Isaiah 42:23

42:23 Who among you will pay attention to this?

Who will listen attentively in the future? ¹ 

Isaiah 48:16-18

48:16 Approach me! Listen to this!

From the very first I have not spoken in secret;

when it happens, ²  I am there.”

So now, the sovereign Lord has sent me, accompanied by his spirit. ³ 

48:17 This is what the Lord, your protector, ⁴  says,

the Holy One of Israel: ⁵ 

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you how to succeed,

who leads you in the way you should go.

48:18 If only you had obeyed my ⁶  commandments,

prosperity would have flowed to you like a river, ⁷ 

deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea. ⁸ 

Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ⁹ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ¹⁰  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ¹¹ 

Psalms 81:11-13

81:11 But my people did not obey me; ¹² 

Israel did not submit to me. ¹³ 

81:12 I gave them over to their stubborn desires; ¹⁴ 

they did what seemed right to them. ¹⁵ 

81:13 If only my people would obey me! ¹⁶ 

If only Israel would keep my commands! ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 4:7

4:7 Like a lion that has come up from its lair ¹⁸ 

the one who destroys nations has set out from his home base. ¹⁹ 

He is coming out to lay your land waste.

Your cities will become ruins and lie uninhabited.

Luke 13:34

13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ²⁰  you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! ²¹  How often I have longed ²²  to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but ²³  you would have none of it! ²⁴ 

Hebrews 3:7-8

Exposition of Psalm 95: Hearing God’s Word in Faith

3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ²⁵ 

“Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! ²⁶ 

3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.

[42:23]  ¹ tn The interrogative particle is understood in the second line by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[48:16]  ² tn Heb “from the time of its occurring.”

[48:16]  ³ sn The speaker here is not identified specifically, but he is probably Cyrus, the Lord’s “ally” mentioned in vv. 14-15.

[48:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[48:17]  ⁵ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[48:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “paid attention to” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “had listened to.”

[48:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “like a river your peace would have been.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom) probably refers here to the peace and prosperity which God promised in return for obedience to the covenant.

[48:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah) probably refers here to divine deliverance from enemies. See v. 19.

[55:3]  ⁹ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ¹¹ 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.”

[81:11]  ¹² tn Heb “did not listen to my voice.”

[81:11]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew expression אָבָה לִי (’avah liy) means “submit to me” (see Deut 13:8).

[81:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and I sent him away in the stubbornness of their heart.”

[81:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they walked in their counsel.” The prefixed verbal form is either preterite (“walked”) or a customary imperfect (“were walking”).

[81:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “if only my people were listening to me.” The Hebrew particle לוּ (lu, “if not”) introduces a purely hypothetical or contrary to fact condition (see 2 Sam 18:12).

[81:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[and if only] Israel would walk in my ways.”

[4:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “A lion has left its lair.” The metaphor is turned into a simile for clarification. The word translated “lair” has also been understood to refer to a hiding place. However, it appears to be cognate in meaning to the word translated “lair” in Ps 10:9; Jer 25:38, a word which also refers to the abode of the Lord in Ps 76:3.

[4:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his place.”

[13:34]  ²⁰ sn The double use of the city’s name betrays intense emotion.

[13:34]  ²¹ tn Although the opening address (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem”) is direct (second person), the remainder of this sentence in the Greek text is third person (“who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her”). The following sentences then revert to second person (“your… you”), so to keep all this consistent in English, the third person pronouns in the present verse were translated as second person (“you who kill… sent to you”).

[13:34]  ²² sn How often I have longed to gather your children. Jesus, like a lamenting prophet, speaks for God here, who longed to care tenderly for Israel and protect her.

[13:34]  ²³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[13:34]  ²⁴ tn Grk “you were not willing.”

[3:7]  ²⁵ sn The following quotation is from Ps 95:7b-11.

[3:7]  ²⁶ tn Grk “today if you hear his voice.”