Jeremiah 30:2-3

30:2 “The Lord God of Israel says, ¹  ‘Write everything that I am about to tell you in a scroll. ²  30:3 For I, the Lord, affirm ³  that the time will come when I will reverse the plight ⁴  of my people, Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord. ‘I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors ⁵  and they will take possession of it once again.’” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 36:2-4

36:2 “Get a scroll. ⁷  Write on it everything I have told you to say ⁸  about Israel, Judah, and all the other nations since I began to speak to you in the reign of Josiah until now. ⁹  36:3 Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. ¹⁰  If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done.” ¹¹ 

36:4 So Jeremiah summoned Baruch son of Neriah. Then Jeremiah dictated to Baruch everything the Lord had told him to say and Baruch wrote it all down in a scroll. ¹² 

Jeremiah 36:32

36:32 Then Jeremiah got another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah. As Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on this scroll everything that had been on the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah burned in the fire. They also added on this scroll several other messages of the same kind. ¹³ 

Isaiah 8:1-4

A Sign-Child is Born

8:1 The Lord told me, “Take a large tablet ¹⁴  and inscribe these words ¹⁵  on it with an ordinary stylus: ¹⁶  ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ¹⁷  8:2 Then I will summon ¹⁸  as my reliable witnesses Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.” 8:3 I then had sexual relations with the prophetess; she conceived and gave birth to a son. The Lord told me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, 8:4 for before the child knows how to cry out, ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria ¹⁹  will be carried off by the king of Assyria.” ²⁰ 

Isaiah 30:8

30:8 Now go, write it ²¹  down on a tablet in their presence, ²² 

inscribe it on a scroll,

so that it might be preserved for a future time

as an enduring witness. ²³ 

Daniel 12:4

12:4 “But you, Daniel, close up these words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many will dash about, ²⁴  and knowledge will increase.”

Habakkuk 2:2-3

The Lord Assures Habakkuk

2:2 The Lord responded: ²⁵ 

“Write down this message! ²⁶  Record it legibly on tablets,

so the one who announces ²⁷  it may read it easily. ²⁸ 

2:3 For the message is a witness to what is decreed; ²⁹ 

it gives reliable testimony about how matters will turn out. ³⁰ 

Even if the message ³¹  is not fulfilled right away, wait patiently; ³² 

for it will certainly come to pass – it will not arrive late.

Revelation 1:11

1:11 saying: “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches – to Ephesus, ³³  Smyrna, ³⁴  Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

Revelation 1:19

1:19 Therefore write what you saw, what is, and what will be after these things. ³⁵ 

[30:2]  ¹ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, saying….” For significance of the title “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel” see the note at 2:19.

[30:2]  ² tn Heb “Write all the words which I speak to you in a scroll.” The verb “which I speak” is the instantaneous use of the perfect tense (cf. GKC 311-12 §106.i or IBHS 488-89 §30.5.1d). The words that the Lord is about to speak follow in chs. 30–31.

[30:3]  ³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[30:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “restore the fortune.” For the translation and meaning of this idiom see the note at 29:14.

[30:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “fathers.”

[30:3]  ⁶ sn As the nations of Israel and Judah were united in their sin and suffered the same fate – that of exile and dispersion – (cf. Jer 3:8; 5:11; 11:10, 17) so they will ultimately be regathered from the nations and rejoined under one king, a descendant of David, and regain possession of their ancestral lands. The prophets of both the eighth and seventh century looked forward to this ideal (see, e.g., Hos 1:11 (2:2 HT); Isa 11:11-13; Jer 23:5-6; 30:3; 33:7; Ezek 37:15-22). This has already been anticipated in Jer 3:18.

[36:2]  ⁷ sn Heb “a roll [or scroll] of a document.” Scrolls consisted of pieces of leather or parchment sewn together and rolled up on wooden rollers. The writing was written from right to left and from top to bottom in columns and the scroll unrolled from the left roller and rolled onto the right one as the scroll was read. The scroll varied in length depending on the contents. This scroll was probably not all that long since it was read three times in a single day (vv. 10-11, 15-16, 21-23).

[36:2]  ⁸ sn The intent is hardly that of giving a verbatim report of everything that the Lord had told him to say or of everything that he had actually said. What the scroll undoubtedly contained was a synopsis of Jeremiah’s messages as constructed from his memory.

[36:2]  ⁹ sn This refers to the messages that Jeremiah delivered during the last eighteen years of Josiah, the three month reign of Jehoahaz and the first four years of Jehoiakim’s reign (the period between Josiah’s thirteenth year [cf. 1:2] and the fourth year of Jehoiakim [v. 1]). The exact content of this scroll is unknown since many of the messages in the present book are undated. It is also not known what relation this scroll had to the present form of the book of Jeremiah, since this scroll was destroyed and another one written that contained more than this one did (cf. v. 32). Since Jeremiah continued his ministry down to the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6 b.c. (1:2) and beyond (cf. Jer 40-44) much more was added to those two scrolls even later.

[36:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”

[36:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “their iniquity and their sin.”

[36:4]  ¹² tn Heb “Then Baruch wrote down on a scroll from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he [the Lord] had spoken to him [Jeremiah].” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is awkward and hard to reproduce “literally” in any meaningful way. The English sentence has been restructured to reproduce all the pertinent facts in more simplified language.

[36:32]  ¹³ tn Heb “And he wrote upon it from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah burned in the fire. And many words like these were added to them besides [or further].” The translation uses the more active form in the last line because of the tendency in contemporary English style to avoid the passive. It also uses the words “everything” for “all the words” and “messages” for “words” because those are legitimate usages of these phrases, and they avoid the mistaken impression that Jeremiah repeated verbatim the words on the former scroll or repeated verbatim the messages that he had delivered during the course of the preceding twenty-three years.

[8:1]  ¹⁴ sn Probably made of metal, wood, or leather. See HALOT 193 s.v. גִּלָּיוֹן.

[8:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “write” (so KJV, ASV, NIV, NRSV).

[8:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “with the stylus of a man.” The significance of the qualifying genitive “a man” is uncertain. For various interpretations see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:219, n. 1.

[8:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “quickly, [the] plunder; it hurries, [the] loot.” The first word (מַהֵר, maher) is either a Piel imperative (“hurry [to]”) or infinitive (“hurrying,” or “quickly”). The third word (חָשׁ, khash) is either a third masculine singular perfect or a masculine singular participle, in either case from the root חוּשׁ (khush, “hurry”). Perhaps it is best to translate, “One hastens to the plunder, one hurries to the loot.” In this case מַהֵר is understood as an infinitive functioning as a verb, the subject of חוּשׁ is taken as indefinite, and the two nouns are understood as adverbial accusatives. As we discover in v. 3, this is the name of the son to be born to Isaiah through the prophetess.

[8:2]  ¹⁸ tn The form in the text is a cohortative with prefixed vav (ו), suggesting that the Lord is announcing what he will do. Some prefer to change the verb to an imperative, “and summon as witnesses,” a reading that finds support from the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a. Another option is to point the prefixed conjunction as a vav consecutive and translate, “So I summoned as witnesses.” In this case Isaiah is recalling his response to the Lord’s commission. In any case, the reference to witnesses suggests that the name and the child who bears it will function as signs.

[8:4]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[8:4]  ²⁰ sn The child’s name foreshadows what will happen to Judah’s enemies; when their defeat takes place, the child will be a reminder that God predicted the event and brought it to pass. As such the child will be a reminder of God’s protective presence with his people.

[30:8]  ²¹ tn The referent of the third feminine singular pronominal suffix is uncertain. Perhaps it refers to the preceding message, which accuses the people of rejecting the Lord’s help in favor of an alliance with Egypt.

[30:8]  ²² tn Heb “with them.” On the use of the preposition here, see BDB 86 s.v. II אֵת.

[30:8]  ²³ sn Recording the message will enable the prophet to use it in the future as evidence that God warned his people of impending judgment and clearly spelled out the nation’s guilt. An official record of the message will also serve as proof of the prophet’s authority as God’s spokesman.

[12:4]  ²⁴ tn Or “will run back and forth”; KJV “shall run to and fro”; NIV “will go here and there”; CEV “will go everywhere.”

[2:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the Lord answered and said.” The redundant expression “answered and said” has been simplified in the translation as “responded.”

[2:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “[the] vision.”

[2:2]  ²⁷ tn Or “reads from.”

[2:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “might run,” which here probably means “run [through it quickly with one’s eyes],” that is, read it easily.

[2:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “For the vision is still for the appointed time.” The Hebrew word עוֹד (’od, “still”) is better emended to עֵד (’ed, “witness”) in light of the parallelism (see the note on the word “turn out” in the following line). The “appointed time” refers to the time when the divine judgment anticipated in vv. 6-20 will be realized.

[2:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and a witness to the end and it does not lie.” The Hebrew term יָפֵחַ (yafeakh) has been traditionally understood as a verb form from the root פּוּחַ (puakh, “puff, blow”; cf. NEB “it will come in breathless haste”; NASB “it hastens toward the goal”) but recent scholarship has demonstrated that it is actually a noun meaning “witness” (cf. NIV “it speaks of the end / and will not prove false”; NRSV “it speaks of the end, and does not lie”). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 106. “The end” corresponds to “the appointed time” of the preceding line and refers to the time when the prophecy to follow will be fulfilled.

[2:3]  ³¹ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the message) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:3]  ³² tn Heb “If it should delay, wait for it.” The Hebrew word חָזוֹן (khazon, “vision, message”) is the subject of the third person verbs in v. 3 and the antecedent of the pronominal suffix in the phrase “for it.”

[1:11]  ³³ map For location see JP1 D2; JP2 D2; JP3 D2; JP4 D2.

[1:11]  ³⁴ tn Grk “and to Smyrna.” For stylistic reasons the conjunction καί (kai) and the preposition εἰς (eis) have not been translated before the remaining elements of the list. In lists with more than two elements contemporary English generally does not repeat the conjunction except between the next to last and last elements.

[1:19]  ³⁵ tn Grk “Therefore write the things that you saw, and the things that are, and the things that will take place after these things.” Verse 19 could also be translated (taking καί…καί [kai…kai] as “both…and”): “Therefore write what you have seen, both what things currently are and what is going to happen after these things.” The structure of this verse is debated.