Luke 1:45

1:45 And blessed ¹  is she who believed that ²  what was spoken to her by ³  the Lord would be fulfilled.” ⁴ 

Genesis 18:10-15

18:10 One of them ⁵  said, “I will surely return ⁶  to you when the season comes round again, ⁷  and your wife Sarah will have a son!” ⁸  (Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, not far behind him. ⁹  18:11 Abraham and Sarah were old and advancing in years; ¹⁰  Sarah had long since passed menopause.) ¹¹  18:12 So Sarah laughed to herself, thinking, ¹²  “After I am worn out will I have pleasure, ¹³  especially when my husband is old too?” ¹⁴ 

18:13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why ¹⁵  did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really ¹⁶  have a child when I am old?’ 18:14 Is anything impossible ¹⁷  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ¹⁸  18:15 Then Sarah lied, saying, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But the Lord said, “No! You did laugh.” ¹⁹ 

Numbers 20:12

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ²⁰  to show me as holy ²¹  before ²²  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ²³ 

Numbers 20:2

20:2 And there was no water for the community, and so they gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron.

Numbers 7:2

7:2 Then the leaders of Israel, the heads of their clans, ²⁴  made an offering. They were the leaders of the tribes; they were the ones who had been supervising ²⁵  the numbering.

Numbers 7:19

7:19 He offered for his offering one silver platter weighing 130 shekels and one silver sprinkling bowl weighing 70, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each of them full of fine flour mixed with olive oil as a grain offering;

Isaiah 7:9

7:9 Ephraim’s leader is Samaria,

and Samaria’s leader is the son of Remaliah.

If your faith does not remain firm,

then you will not remain secure.” ²⁶ 

Mark 9:19

9:19 He answered them, ²⁷  “You ²⁸  unbelieving ²⁹  generation! How much longer ³⁰  must I be with you? How much longer must I endure ³¹  you? ³²  Bring him to me.”

Mark 16:14

16:14 Then he appeared to the eleven themselves, while they were eating, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him resurrected.

Revelation 3:19

3:19 All those ³³  I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!

[1:45]  ¹ sn Again the note of being blessed makes the key point of the passage about believing God.

[1:45]  ² tn This ὅτι (Joti) clause, technically indirect discourse after πιστεύω (pisteuw), explains the content of the faith, a belief in God’s promise coming to pass.

[1:45]  ³ tn That is, “what was said to her (by the angel) at the Lord’s command” (BDAG 756 s.v. παρά A.2).

[1:45]  ⁴ tn Grk “that there would be a fulfillment of what was said to her from the Lord.”

[18:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (one of the three men introduced in v. 2) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Some English translations have specified the referent as the Lord (cf. RSV, NIV) based on vv. 1, 13, but the Hebrew text merely has “he said” at this point, referring to one of the three visitors. Aside from the introductory statement in v. 1, the incident is narrated from Abraham’s point of view, and the suspense is built up for the reader as Abraham’s elaborate banquet preparations in the preceding verses suggest he suspects these are important guests. But not until the promise of a son later in this verse does it become clear who is speaking. In v. 13 the Hebrew text explicitly mentions the Lord.

[18:10]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic, using the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense.

[18:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “as/when the time lives” or “revives,” possibly referring to the springtime.

[18:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “and there will be (הִנֵּה, hinneh) a son for Sarah.”

[18:10]  ⁹ tn This is the first of two disjunctive parenthetical clauses preparing the reader for Sarah’s response (see v. 12).

[18:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “days.”

[18:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “it had ceased to be for Sarah [after] a way like women.”

[18:12]  ¹² tn Heb “saying.”

[18:12]  ¹³ tn It has been suggested that this word should be translated “conception,” not “pleasure.” See A. A. McIntosh, “A Third Root ‘adah in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 24 (1974): 454-73.

[18:12]  ¹⁴ tn The word “too” has been added in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[18:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Why, this?” The demonstrative pronoun following the interrogative pronoun is enclitic, emphasizing the Lord’s amazement: “Why on earth did Sarah laugh?”

[18:13]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew construction uses both הַאַף (ha’af) and אֻמְנָם (’umnam): “Indeed, truly, will I have a child?”

[18:14]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

[18:14]  ¹⁸ sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

[18:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “And he said, ‘No, but you did laugh.’” The referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:12]  ²⁰ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ²¹ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[20:12]  ²² tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ²³ tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.

[7:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the house of their fathers.”

[7:2]  ²⁵ tn The form is the Qal active participle from the verb “to stand” (עָמַד, ’amad). The form describes these leaders as “the ones standing over [the ones numbered].” The expression, along with the clear indication of the first census in chapter 1, shows that this was a supervisory capacity.

[7:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “if you do not believe, you will not endure.” The verb forms are second plural; the Lord here addresses the entire Davidic family and court. (Verse 4 was addressed to the king.) There is a wordplay in the Hebrew text, designed to draw attention to the alternatives set before the king (cf. 1:20). “Believe” (תַאֳמִינוּ, ta’aminu) is a Hiphil form of the verb אָמָן (’aman); “endure” (תֵאָמֵנוּ, te’amenu) is a Niphal form of this same verb.

[9:19]  ²⁷ tn Grk “And answering, he said to them.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the phrasing of the sentence was modified slightly to make it clearer in English.

[9:19]  ²⁸ tn Grk “O.” The marker of direct address, ὦ (w), is functionally equivalent to a vocative and is represented in the translation by “you.”

[9:19]  ²⁹ tn Or “faithless.”

[9:19]  ³⁰ tn Grk “how long.”

[9:19]  ³¹ tn Or “put up with.” See Num 11:12; Isa 46:4.

[9:19]  ³² sn The pronouns you…you are plural, indicating that Jesus is speaking to a group rather than an individual.

[3:19]  ³³ tn The Greek pronoun ὅσος (Josos) means “as many as” and can be translated “All those” or “Everyone.”