Psalms 10:1

Psalm 10 ¹ 

10:1 Why, Lord, do you stand far off?

Why do you pay no attention during times of trouble? ² 

Psalms 42:9

42:9 I will pray ³  to God, my high ridge: ⁴ 

“Why do you ignore ⁵  me?

Why must I walk around mourning ⁶ 

because my enemies oppress me?”

Psalms 42:11

42:11 Why are you depressed, ⁷  O my soul? ⁸ 

Why are you upset? ⁹ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 44:9

44:9 But ¹¹  you rejected and embarrassed us!

You did not go into battle with our armies. ¹² 

Psalms 60:1

Psalm 60 ¹³ 

For the music director; according to the shushan-eduth style; ¹⁴  a prayer ¹⁵  of David written to instruct others. ¹⁶  It was written when he fought against Aram Naharaim and Aram-Zobah. That was when Joab turned back and struck down ¹⁷  12,000 Edomites ¹⁸  in the Valley of Salt. ¹⁹ 

60:1 O God, you have rejected us. ²⁰ 

You suddenly turned on us in your anger. ²¹ 

Please restore us! ²² 

Psalms 60:10

60:10 Have you not rejected us, O God?

O God, you do not go into battle with our armies.

Psalms 77:7

77:7 I asked, ²³  “Will the Lord reject me forever?

Will he never again show me his favor?

Jeremiah 31:37

31:37 The Lord says, “I will not reject all the descendants of Israel

because of all that they have done. ²⁴ 

That could only happen if the heavens above could be measured

or the foundations of the earth below could all be explored,” ²⁵ 

says the Lord. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 33:24-26

33:24 “You have surely noticed what these people are saying, haven’t you? They are saying, ²⁷  ‘The Lord has rejected the two families of Israel and Judah ²⁸  that he chose.’ So they have little regard that my people will ever again be a nation. ²⁹  33:25 But I, the Lord, make the following promise: ³⁰  I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth. 33:26 Just as surely as I have done this, so surely will I never reject the descendants of Jacob. Nor will I ever refuse to choose one of my servant David’s descendants to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, ³¹  I will restore them ³²  and show mercy to them.”

Romans 11:1-2

Israel’s Rejection not Complete nor Final

11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 11:2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew! Do you not know what the scripture says about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

[10:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 10. Many Hebrew mss and the ancient Greek version (LXX) combine Psalms 9 and 10 into a single psalm. Taken in isolation, Psalm 10 is a petition for help in which the psalmist urges the Lord to deliver him from his dangerous enemies, whom he describes in vivid and terrifying detail. The psalmist concludes with confidence; he is certain that God’s justice will prevail.

[10:1]  ² tn Heb “you hide for times in trouble.” The interrogative “why” is understood by ellipsis; note the preceding line. The Hiphil verbal form “hide” has no expressed object. Some supply “your eyes” by ellipsis (see BDB 761 s.v. I עָלַם Hiph and HALOT 835 s.v. I עלם hif) or emend the form to a Niphal (“you hide yourself,” see BHS, note c; cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV).

[42:9]  ³ tn The cohortative form indicates the psalmist’s resolve.

[42:9]  ⁴ tn This metaphor pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28; Pss 18:2; 31:3.

[42:9]  ⁵ tn Or “forget.”

[42:9]  ⁶ sn Walk around mourning. See Ps 38:6 for a similar idea.

[42:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

[42:11]  ⁸ sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

[42:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “and why are you in turmoil upon me?”

[42:11]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of my face and my God.” The last line should be emended to read יְשׁוּעֹת פְנֵי אֱלֹהָי (yÿshu’ot fÿney ’elohay, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God”), that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention. This refrain is almost identical to the one in v. 5. See also Ps 43:5.

[44:9]  ¹¹ tn The particle אַף (’af, “but”) is used here as a strong adversative contrasting the following statement with what precedes.

[44:9]  ¹² tn Heb “you did not go out with our armies.” The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[60:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 60. The psalmist grieves over Israel’s humiliation, but in response to God’s assuring word, he asks for divine help in battle and expresses his confidence in victory.

[60:1]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew expression means “lily of the testimony.” It may refer to a particular music style or to a tune title.

[60:1]  ¹⁵ tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew word מִכְתָּם (miktam), which also appears in the heading to Pss 16, 56-59, is uncertain. HALOT 582-83 s.v. defines it as “inscription.”

[60:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to teach.”

[60:1]  ¹⁷ tn In Josh 8:21 and Judg 20:48 the two verbs “turn back” and “strike down” are also juxtaposed. There they refer to a military counter-attack.

[60:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “12,000 of Edom.” Perhaps one should read אֲרַם (’aram, “Aram”) here rather than אֱדוֹם (’edom, “Edom”).

[60:1]  ¹⁹ sn The heading apparently refers to the military campaign recorded in 2 Sam 10 and 1 Chr 19.

[60:1]  ²⁰ sn You have rejected us. See Pss 43:2; 44:9, 23.

[60:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “you broke out upon us, you were angry.”

[60:1]  ²² tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s wish or prayer.

[77:7]  ²³ tn As in vv. 4 and 6a, the words of vv. 7-9 are understood as a quotation of what the psalmist said earlier. Therefore the words “I asked” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[31:37]  ²⁴ sn This answers Jeremiah’s question in 14:19.

[31:37]  ²⁵ tn Heb “If the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below be explored, then also I could reject all the seed of Israel for all they have done.”

[31:37]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[33:24]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Have you not seen what this people have said, saying.” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The sentence has been broken in two to better conform with contemporary English style.

[33:24]  ²⁸ tn Heb “The two families which the Lord chose, he has rejected them.” This is an example of an object prepositioned before the verb and resumed by a redundant pronoun to throw emphasis of focus on it (called casus pendens in the grammars; cf. GKC 458 §143.d). Some commentators identify the “two families” as those of David and Levi mentioned in the previous verses, and some identify them as the families of the Israelites and of David mentioned in the next verse. However, the next clause in this verse and the emphasis on the restoration and regathering of Israel and Judah in this section (cf. 33:7, 14) show that the reference is to Israel and Judah (see also 30:3, 4; 31:27, 31 and 3:18).

[33:24]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and my people [i.e., Israel and Judah] they disdain [or look down on] from being again a nation before them.” The phrase “before them” refers to their estimation, their mental view (cf. BDB s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.a[g]). Hence it means they look with disdain on the people being a nation again (cf. BDB s.v. עוֹד 1.a[b] for the usage of עוֹד [’od] here).

[33:25]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” See the translator’s note at the beginning of v. 20 for the style adopted here. Here the promise is in v. 26 following the contrary to fact condition in v. 25. The Hebrew text of vv. 25-26 reads: “Thus says the Lord, “If I have not established my covenant with day and night [and] the laws/statutes of heaven and earth, also I could reject the seed of Jacob and David my servant from taking from his seed as rulers over the seed of Abraham…” The syntax of the original is a little awkward because it involves the verbs “establish” and “reject” governing two objects, the first governing two similar objects “my covenant” and “the regulations” and the second governing two dissimilar objects “the seed of Jacob” and “my servant David from taking [so as not to take].” The translation has sought to remove these awkward syntactical constructions and also break down the long complex original sentence in such a way as to retain its original intent, i.e., the guarantee of the continuance of the seed of Jacob and of the rule of a line of David’s descendants over them based on the fixed order of God’s creation decrees.

[33:26]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) is probably intensive here as it has been on a number of occasions in the book of Jeremiah (see BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e for the category).

[33:26]  ³² tn Or “I will make them prosperous once again,” or “I will bring them back from captivity.”