Jeremiah 7:16

7:16 Then the Lord said, ¹  “As for you, Jeremiah, ²  do not pray for these people! Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf! Do not plead with me to save them, ³  because I will not listen to you.

Jeremiah 15:1

15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ⁴  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ⁵  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ⁶ 

Jeremiah 18:20

18:20 Should good be paid back with evil?

Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. ⁷ 

Just remember how I stood before you

pleading on their behalf ⁸ 

to keep you from venting your anger on them. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹⁰  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ¹¹  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ¹² 

Genesis 18:24-33

18:24 What if there are fifty godly people in the city? Will you really wipe it out and not spare ¹³  the place for the sake of the fifty godly people who are in it? 18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing – to kill the godly with the wicked, treating the godly and the wicked alike! Far be it from you! Will not the judge ¹⁴  of the whole earth do what is right?” ¹⁵ 

18:26 So the Lord replied, “If I find in the city of Sodom fifty godly people, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

18:27 Then Abraham asked, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord ¹⁶  (although I am but dust and ashes), ¹⁷  18:28 what if there are five less than the fifty godly people? Will you destroy ¹⁸  the whole city because five are lacking?” ¹⁹  He replied, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

18:29 Abraham ²⁰  spoke to him again, ²¹  “What if forty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it for the sake of the forty.”

18:30 Then Abraham ²²  said, “May the Lord not be angry ²³  so that I may speak! ²⁴  What if thirty are found there?” He replied, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

18:31 Abraham ²⁵  said, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the twenty.”

18:32 Finally Abraham ²⁶  said, “May the Lord not be angry so that I may speak just once more. What if ten are found there?” He replied, “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.”

18:33 The Lord went on his way ²⁷  when he had finished speaking ²⁸  to Abraham. Then Abraham returned home. ²⁹ 

Genesis 20:17

20:17 Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children.

Genesis 20:1

Abraham and Abimelech

20:1 Abraham journeyed from there to the Negev ³⁰  region and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived as a temporary resident ³¹  in Gerar,

Genesis 7:8

7:8 Pairs ³²  of clean animals, of unclean animals, of birds, and of everything that creeps along the ground,

Genesis 12:19

12:19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her ³³  to be my wife? ³⁴  Here is your wife! ³⁵  Take her and go!” ³⁶ 

Genesis 12:1-2

The Obedience of Abram

12:1 Now the Lord said ³⁷  to Abram, ³⁸ 

“Go out ³⁹  from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household

to the land that I will show you. ⁴⁰ 

12:2 Then I will make you ⁴¹  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ⁴² 

and I will make your name great, ⁴³ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ⁴⁴ 

Genesis 32:20

32:20 You must also say, ‘In fact your servant Jacob is behind us.’” ⁴⁵  Jacob thought, ⁴⁶  “I will first appease him ⁴⁷  by sending a gift ahead of me. ⁴⁸  After that I will meet him. ⁴⁹  Perhaps he will accept me.” ⁵⁰ 

Job 42:8-9

42:8 So now take ⁵¹  seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will intercede ⁵²  for you, and I will respect him, ⁵³  so that I do not deal with you ⁵⁴  according to your folly, ⁵⁵  because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has.” ⁵⁶ 

42:9 So they went, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and did just as the Lord had told them; and the Lord had respect for Job. ⁵⁷ 

Ezekiel 14:14

14:14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, ⁵⁸  and Job, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign Lord.

Ezekiel 14:18-20

14:18 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters – they would save only their own lives.

14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals. 14:20 Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

Ezekiel 22:30

22:30 “I looked for a man from among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. ⁵⁹ 

Malachi 1:9

1:9 But now plead for God’s favor ⁶⁰  that he might be gracious to us. ⁶¹  “With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?” asks the Lord who rules over all.

James 5:16-18

5:16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. ⁶²  5:17 Elijah was a human being ⁶³  like us, and he prayed earnestly ⁶⁴  that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! 5:18 Then ⁶⁵  he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest.

[7:16]  ¹ tn The words “Then the Lord said” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ² tn Heb “As for you.” The personal name Jeremiah is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ³ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[15:1]  ⁴ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27, Deut 4:10.

[15:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “my soul would not be toward them.” For the usage of “soul” presupposed here see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 6 in the light of the complaints and petitions in Jeremiah’s prayer in 14:19, 21.

[15:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”

[18:20]  ⁷ tn Or “They are plotting to kill me”; Heb “They have dug a pit for my soul.” This is a common metaphor for plotting against someone. See BDB 500 s.v. כָּרָה Qal and for an example see Pss 7:16 (7:15 HT) in its context.

[18:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “to speak good concerning them” going back to the concept of “good” being paid back with evil.

[18:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “to turn back your anger from them.”

[42:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  ¹² tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[18:24]  ¹³ tn Heb “lift up,” perhaps in the sense of “bear with” (cf. NRSV “forgive”).

[18:25]  ¹⁴ tn Or “ruler.”

[18:25]  ¹⁵ sn Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right? For discussion of this text see J. L. Crenshaw, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,” ZAW 82 (1970): 380-95, and C. S. Rodd, “Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth Do What Is Just?” ExpTim 83 (1972): 137-39.

[18:27]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here and in vv. 30, 31, 32 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[18:27]  ¹⁷ tn The disjunctive clause is a concessive clause here, drawing out the humility as a contrast to the Lord.

[18:28]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew verb שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) was used earlier to describe the effect of the flood.

[18:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “because of five.”

[18:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:29]  ²¹ tn The construction is a verbal hendiadys – the preterite (“he added”) is combined with an adverb “yet” and an infinitive “to speak.”

[18:30]  ²² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:30]  ²³ tn Heb “let it not be hot to the Lord.” This is an idiom which means “may the Lord not be angry.”

[18:30]  ²⁴ tn After the jussive, the cohortative indicates purpose/result.

[18:31]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:32]  ²⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “And the Lord went.”

[18:33]  ²⁸ tn The infinitive construct (“speaking”) serves as the direct object of the verb “finished.”

[18:33]  ²⁹ tn Heb “to his place.”

[20:1]  ³⁰ tn Or “the South [country]”; Heb “the land of the Negev.”

[20:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “and he sojourned.”

[7:8]  ³² tn Heb “two two” meaning “in twos.”

[12:19]  ³³ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive here expresses consequence.

[12:19]  ³⁴ tn Heb “to me for a wife.”

[12:19]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Look, your wife!”

[12:19]  ³⁶ tn Heb “take and go.”

[12:1]  ³⁷ sn The Lord called Abram while he was in Ur (see Gen 15:7; Acts 7:2); but the sequence here makes it look like it was after the family left to migrate to Canaan (11:31-32). Genesis records the call of Abram at this place in the narrative because it is the formal beginning of the account of Abram. The record of Terah was brought to its end before this beginning.

[12:1]  ³⁸ tn The call of Abram begins with an imperative לֶךְ־לְךָ (lekh-lÿkha, “go out”) followed by three cohortatives (v. 2a) indicating purpose or consequence (“that I may” or “then I will”). If Abram leaves, then God will do these three things. The second imperative (v. 2b, literally “and be a blessing”) is subordinated to the preceding cohortatives and indicates God’s ultimate purpose in calling and blessing Abram. On the syntactical structure of vv. 1-2 see R. B. Chisholm, “Evidence from Genesis,” A Case for Premillennialism, 37. For a similar sequence of volitive forms see Gen 45:18.

[12:1]  ³⁹ tn The initial command is the direct imperative (לֶךְ, lekh) from the verb הָלַךְ (halakh). It is followed by the lamed preposition with a pronominal suffix (לְךָ, lÿkha) emphasizing the subject of the imperative: “you leave.”

[12:1]  ⁴⁰ sn To the land that I will show you. The call of Abram illustrates the leading of the Lord. The command is to leave. The Lord’s word is very specific about what Abram is to leave (the three prepositional phrases narrow to his father’s household), but is not specific at all about where he is to go. God required faith, a point that Heb 11:8 notes.

[12:2]  ⁴¹ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ⁴² sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ⁴³ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[32:20]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and look, your servant Jacob [is] behind us.”

[32:20]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “for he said.” The referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The Hebrew word מַקֵל (maqel), traditionally represents Jacob’s thought or reasoning, and is therefore translated “thought.”

[32:20]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “I will appease his face.” The cohortative here expresses Jacob’s resolve. In the Book of Leviticus the Hebrew verb translated “appease” has the idea of removing anger due to sin or guilt, a nuance that fits this passage very well. Jacob wanted to buy Esau off with a gift of more than five hundred and fifty animals.

[32:20]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “with a gift going before me.”

[32:20]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “I will see his face.”

[32:20]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “Perhaps he will lift up my face.” In this context the idiom refers to acceptance.

[42:8]  ⁵¹ tn The imperatives in this verse are plural, so all three had to do this together.

[42:8]  ⁵² tn The verb “pray” is the Hitpael from the root פָּלַל (palal). That root has the main idea of arbitration; so in this stem it means “to seek arbitration [for oneself],” or “to pray,” or “to intercede.”

[42:8]  ⁵³ tn Heb “I will lift up his face,” meaning, “I will regard him.”

[42:8]  ⁵⁴ tn This clause is a result clause, using the negated infinitive construct.

[42:8]  ⁵⁵ tn The word “folly” can also be taken in the sense of “disgrace.” If the latter is chosen, the word serves as the direct object. If the former, then it is an adverbial accusative.

[42:8]  ⁵⁶ sn The difference between what they said and what Job said, therefore, has to do with truth. Job was honest, spoke the truth, poured out his complaints, but never blasphemed God. For his words God said he told the truth. He did so with incomplete understanding, and with all the impatience and frustration one might expect. Now the friends, however, did not tell what was right about God. They were not honest; rather, they were self-righteous and condescending. They were saying what they thought should be said, but it was wrong.

[42:9]  ⁵⁷ tn The expression “had respect for Job” means God answered his prayer.

[14:14]  ⁵⁸ sn Traditionally this has been understood as a reference to the biblical Daniel, though he was still quite young when Ezekiel prophesied. One wonders if he had developed a reputation as an intercessor by this point. For this reason some prefer to see a reference to a ruler named Danel, known in Canaanite legend for his justice and wisdom. In this case all three of the individuals named would be non-Israelites, however the Ugaritic Danel is not known to have qualities of faith in the Lord that would place him in the company of the other men. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:447-50.

[22:30]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “I did not find.”

[1:9]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “seek the face of God.”

[1:9]  ⁶¹ tn After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunction indicates purpose (cf. NASB, NRSV).

[5:16]  ⁶² tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”

[5:17]  ⁶³ tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.

[5:17]  ⁶⁴ tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).

[5:18]  ⁶⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events.