Isaiah 14:1

14:1 The Lord will certainly have compassion on Jacob; ¹  he will again choose Israel as his special people ²  and restore ³  them to their land. Resident foreigners will join them and unite with the family ⁴  of Jacob.

Jeremiah 31:20

31:20 Indeed, the people of Israel are my dear children.

They are the children I take delight in. ⁵ 

For even though I must often rebuke them,

I still remember them with fondness.

So I am deeply moved with pity for them ⁶ 

and will surely have compassion on them.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁷ 

Hosea 1:7

1:7 But I will have pity on the nation ⁸  of Judah. ⁹  I will deliver them by the Lord their God; I will not deliver them by the warrior’s bow, by sword, by military victory, ¹⁰  by chariot horses, or by chariots.” ¹¹ 

Hosea 2:23

2:23 Then I will plant her as my own ¹²  in the land.

I will have pity on ‘No Pity’ (Lo-Ruhamah).

I will say to ‘Not My People’ (Lo-Ammi), ‘You are my people!’

And he ¹³  will say, ‘You are ¹⁴  my God!’”

Micah 7:18-20

7:18 There is no other God like you! ¹⁵ 

You ¹⁶  forgive sin

and pardon ¹⁷  the rebellion

of those who remain among your people. ¹⁸ 

You do not remain angry forever, ¹⁹ 

but delight in showing loyal love.

7:19 You will once again ²⁰  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ²¹  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ²²  sins into the depths of the sea. ²³ 

7:20 You will be loyal to Jacob

and extend your loyal love to Abraham, ²⁴ 

which you promised on oath to our ancestors ²⁵ 

in ancient times. ²⁶ 

[14:1]  ¹ tn The sentence begins with כִּי (ki), which is understood as asseverative (“certainly”) in the translation. Another option is to translate, “For the Lord will have compassion.” In this case one of the reasons for Babylon’s coming demise (13:22b) is the Lord’s desire to restore his people.

[14:1]  ² tn The words “as his special people” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[14:1]  ³ tn Or “settle” (NASB, NIV, NCV, NLT).

[14:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “house.”

[31:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “Is Ephraim a dear son to me or a child of delight?” For the substitution of Israel for Ephraim and the plural pronouns for the singular see the note on v. 18. According to BDB 210 s.v. הֲ 1.c the question is rhetorical having the force of an impassioned affirmation. See 1 Sam 2:27; Job 41:9 (41:1 HT) for parallel usage.

[31:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “my stomach churns for him.” The parallelism shows that this refers to pity or compassion.

[31:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[1:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “house”; cf. NCV, TEV, NLT “the people of Judah.”

[1:7]  ⁹ tn The word order in this line is rhetorical, emphasizing the divine decision to withhold pity from Israel but to bestow it on Judah. The accusative direct object, which is introduced by a disjunctive vav (to denote contrast), appears before the verb: וְאֶת־בֵּית יְהוּדָה אֲרַחֵם (vé’et-bet yéhudah ’arakhem, “but upon the house of Judah I will show pity”).

[1:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “by war” (so NAB, NRSV, TEV); KJV, NASB, NIV “battle.”

[1:7]  ¹¹ sn These military weapons are examples of the metonymy of adjunct (the specific weapons named) for subject (warfare).

[2:23]  ¹² tn Heb “for myself.”

[2:23]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew text, carrying out the reference to the son born in 1:8-9, uses the third person masculine singular pronoun here; some English translations use third person plural (“they,” so KJV, NASB, NIV, CEV) in keeping with the immediate context, which refers to reestablished Israel.

[2:23]  ¹⁴ tn The words “You are” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are implied. It is necessary to supply the phrase in the translation to prevent the reader from understanding the predicate “my God” as an exclamation (cf. NAB).

[7:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Who is a God like you?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!”

[7:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “one who.” The prayer moves from direct address (second person) in v. 18a to a descriptive (third person) style in vv. 18b-19a and then back to direct address (second person) in vv. 19b-20. Due to considerations of English style and the unfamiliarity of the modern reader with alternation of persons in Hebrew poetry, the entire section has been rendered as direct address (second person) in the translation.

[7:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “pass over.”

[7:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”

[7:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he does not keep hold of his anger forever.”

[7:19]  ²⁰ tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

[7:19]  ²¹ tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.

[7:19]  ²² tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.

[7:19]  ²³ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).

[7:20]  ²⁴ tn More literally, “You will extend loyalty to Jacob, and loyal love to Abraham.

[7:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “our fathers.” The Hebrew term refers here to more distant ancestors, not immediate parents.

[7:20]  ²⁶ tn Heb “which you swore [or, “pledged”] to our fathers from days of old.”