Job 42:6

42:6 Therefore I despise myself, ¹ 

and I repent in dust and ashes!

Genesis 18:27

18:27 Then Abraham asked, “Since I have undertaken to speak to the Lord ²  (although I am but dust and ashes), ³ 

Genesis 32:10

32:10 I am not worthy of all the faithful love ⁴  you have shown ⁵  your servant. With only my walking stick ⁶  I crossed the Jordan, ⁷  but now I have become two camps.

Genesis 32:2

32:2 When Jacob saw them, he exclaimed, ⁸  “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim. ⁹ 

Genesis 24:10

24:10 Then the servant took ten of his master’s camels and departed with all kinds of gifts from his master at his disposal. ¹⁰  He journeyed ¹¹  to the region of Aram Naharaim ¹²  and the city of Nahor.

Genesis 24:1

The Wife for Isaac

24:1 Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years, ¹³  and the Lord had blessed him ¹⁴  in everything.

Genesis 19:4

19:4 Before they could lie down to sleep, ¹⁵  all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house. ¹⁶ 

Ezra 9:6

9:6 I prayed, ¹⁷ 

“O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God! For our iniquities have climbed higher than our heads, and our guilt extends to the heavens.

Ezra 9:15

9:15 O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we are left as a remnant this day. Indeed, we stand before you in our guilt. However, because of this guilt ¹⁸  no one can really stand before you.”

Nehemiah 9:33

9:33 You are righteous with regard to all that has happened to us, for you have acted faithfully. ¹⁹  It is we who have been in the wrong!

Psalms 51:4-5

51:4 Against you – you above all ²⁰  – I have sinned;

I have done what is evil in your sight.

So ²¹  you are just when you confront me; ²² 

you are right when you condemn me. ²³ 

51:5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth,

a sinner the moment my mother conceived me. ²⁴ 

Isaiah 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ²⁵  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ²⁶  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ²⁷  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ²⁸ 

Isaiah 53:6

53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;

each of us had strayed off on his own path,

but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. ²⁹ 

Isaiah 64:6

64:6 We are all like one who is unclean,

all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight. ³⁰ 

We all wither like a leaf;

our sins carry us away like the wind.

Daniel 9:5

9:5 we have sinned! We have done what is wrong and wicked; we have rebelled by turning away from your commandments and standards.

Daniel 9:7

9:7 “You are righteous, ³¹  O Lord, but we are humiliated this day ³²  – the people ³³  of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them, because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you.

Luke 5:8

5:8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, ³⁴  for I am a sinful man!” ³⁵ 

Luke 15:18-19

15:18 I will get up and go to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned ³⁶  against heaven ³⁷  and against ³⁸  you. 15:19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me ³⁹  like one of your hired workers.”’

Luke 18:13

18:13 The tax collector, however, stood ⁴⁰  far off and would not even look up ⁴¹  to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful ⁴²  to me, sinner that I am!’ ⁴³ 

Luke 18:1

Prayer and the Parable of the Persistent Widow

18:1 Then ⁴⁴  Jesus ⁴⁵  told them a parable to show them they should always ⁴⁶  pray and not lose heart. ⁴⁷ 

Luke 1:15

1:15 for he will be great in the sight of ⁴⁸  the Lord. He ⁴⁹  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ⁵⁰ 

[42:6]  ¹ tn Or “despise what I said.” There is no object on the verb; Job could be despising himself or the things he said (see L. J. Kuyper, “Repentance of Job,” VT 9 [1959]: 91-94).

[18:27]  ² tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here and in vv. 30, 31, 32 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[18:27]  ³ tn The disjunctive clause is a concessive clause here, drawing out the humility as a contrast to the Lord.

[32:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “the loving deeds and faithfulness” (see 24:27, 49).

[32:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “you have done with.”

[32:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “for with my staff.” The Hebrew word מַקֵל (maqel), traditionally translated “staff,” has been rendered as “walking stick” because a “staff” in contemporary English refers typically to the support personnel in an organization.

[32:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “this Jordan.”

[32:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “and Jacob said when he saw them.”

[32:2]  ⁹ sn The name Mahanaim apparently means “two camps.” Perhaps the two camps were those of God and of Jacob.

[24:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and every good thing of his master was in his hand.” The disjunctive clause is circumstantial, explaining that he took all kinds of gifts to be used at his discretion.

[24:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he arose and went.”

[24:10]  ¹² tn The words “the region of” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[24:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “days.”

[24:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Abraham.” The proper name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

[19:4]  ¹⁵ tn The verb שָׁכַב (shakhav) means “to lie down, to recline,” that is, “to go to bed.” Here what appears to be an imperfect is a preterite after the adverb טֶרֶם (terem). The nuance of potential (perfect) fits well.

[19:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from the young to the old, all the people from the end [of the city].” The repetition of the phrase “men of” stresses all kinds of men.

[9:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I said.”

[9:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “this”; the referent (the guilt mentioned previously) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:33]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “you have done truth.”

[51:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “only you,” as if the psalmist had sinned exclusively against God and no other. Since the Hebrew verb חָטָא (hata’, “to sin”) is used elsewhere of sinful acts against people (see BDB 306 s.v. 2.a) and David (the presumed author) certainly sinned when he murdered Uriah (2 Sam 12:9), it is likely that the psalmist is overstating the case to suggest that the attack on Uriah was ultimately an attack on God himself. To clarify the point of the hyperbole, the translation uses “especially,” rather than the potentially confusing “only.”

[51:4]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew term לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) normally indicates purpose (“in order that”), but here it introduces a logical consequence of the preceding statement. (Taking the clause as indicating purpose here would yield a theologically preposterous idea – the psalmist purposely sinned so that God’s justice might be vindicated!) For other examples of לְמַעַן indicating result, see 2 Kgs 22:17; Jer 27:15; Amos 2:7, as well as IBHS 638-40 §38.3.

[51:4]  ²² tn Heb “when you speak.” In this context the psalmist refers to God’s word of condemnation against his sin delivered through Nathan (cf. 2 Sam 12:7-12).

[51:4]  ²³ tn Heb “when you judge.”

[51:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Look, in wrongdoing I was brought forth, and in sin my mother conceived me.” The prefixed verbal form in the second line is probably a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive), stating a simple historical fact. The psalmist is not suggesting that he was conceived through an inappropriate sexual relationship (although the verse has sometimes been understood to mean that, or even that all sexual relationships are sinful). The psalmist’s point is that he has been a sinner from the very moment his personal existence began. By going back beyond the time of birth to the moment of conception, the psalmist makes his point more emphatically in the second line than in the first.

[6:5]  ²⁵ tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”

[6:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.

[6:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ²⁸ tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.

[53:6]  ²⁹ tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.

[64:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and like a garment of menstruation [are] all our righteous acts”; KJV, NIV “filthy rags”; ASV “a polluted garment.”

[9:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “to you (belongs) righteousness.”

[9:7]  ³² tn Heb “and to us (belongs) shame of face like this day.”

[9:7]  ³³ tn Heb “men.”

[5:8]  ³⁴ sn Lord is a term of high respect in this context. God’s presence in the work of Jesus makes Peter recognize his authority. This vocative is common in Luke (20 times), but does not yet have its full confessional force.

[5:8]  ³⁵ sn Peter was intimidated that someone who was obviously working with divine backing was in his presence (“Go away from me”). He feared his sinfulness might lead to judgment, but Jesus would show him otherwise.

[15:18]  ³⁶ sn In the confession “I have sinned” there is a recognition of wrong that pictures the penitent coming home and “being found.”

[15:18]  ³⁷ sn The phrase against heaven is a circumlocution for God.

[15:18]  ³⁸ tn According to BDAG 342 s.v. ἐνωπιον 4.a, “in relation to ἁμαρτάνειν ἐ. τινος sin against someone Lk 15:18, 21 (cf. Jdth 5:17; 1 Km 7:6; 20:1).”

[15:19]  ³⁹ tn Or “make me.” Here is a sign of total humility.

[18:13]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “standing”; the Greek participle has been translated as a finite verb.

[18:13]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “even lift up his eyes” (an idiom).

[18:13]  ⁴² tn The prayer is a humble call for forgiveness. The term for mercy (ἱλάσκομαι, Jilaskomai) is associated with the concept of a request for atonement (BDAG 473-74 s.v. 1; Ps 51:1, 3; 25:11; 34:6, 18).

[18:13]  ⁴³ tn Grk “the sinner.” The tax collector views himself not just as any sinner but as the worst of all sinners. See ExSyn 222-23.

[18:1]  ⁴⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[18:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:1]  ⁴⁶ tn Or “should pray at all times” (L&N 67.88).

[18:1]  ⁴⁷ sn This is one of the few parables that comes with an explanation at the start: …they should always pray and not lose heart. It is part of Luke’s goal in encouraging Theophilus (1:4).

[1:15]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “before.”

[1:15]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.

[1:15]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.