Luke 1:68

1:68 “Blessed ¹  be the Lord God of Israel,

because he has come to help ²  and has redeemed ³  his people.

Luke 19:44

19:44 They will demolish you ⁴  – you and your children within your walls ⁵  – and they will not leave within you one stone ⁶  on top of another, ⁷  because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” ⁸ 

Exodus 4:31

4:31 and the people believed. When they heard ⁹  that the Lord had attended to ¹⁰  the Israelites and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed down close to the ground. ¹¹ 

Psalms 65:9

65:9 You visit the earth and give it rain; ¹² 

you make it rich and fertile ¹³ 

with overflowing streams full of water. ¹⁴ 

You provide grain for them, ¹⁵ 

for you prepare the earth to yield its crops. ¹⁶ 

Psalms 106:4-5

106:4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people!

Pay attention to me, when you deliver,

106:5 so I may see the prosperity ¹⁷  of your chosen ones,

rejoice along with your nation, ¹⁸ 

and boast along with the people who belong to you. ¹⁹ 

[1:68]  ¹ sn The traditional name of this psalm, the “Benedictus,” comes from the Latin wording of the start of the hymn (“Blessed be…”).

[1:68]  ² sn The verb come to help can refer to a visit, but can also connote concern or assistance (L&N 85.11).

[1:68]  ³ tn Or “has delivered”; Grk “has accomplished redemption.”

[19:44]  ⁴ tn Grk “They will raze you to the ground.”

[19:44]  ⁵ tn Grk “your children within you.” The phrase “[your] walls” has been supplied in the translation to clarify that the city of Jerusalem, metaphorically pictured as an individual, is spoken of here.

[19:44]  ⁶ sn (Not) one stone on top of another is an idiom for total destruction.

[19:44]  ⁷ tn Grk “leave stone on stone.”

[19:44]  ⁸ tn Grk “the time of your visitation.” To clarify what this refers to, the words “from God” are supplied at the end of the verse, although they do not occur in the Greek text.

[4:31]  ⁹ tc The LXX (Greek OT) has “and they rejoiced,” probably reading וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ (vayyismÿkhu) instead of what the MT reading, וַיִּשְׂמְעוּ (vayyismÿ’u, “and they heard”). To rejoice would have seemed a natural response of the people at the news, and the words sound similar in Hebrew.

[4:31]  ¹⁰ tn Or “intervened for.” The word פָּקַד (paqad) has traditionally been translated “visited,” which is open to many interpretations. It means that God intervened in the life of the Israelites to bless them with the fulfillment of the promises. It says more than that he took notice of them, took pity on them, or remembered them. He had not yet fulfilled the promises, but he had begun to act by calling Moses and Aaron. The translation “attended to” attempts to capture that much.

[4:31]  ¹¹ tn The verb וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲוּוּ (vayyishtakhavu) is usually rendered “worshiped.” More specifically, the verbal root חָוָה (khava) in the hishtaphel stem means “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” While there is nothing wrong with giving it a general translation of “worship,” it may be better in a passage like this to take it in conjunction with the other verb (“bow”) as a verbal hendiadys, using it as an adverb to that verb. The implication is certainly that they prayed, or praised, and performed some other aspect of worship, but the text may just be describing it from their posture of worship. With this response, all the fears of Moses are swept aside – they believed and they were thankful to God.

[65:9]  ¹² tn The verb form is a Polel from שׁוּק (shuq, “be abundant”), a verb which appears only here and in Joel 2:24 and 3:13, where it is used in the Hiphil stem and means “overflow.”

[65:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “you greatly enrich it.”

[65:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “[with] a channel of God full of water.” The divine name is probably used here in a superlative sense to depict a very deep stream (“a stream fit for God,” as it were).

[65:9]  ¹⁵ tn The pronoun apparently refers to the people of the earth, mentioned in v. 8.

[65:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “for thus [referring to the provision of rain described in the first half of the verse] you prepare it.” The third feminine singular pronominal suffix attached to the verb “prepare” refers back to the “earth,” which is a feminine noun with regard to grammatical form.

[106:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “good.”

[106:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in order that [I may] rejoice with the rejoicing of your nation.”

[106:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “with your inheritance.”