Matthew 5:18

5:18 I ¹  tell you the truth, ²  until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter ³  will pass from the law until everything takes place.

Psalms 102:26

102:26 They will perish,

but you will endure. ⁴ 

They will wear out like a garment;

like clothes you will remove them and they will disappear. ⁵ 

Isaiah 34:4

34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, ⁶ 

the sky will roll up like a scroll;

all its stars will wither,

like a leaf withers and falls from a vine

or a fig withers and falls from a tree. ⁷ 

Isaiah 51:6

51:6 Look up at the sky!

Look at the earth below!

For the sky will dissipate ⁸  like smoke,

and the earth will wear out like clothes;

its residents will die like gnats.

But the deliverance I give ⁹  is permanent;

the vindication I provide ¹⁰  will not disappear. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 54:10

54:10 Even if the mountains are removed

and the hills displaced,

my devotion will not be removed from you,

nor will my covenant of friendship ¹²  be displaced,”

says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you.

Jeremiah 31:35-36

The Lord Guarantees Israel’s Continuance

31:35 The Lord has made a promise to Israel.

He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day

and the moon and stars to give light by night.

He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll.

He promises it as the one who is known as the Lord who rules over all. ¹³ 

31:36 The Lord affirms, ¹⁴  “The descendants of Israel will not

cease forever to be a nation in my sight.

That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights

were to cease to operate before me.” ¹⁵ 

Hebrews 1:11-12

1:11 They will perish, but you continue.

And they will all grow old like a garment,

1:12 and like a robe you will fold them up

and like a garment ¹⁶  they will be changed,

but you are the same and your years will never run out.” ¹⁷ 

Hebrews 1:2

1:2 in these last days he has spoken to us in a son, ¹⁸  whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he created the world. ¹⁹ 

Hebrews 3:7-12

Exposition of Psalm 95: Hearing God’s Word in Faith

3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ²⁰ 

“Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! ²¹ 

3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.

3:9 “There your fathers tested me and tried me, ²²  and they saw my works for forty years.

3:10 “Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering ²³  and they have not known my ways.’

3:11 “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’” ²⁴ 

3:12 See to it, ²⁵  brothers and sisters, ²⁶  that none of you has ²⁷  an evil, unbelieving heart that forsakes ²⁸  the living God. ²⁹ 

Revelation 6:14

6:14 The sky ³⁰  was split apart ³¹  like a scroll being rolled up, ³²  and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

Revelation 20:11

The Great White Throne

20:11 Then ³³  I saw a large ³⁴  white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven ³⁵  fled ³⁶  from his presence, and no place was found for them.

[5:18]  ¹ tn Grk “For I tell.” Here an explanatory γάρ (gar) has not been translated.

[5:18]  ² tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[5:18]  ³ tn Grk “Not one iota or one serif.”

[102:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “stand.”

[102:26]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew verb חָלַף (khalaf) occurs twice in this line, once in the Hiphil (“you will remove them”) and once in the Qal (“they will disappear”). The repetition draws attention to the statement.

[34:4]  ⁶ tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”

[34:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”

[51:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “will be torn in pieces.” The perfect indicates the certitude of the event, from the Lord’s rhetorical perspective.

[51:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “my deliverance.” The same Hebrew word can also be translated “salvation” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); cf. CEV “victory.”

[51:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my righteousness [or “vindication”].”

[51:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “will not be shattered [or “dismayed”].”

[54:10]  ¹² tn Heb “peace” (so many English versions); NLT “of blessing.”

[31:35]  ¹³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for this title. In the Hebrew text the verse reads: “Thus says the Lord who provides the sun for light by day, the fixed ordering of the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar, whose name is Yahweh of armies, ‘…’” The hymnic introduction to the quote which does not begin until v. 36 has been broken down to avoid a long awkward sentence in English. The word “said” has been translated “made a promise” to reflect the nature of the content in vv. 36-37. The first two lines of the Hebrew poetry are a case of complex or supplementary ellipsis where the complete idea of “providing/establishing the fixed laws” is divided between the two lines (cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 110-13). The necessity for recombining the ellipsis is obvious from reference to the fixed ordering in the next verse. (Some commentators prefer to delete the word as an erroneous glossing of the word in the following line (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 277, n. y).

[31:36]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:36]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “‘If these fixed orderings were to fail to be present before me,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘then the seed of Israel could cease from being a nation before me forever (or more literally, “all the days”).’” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to modern style. The connection has been maintained by reversing the order of condition and consequence and still retaining the condition in the second clause. For the meaning of “cease to operate” for the verb מוּשׁ (mush) compare the usage in Isa 54:10; Ps 55:11 (55:12 HT); Prov 17:13 where what is usually applied to persons or things is applied to abstract things like this (see HALOT 506 s.v. II מוּשׁ Qal for general usage).

[1:12]  ¹⁶ tc The words “like a garment” (ὡς ἱμάτιον, Jw" Jimation) are found in excellent and early mss (Ì⁴⁶ א A B D* 1739) though absent in a majority of witnesses (D¹ Ψ 0243 0278 33 1881 Ï lat sy bo). Although it is possible that longer reading was produced by overzealous scribes who wanted to underscore the frailty of creation, it is much more likely that the shorter reading was produced by scribes who wanted to conform the wording to that of Ps 102:26 (101:27 LXX), which here lacks the second “like a garment.” Both external and internal considerations decidedly favor the longer reading, and point to the author of Hebrews as the one underscoring the difference between the Son and creation.

[1:12]  ¹⁷ sn A quotation from Ps 102:25-27.

[1:2]  ¹⁸ tn The Greek puts an emphasis on the quality of God’s final revelation. As such, it is more than an indefinite notion (“a son”) though less than a definite one (“the son”), for this final revelation is not just through any son of God, nor is the emphasis specifically on the person himself. Rather, the focus here is on the nature of the vehicle of God’s revelation: He is no mere spokesman (or prophet) for God, nor is he merely a heavenly messenger (or angel); instead, this final revelation comes through one who is intimately acquainted with the heavenly Father in a way that only a family member could be. There is, however, no exact equivalent in English (“in son” is hardly good English style).

[1:2]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “the ages.” The temporal (ages) came to be used of the spatial (what exists in those time periods). See Heb 11:3 for the same usage.

[3:7]  ²⁰ sn The following quotation is from Ps 95:7b-11.

[3:7]  ²¹ tn Grk “today if you hear his voice.”

[3:9]  ²² tn Grk “tested me by trial.”

[3:10]  ²³ tn Grk “they are wandering in the heart.”

[3:11]  ²⁴ tn Grk “if they shall enter my rest,” a Hebrew idiom expressing an oath that something will certainly not happen.

[3:12]  ²⁵ tn Or “take care.”

[3:12]  ²⁶ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 2:11.

[3:12]  ²⁷ tn Grk “that there not be in any of you.”

[3:12]  ²⁸ tn Or “deserts,” “rebels against.”

[3:12]  ²⁹ tn Grk “in forsaking the living God.”

[6:14]  ³⁰ tn Or “The heavens were.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) can mean either “heaven” or “sky.”

[6:14]  ³¹ tn BDAG 125 s.v. ἀποχωρίζω states, “ὁ οὐρανὸς ἀπεχωρίσθη the sky was split Rv 6:14.” Although L&N 79.120 gives the meaning “the sky disappeared like a rolled-up scroll” here, a scroll that is rolled up does not “disappear,” and such a translation could be difficult for modern readers to understand.

[6:14]  ³² tn On this term BDAG 317 s.v. ἑλίσσω states, “ὡς βιβλίον ἑλισσόμενον like a scroll that is rolled up…Rv 6:14.”

[20:11]  ³³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[20:11]  ³⁴ tn Traditionally, “great,” but μέγας (megas) here refers to size rather than importance.

[20:11]  ³⁵ tn Or “and the sky.” The same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky,” and context usually determines which is meant. In this apocalyptic scene, however, it is difficult to be sure what referent to assign the term.

[20:11]  ³⁶ tn Or “vanished.”