Isaiah 52:1

52:1 Wake up! Wake up!

Clothe yourself with strength, O Zion!

Put on your beautiful clothes,

O Jerusalem, ¹  holy city!

For uncircumcised and unclean pagans

will no longer invade you.

Isaiah 64:10-11

64:10 Your chosen ²  cities have become a desert;

Zion has become a desert,

Jerusalem ³  is a desolate ruin.

64:11 Our holy temple, our pride and joy, ⁴ 

the place where our ancestors praised you,

has been burned with fire;

all our prized possessions have been destroyed. ⁵ 

Nehemiah 11:1

The Population of Jerusalem

11:1 So the leaders of the people settled in Jerusalem, ⁶  while the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of every ten to settle in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the other nine ⁷  remained in other cities.

Nehemiah 11:18

11:18 The sum total of the Levites in the holy city was 284.

Psalms 48:1

Psalm 48 ⁸ 

A song, a psalm by the Korahites.

48:1 The Lord is great and certainly worthy of praise

in the city of our God, ⁹  his holy hill.

Psalms 87:3

87:3 People say wonderful things about you, ¹⁰ 

O city of God. (Selah)

Daniel 9:24

9:24 “Seventy weeks ¹¹  have been determined

concerning your people and your holy city

to put an end to ¹²  rebellion,

to bring sin ¹³  to completion, ¹⁴ 

to atone for iniquity,

to bring in perpetual ¹⁵  righteousness,

to seal up ¹⁶  the prophetic vision, ¹⁷ 

and to anoint a most holy place. ¹⁸ 

Matthew 4:5

4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, ¹⁹  had him stand ²⁰  on the highest point ²¹  of the temple,

Matthew 27:53

27:53 (They ²²  came out of the tombs after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.)

Revelation 11:2

11:2 But ²³  do not measure the outer courtyard ²⁴  of the temple; leave it out, ²⁵  because it has been given to the Gentiles, ²⁶  and they will trample on the holy city ²⁷  for forty-two months.

Revelation 21:2

21:2 And I saw the holy city – the new Jerusalem – descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.

Revelation 22:19

22:19 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life ²⁸  and in the holy city that are described in this book.

[52:1]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[64:10]  ² tn Heb “holy” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT); NIV “sacred.”

[64:10]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[64:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “our source of pride.”

[64:11]  ⁵ tn Or “all that we valued has become a ruin.”

[11:1]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[11:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “nine of the hands.” The word “hand” is used here in the sense or a part or portion.

[48:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 48. This so-called “Song of Zion” celebrates the greatness and glory of the Lord’s dwelling place, Jerusalem. His presence in the city elevates it above all others and assures its security.

[48:1]  ⁹ sn The city of our God is Jerusalem, which is also referred to here as “his holy hill,” that is, Zion (see v. 2, as well as Isa 66:20; Joel 2:1; 3:17; Zech 8:3; Pss 2:6; 15:1; 43:3; 87:1; Dan 9:16).

[87:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “glorious things are spoken about you.” The translation assumes this is a general reference to compliments paid to Zion by those who live within her walls and by those who live in the surrounding areas and lands. Another option is that this refers to a prophetic oracle about the city’s glorious future. In this case one could translate, “wonderful things are announced concerning you.”

[9:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “sevens.” Elsewhere the term is used of a literal week (a period of seven days), cf. Gen 29:27-28; Exod 34:22; Lev 12:5; Num 28:26; Deut 16:9-10; 2 Chr 8:13; Jer 5:24; Dan 10:2-3. Gabriel unfolds the future as if it were a calendar of successive weeks. Most understand the reference here as periods of seventy “sevens” of years, or a total of 490 years.

[9:24]  ¹² tc Or “to finish.” The present translation reads the Qere (from the root תָּמַם, tamam) with many witnesses. The Kethib has “to seal up” (from the root הָתַם, hatam), a confusion with a reference later in the verse to sealing up the vision.

[9:24]  ¹³ tc The present translation reads the Qere (singular), rather than the Kethib (plural).

[9:24]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew phrase לְכַלֵּא (lÿkhalle’) is apparently an alternative (metaplastic) spelling of the root כָּלָה (kalah, “to complete, finish”), rather than a form of כָּלָא (kala’, “to shut up, restrain”), as has sometimes been supposed.

[9:24]  ¹⁵ tn Or “everlasting.”

[9:24]  ¹⁶ sn The act of sealing in the OT is a sign of authentication. Cf. 1 Kgs 21:8; Jer 32:10, 11, 44.

[9:24]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “vision and prophecy.” The expression is a hendiadys.

[9:24]  ¹⁸ tn Or “the most holy place” (NASB, NLT); or “a most holy one”; or “the most holy one,” though the expression is used of places or objects elsewhere, not people.

[4:5]  ¹⁹ sn The order of the second and third temptations differs in Luke’s account (4:5-12) from the order given in Matthew.

[4:5]  ²⁰ tn Grk “and he stood him.”

[4:5]  ²¹ sn The highest point of the temple probably refers to the point on the temple’s southeast corner where it looms directly over a cliff some 450 ft (135 m) high. However, some have suggested the reference could be to the temple’s high gate.

[27:53]  ²² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[11:2]  ²³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[11:2]  ²⁴ tn On the term αὐλήν (aulhn) BDAG 150 s.v. αὐλή 1 states, “(outer) court of the temple…Rv 11:2.”

[11:2]  ²⁵ tn The precise meaning of the phrase ἔκβαλε ἔξωθεν (ekbale exwqen) is difficult to determine.

[11:2]  ²⁶ tn Or “to the nations” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[11:2]  ²⁷ sn The holy city appears to be a reference to Jerusalem. See also Luke 21:24.

[22:19]  ²⁸ tc The Textus Receptus, on which the KJV rests, reads “the book” of life (ἀπὸ βίβλου, apo biblou) instead of “the tree” of life. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the NT he had access to no Greek mss for the last six verses of Revelation. So he translated the Latin Vulgate back into Greek at this point. As a result he created seventeen textual variants which were not in any Greek mss. The most notorious of these is this reading. It is thus decidedly inauthentic, while “the tree” of life, found in the best and virtually all Greek mss, is clearly authentic. The confusion was most likely due to an intra-Latin switch: The form of the word for “tree” in Latin in this passage is ligno; the word for “book” is libro. The two-letter difference accounts for an accidental alteration in some Latin mss; that “book of life” as well as “tree of life” is a common expression in the Apocalypse probably accounts for why this was not noticed by Erasmus or the KJV translators. (This textual problem is not discussed in NA²⁷.)