “this” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

[17:4]  ³³ tn Or “by finishing” or “by accomplishing.” Jesus now states that he has glorified the Father on earth by finishing (τελειώσας [teleiwsas] is best understood as an adverbial participle of means) the work which the Father had given him to do.

[17:4]  ³⁴ tn Grk “the work that you gave to me so that I may do it.”

[17:5]  ³⁵ tn Or “in your presence”; Grk “with yourself.” The use of παρά (para) twice in this verse looks back to the assertion in John 1:1 that the Word (the Λόγος [Logos], who became Jesus of Nazareth in 1:14) was with God (πρὸς τὸν θεόν, pro" ton qeon). Whatever else may be said, the statement in 17:5 strongly asserts the preexistence of Jesus Christ.

[17:5]  ³⁶ tn Grk “before the world was.” The word “created” is not in the Greek text but is implied.