Jeremiah 2:30

2:30 “It did no good for me to punish your people.

They did not respond to such correction.

You slaughtered your prophets

like a voracious lion.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 5:3

5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ² 

But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ³ 

Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.

They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ⁴ 

They refuse to change their ways. ⁵ 

Job 5:17

5:17 “Therefore, ⁶  blessed ⁷  is the man whom God corrects, ⁸ 

so do not despise the discipline ⁹  of the Almighty. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 39:8-9

39:8 Deliver me from all my sins of rebellion!

Do not make me the object of fools’ insults!

39:9 I am silent and cannot open my mouth

because of what you have done. ¹¹ 

Psalms 94:12

94:12 How blessed is the one ¹²  whom you instruct, O Lord,

the one whom you teach from your law,

Psalms 119:75

119:75 I know, Lord, that your regulations ¹³  are just.

You disciplined me because of your faithful devotion to me. ¹⁴ 

Proverbs 3:11

3:11 My child, do not despise discipline from the Lord, ¹⁵ 

and do not loathe ¹⁶  his rebuke.

Isaiah 1:5

1:5 ¹⁷ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ¹⁸ 

Your head has a massive wound, ¹⁹ 

your whole body is weak. ²⁰ 

Isaiah 9:13

9:13 The people did not return to the one who struck them,

they did not seek reconciliation ²¹  with the Lord who commands armies.

Isaiah 57:17

57:17 I was angry because of their sinful greed;

I attacked them and angrily rejected them, ²² 

yet they remained disobedient and stubborn. ²³ 

Hosea 5:12-13

The Curse of the Incurable Wound

5:12 I will be like a moth to Ephraim,

like wood rot ²⁴  to the house of Judah.

5:13 When Ephraim saw ²⁵  his sickness

and Judah saw his wound,

then Ephraim turned ²⁶  to Assyria,

and begged ²⁷  its great king ²⁸  for help.

But he will not be able to heal you!

He cannot cure your wound! ²⁹ 

Zephaniah 3:2

3:2 She is disobedient; ³⁰ 

she refuses correction. ³¹ 

She does not trust the Lord;

she does not seek the advice of ³²  her God.

Hebrews 12:5

12:5 And have you forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons?

“My son, do not scorn ³³  the Lord’s discipline

or give up when he corrects ³⁴  you.

Revelation 3:19

3:19 All those ³⁵  I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!

[2:30]  ¹ tn Heb “Your sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” However, the reference to the sword in this and many similar idioms is merely idiomatic for death by violent means.

[5:3]  ² tn Heb “O Lord, are your eyes not to faithfulness?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[5:3]  ³ tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.

[5:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”

[5:3]  ⁵ tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”

[5:17]  ⁶ tn The particle “therefore” links this section to the preceding; it points this out as the logical consequence of the previous discussion, and more generally, as the essence of Job’s suffering.

[5:17]  ⁷ tn The word אַשְׁרֵי (’ashre, “blessed”) is often rendered “happy.” But “happy” relates to what happens. “Blessed” is a reference to the heavenly bliss of the one who is right with God.

[5:17]  ⁸ tn The construction is an implied relative clause. The literal rendering would simply be “the man God corrects him.” The suffix on the verb is a resumptive pronoun, completing the use of the relative clause. The verb יָכַח (yakhakh) is a legal term; it always has some sense of a charge, dispute, or conflict. Its usages show that it may describe a strife breaking out, a charge or quarrel in progress, or the settling of a dispute (Isa 1:18). The derived noun can mean “reproach; recrimination; charge” (13:6; 23:4). Here the emphasis is on the consequence of the charge brought, namely, the correction.

[5:17]  ⁹ tn The noun מוּסַר (musar) is parallel to the idea of the first colon. It means “discipline, correction” (from יָסַר, yasar). Prov 3:11 says almost the same thing as this line.

[5:17]  ¹⁰ sn The name Shaddai occurs 31 times in the book. This is its first occurrence. It is often rendered “Almighty” because of the LXX and some of the early fathers. The etymology and meaning of the word otherwise remains uncertain, in spite of attempts to connect it to “mountains” or “breasts.”

[39:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “because you acted.” The psalmist has in mind God’s disciplinary measures (see vv. 10-13).

[94:12]  ¹² tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man.” Hebrew wisdom literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender and age specific “man” with the more neutral “one.” The generic masculine pronoun is used in v. 2.

[119:75]  ¹³ tn In this context (note the second line) the Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim), which so often refers to the regulations of God’s law elsewhere in this psalm, may refer instead to his decisions or disciplinary judgment.

[119:75]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and [in] faithfulness you afflicted me.”

[3:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the discipline of the Lord.”

[3:11]  ¹⁶ tn The verb קוּץ (quts) has a two-fold range of meaning: (1) “to feel a loathing; to abhor” and (2) “to feel a sickening dread” (BDB 880 s.v.). The parallelism with “do not despise” suggests the former nuance here. The common response to suffering is to loathe it; however, the righteous understand that it refines one’s moral character and that it is a means to the blessing.

[1:5]  ¹⁷ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[9:13]  ²¹ tn This verse describes the people’s response to the judgment described in vv. 11-12. The perfects are understood as indicating simple past.

[57:17]  ²² tn Heb “and I struck him, hiding, and I was angry.” פָּנַיִם (panayim, “face”) is the implied object of “hiding.”

[57:17]  ²³ tn Heb “and he walked [as an] apostate in the way of his heart.”

[5:12]  ²⁴ tn The noun רָקָב (raqav, “rottenness, decay”) refers to wood rot caused by the ravages of worms (BDB 955 s.v. רָקָב); cf. NLT “dry rot.” The related noun רִקָּבוֹן (riqqavon) refers to “rotten wood” (Job 41:27).

[5:13]  ²⁵ tn Hosea employs three preterites (vayyiqtol forms) in verse 13a-b to describe a past-time situation.

[5:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “went to” (so NAB, NRSV, TEV); CEV “asked help from.”

[5:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “sent to” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).

[5:13]  ²⁸ tc The MT reads מֶלֶךְ יָרֵב (melekh yarev, “a contentious king”). This is translated as a proper name (“king Jareb”) by KJV, ASV, NASB. However, the stative adjective יָרֵב (“contentious”) is somewhat awkward. The words should be redivided as an archaic genitive-construct מַלְכִּי רָב (malki rav, “great king”; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) which preserves the old genitive hireq yod ending. This is the equivalent of the Assyrian royal epithet sarru rabbu (“the great king”). See also the tc note on the same phrase in 10:6.

[5:13]  ²⁹ tn Heb “your wound will not depart from you.”

[3:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “she does not hear a voice” Refusing to listen is equated with disobedience.

[3:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “she does not receive correction.” The Hebrew phrase, when negated, refers elsewhere to rejecting verbal advice (Jer 17:23; 32:33; 35:13) and refusing to learn from experience (Jer 2:30; 5:3).

[3:2]  ³² tn Heb “draw near to.” The present translation assumes that the expression “draw near to” refers to seeking God’s will (see 1 Sam 14:36).

[12:5]  ³³ tn Or “disregard,” “think little of.”

[12:5]  ³⁴ tn Or “reproves,” “rebukes.” The Greek verb ἐλέγχω (elencw) implies exposing someone’s sin in order to bring correction.

[3:19]  ³⁵ tn The Greek pronoun ὅσος (Josos) means “as many as” and can be translated “All those” or “Everyone.”