Isaiah 35:3-4

35:3 Strengthen the hands that have gone limp,

steady the knees that shake! ¹ 

35:4 Tell those who panic, ² 

“Be strong! Do not fear!

Look, your God comes to avenge!

With divine retribution he comes to deliver you.” ³ 

Isaiah 40:9

40:9 Go up on a high mountain, O herald Zion!

Shout out loudly, O herald Jerusalem! ⁴ 

Shout, don’t be afraid!

Say to the towns of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

Isaiah 41:10

41:10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you!

Don’t be frightened, for I am your God! ⁵ 

I strengthen you –

yes, I help you –

yes, I uphold you with my saving right hand! ⁶ 

Isaiah 41:13-14

41:13 For I am the Lord your God,

the one who takes hold of your right hand,

who says to you, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am helping you.’

41:14 Don’t be afraid, despised insignificant Jacob, ⁷ 

men of ⁸  Israel.

I am helping you,” says the Lord,

your protector, ⁹  the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 43:1-2

The Lord Will Rescue His People

43:1 Now, this is what the Lord says,

the one who created you, O Jacob,

and formed you, O Israel:

“Don’t be afraid, for I will protect ¹¹  you.

I call you by name, you are mine.

43:2 When you pass through the waters, I am with you;

when you pass ¹²  through the streams, they will not overwhelm you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;

the flames will not harm ¹³  you.

Isaiah 44:2

44:2 This is what the Lord, the one who made you, says –

the one who formed you in the womb and helps you:

“Don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob,

Jeshurun, ¹⁴  whom I have chosen!

Isaiah 54:4

54:4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!

Don’t be intimidated, ¹⁵  for you will not be humiliated!

You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth;

you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 46:27-28

A Promise of Hope for Israel

46:27 ¹⁷ “You descendants of Jacob, my servants, ¹⁸  do not be afraid;

do not be terrified, people of Israel.

For I will rescue you and your descendants

from the faraway lands where you are captives. ¹⁹ 

The descendants of Jacob will return to their land and enjoy peace.

They will be secure and no one will terrify them.

46:28 I, the Lord, tell ²⁰  you not to be afraid,

you descendants of Jacob, my servant,

for I am with you.

Though I completely destroy all the nations where I scatter you,

I will not completely destroy you.

I will indeed discipline you but only in due measure.

I will not allow you to go entirely unpunished.” ²¹ 

Haggai 2:4-5

2:4 Even so, take heart, Zerubbabel,’ says the Lord. ‘Take heart, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and ²²  all you citizens of the land,’ ²³  says the Lord, ‘and begin to work. For I am with you,’ says the Lord who rules over all. 2:5 ‘Do not fear, because I made a promise to your ancestors when they left Egypt, and my spirit ²⁴  even now testifies to you.’ ²⁵ 

Zechariah 8:15

8:15 so, to the contrary, I have planned in these days to do good to Jerusalem and Judah – do not fear!

John 12:12

The Triumphal Entry

12:12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ²⁶ 

Hebrews 12:12

12:12 Therefore, strengthen ²⁷  your listless hands and your weak knees, ²⁸ 

[35:3]  ¹ tn Heb “staggering knees”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “feeble knees”; NIV “knees that give way.”

[35:4]  ² tn Heb “Say to the hasty of heart,” i.e., those whose hearts beat quickly from fear.

[35:4]  ³ tn The jussive form וְיֹשַׁעֲכֶם (vÿyosha’akhem), which is subordinated to the preceding imperfect with vav conjunctive, indicates purpose.

[40:9]  ⁴ tn The second feminine singular imperatives are addressed to personified Zion/Jerusalem, who is here told to ascend a high hill and proclaim the good news of the Lord’s return to the other towns of Judah. Isa 41:27 and 52:7 speak of a herald sent to Zion, but the masculine singular form מְבַשֵּׂר (mÿvaser) is used in these verses, in contrast to the feminine singular form מְבַשֶּׂרֶת (mÿvaseret) employed in 40:9, where Zion is addressed as a herald.

[41:10]  ⁵ tn According to BDB (1043 s.v. שָׁעָה), the verb תִּשְׁתָּע (tishta’) in the second line of the poetic couplet is a Hitpael form from the root שָׁעָה (sha’ah, “gaze,” with metathesis of the stem prefix and the first root letter). Taking the Hitpael as iterative, one may then translate “do not anxiously look about.” However, the alleged Hitpael form of שָׁעָה (sha’ah) only occurs here and in verse 23. HALOT 1671 s.v. שׁתע proposes that the verb is instead a Qal form from the root שׁתע (“fear”) which is attested in cognate Semitic languages, including Ugaritic (discovered after the publishing of BDB), suggests the existence of this root. The poetic structure of v. 10 also supports the proposal, for the form in question is in synonymous parallelism to יָרֵא (yare’, “fear”).

[41:10]  ⁶ tn The “right hand” is a symbol of the Lord’s power to deliver (Exod 15:6, 12) and protect (Ps 63:9 HT [63:8 ET]). Here צֶדֶק (tsedeq) has its well-attested nuance of “vindicated righteousness,” i.e., “victory, deliverance” (see 45:8; 51:5, and BDB 841-42 s.v.).

[41:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “O worm Jacob” (NAB, NIV). The worm metaphor suggests that Jacob is insignificant and despised.

[41:14]  ⁸ tn On the basis of the parallelism (note “worm”) and an alleged Akkadian cognate, some read “louse” or “weevil.” Cf. NAB “O maggot Israel”; NRSV “you insect Israel.”

[41:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “your kinsman redeemer.” A גָּאַל (ga’al, “kinsman redeemer”) was a protector of the extended family’s interests.

[41:14]  ¹⁰ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[43:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “redeem.” See the note at 41:14. Cf. NCV “saved you”; CEV “rescued you”; NLT “ransomed you.”

[43:2]  ¹² tn The verb is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[43:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “burn” (so NASB); NAB, NRSV, NLT “consume”; NIV “set you ablaze.”

[44:2]  ¹⁴ sn Jeshurun is a poetic name for Israel; it occurs here and in Deut 32:15; 33:5, 26.

[54:4]  ¹⁵ tn Or “embarrassed”; NASB “humiliated…disgraced.”

[54:4]  ¹⁶ tn Another option is to translate, “the disgrace of our widowhood” (so NRSV). However, the following context (vv. 6-7) refers to Zion’s husband, the Lord, abandoning her, not dying. This suggests that an אַלְמָנָה (’almanah) was a woman who had lost her husband, whether by death or abandonment.

[46:27]  ¹⁷ sn Jer 46:27-28 are virtually the same as 30:10-11. The verses are more closely related to that context than to this. But the presence of a note of future hope for the Egyptians may have led to a note of encouragement also to the Judeans who were under threat of judgment at the same time (cf. the study notes on 46:2, 13 and 25:1-2 for the possible relative dating of these prophecies).

[46:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And/But you do not be afraid, my servant Jacob.” Here and elsewhere in the verse the terms Jacob and Israel are poetic for the people of Israel descended from the patriarch Jacob. The terms have been supplied throughout with plural referents for greater clarity.

[46:27]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “For I will rescue you from far away, your descendants from the land of their captivity.”

[46:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” Again the first person is adopted because the Lord is speaking and the indirect quotation is used to avoid an embedded quotation with quotation marks on either side.

[46:28]  ²¹ tn The translation “entirely unpunished” is intended to reflect the emphatic construction of the infinitive absolute before the finite verb.

[2:4]  ²² tn Heb “and take heart.” Although emphatic, the repetition of the verb is redundant in contemporary English style and has been left untranslated.

[2:4]  ²³ tn Heb “the people of the land” (עַם הָאָרֶץ, ’am ha’arets); this is a technical term referring to free citizens as opposed to slaves.

[2:5]  ²⁴ sn My spirit. It is theologically anachronistic to understand “spirit” here in the NT sense as a reference to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity; nevertheless during this postexilic period the conceptual groundwork was being laid for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit later revealed in the NT.

[2:5]  ²⁵ tc The MT of v. 5 reads “with the word which I cut with you when you went out from Egypt and my spirit [which] stands in your midst, do not fear.” BHS proposes emending “with the word” to זֹאת הַבְּרִית (zo’t habbÿrit, “this is the covenant”) at the beginning of the verse. The proposed emendation makes excellent sense and is expected with the verb כָּרַת (karat, “cut” or “make” a covenant), but it has no textual support. Most English versions (including the present translation) therefore follow the MT here.

[12:12]  ²⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[12:12]  ²⁷ tn Or “straighten.”

[12:12]  ²⁸ sn A quotation from Isa 35:3. Strengthen your listless hands and your weak knees refers to the readers’ need for renewed resolve and fresh strength in their struggles (cf. Heb 10:36-39; 12:1-3).