Numbers 29:7

The Day of Atonement

29:7 “‘On the tenth day of this seventh month you are to have a holy assembly. You must humble yourselves; ¹  you must not do any work on it.

Leviticus 16:29

Review of the Day of Atonement

16:29 “This is to be a perpetual statute for you. ²  In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you must humble yourselves ³  and do no work of any kind, ⁴  both the native citizen and the foreigner who resides ⁵  in your midst,

Leviticus 23:27

23:27 “The ⁶  tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. ⁷  It is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must humble yourselves ⁸  and present a gift to the Lord.

Leviticus 23:32

23:32 It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you must humble yourselves on the ninth day of the month in the evening, from evening until evening you must observe your Sabbath.” ⁹ 

Ezra 8:21

8:21 I called for a fast there by the Ahava Canal, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and seek from him a safe journey ¹⁰  for us, our children, and all our property.

Psalms 35:13

35:13 When they were sick, I wore sackcloth, ¹¹ 

and refrained from eating food. ¹² 

(If I am lying, may my prayers go unanswered!) ¹³ 

Isaiah 58:5

58:5 Is this really the kind of fasting I want? ¹⁴ 

Do I want a day when people merely humble themselves, ¹⁵ 

bowing their heads like a reed

and stretching out ¹⁶  on sackcloth and ashes?

Is this really what you call a fast,

a day that is pleasing to the Lord?

Isaiah 58:1

The Lord Desires Genuine Devotion

58:1 “Shout loudly! Don’t be quiet!

Yell as loud as a trumpet!

Confront my people with their rebellious deeds; ¹⁷ 

confront Jacob’s family with their sin! ¹⁸ 

Colossians 1:5

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ¹⁹  from the hope laid up ²⁰  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ²¹ 

[29:7]  ¹ tn Heb “afflict yourselves”; NAB “mortify yourselves”; NIV, NRSV “deny yourselves.”

[16:29]  ² tn Heb “And it [feminine] shall be for you a perpetual statute.” Verse 34 begins with the same clause except for the missing demonstrative pronoun “this” here in v. 29. The LXX has “this” in both places and it suits the sense of the passage, although both the verb and the pronoun are sometimes missing in this clause elsewhere in the book (see, e.g., Lev 3:17).

[16:29]  ³ tn Heb “you shall humble your souls.” The verb “to humble” here refers to various forms of self-denial, including but not limited to fasting (cf. Ps 35:13 and Isa 58:3, 10). The Mishnah (m. Yoma 8:1) lists abstentions from food and drink, bathing, using oil as an unguent to moisten the skin, wearing leather sandals, and sexual intercourse (cf. 2 Sam 12:16-17, 20; see the remarks in J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:1054; B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 109; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 242).

[16:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all work you shall not do.”

[16:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner who sojourns.”

[23:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “Surely the tenth day” or perhaps “Precisely the tenth day.” The Hebrew adverbial particle אַךְ (’akh) is left untranslated by most recent English versions; cf. however NASB “On exactly the tenth day.”

[23:27]  ⁷ sn See the description of this day and its regulations in Lev 16 and the notes there.

[23:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “you shall humble your souls.” See the note on Lev 16:29 above.

[23:32]  ⁹ tn Heb “you shall rest your Sabbath.”

[8:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a straight way.”

[35:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth.” Sackcloth was worn by mourners. When the psalmist’s enemies were sick, he was sorry for their misfortune and mourned for them.

[35:13]  ¹² sn Fasting was also a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities, such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.

[35:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “and my prayer upon my chest will return.” One could translate, “but my prayer was returning upon my chest,” but the use of the imperfect verbal form sets this line apart from the preceding and following lines (vv. 13a, 14), which use the perfect to describe the psalmist’s past actions.

[58:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “choose” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB “wish.”

[58:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “a day when man humbles himself.” The words “Do I want” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[58:5]  ¹⁶ tn Or “making [their] bed.”

[58:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “declare to my people their rebellion.”

[58:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and to the house of Jacob their sin.” The verb “declare” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ²⁰ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ²¹ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.