Psalms 22:26

22:26 Let the oppressed eat and be filled! ¹ 

Let those who seek his help praise the Lord!

May you ²  live forever!

Psalms 22:29

22:29 All of the thriving people ³  of the earth will join the celebration and worship; ⁴ 

all those who are descending into the grave ⁵  will bow before him,

including those who cannot preserve their lives. ⁶ 

Psalms 31:19-20

31:19 How great is your favor, ⁷ 

which you store up for your loyal followers! ⁸ 

In plain sight of everyone you bestow it on those who take shelter ⁹  in you. ¹⁰ 

31:20 You hide them with you, where they are safe from the attacks ¹¹  of men; ¹² 

you conceal them in a shelter, where they are safe from slanderous attacks. ¹³ 

Psalms 104:15

104:15 as well as wine that makes people feel so good, ¹⁴ 

and so they can have oil to make their faces shine, ¹⁵ 

as well as food that sustains people’s lives. ¹⁶ 

Job 36:16

36:16 And surely, he drew you ¹⁷  from the mouth of distress,

to a wide place, unrestricted, ¹⁸ 

and to the comfort ¹⁹  of your table

filled with rich food. ²⁰ 

Isaiah 25:6

25:6 The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. ²¹ 

At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine –

tender meat and choicest wine. ²² 

John 6:53-56

6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, ²³  unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ²⁴  you have no life ²⁵  in yourselves. 6:54 The one who eats ²⁶  my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. ²⁷  6:55 For my flesh is true ²⁸  food, and my blood is true ²⁹  drink. 6:56 The one who eats ³⁰  my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. ³¹ 

John 10:9-10

10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, ³²  and find pasture. ³³  10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill ³⁴  and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. ³⁵ 

John 16:22

16:22 So also you have sorrow ³⁶  now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. ³⁷ 

[22:26]  ¹ sn Eat and be filled. In addition to praising the Lord, the psalmist also offers a thank offering to the Lord and invites others to share in a communal meal.

[22:26]  ² tn Heb “may your heart[s].”

[22:29]  ³ tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the Lord.

[22:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the Lord will receive universal worship. The mood is one of wishful thinking and anticipation; this is not prophecy in the strict sense.

[22:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.

[22:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”

[31:19]  ⁷ tn Or “How abundant are your blessings!”

[31:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “for those who fear you.”

[31:19]  ⁹ tn “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 2:12; 5:11-12; 34:21-22).

[31:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you work [your favor] for the ones seeking shelter in you before the sons of men.”

[31:20]  ¹¹ tn The noun רֹכֶס (rokhes) occurs only here. Its meaning is debated; some suggest “snare,” while others propose “slander” or “conspiracy.”

[31:20]  ¹² tn Heb “you hide them in the hiding place of your face from the attacks of man.” The imperfect verbal forms in this verse draw attention to God’s typical treatment of the faithful.

[31:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “you conceal them in a shelter from the strife of tongues.”

[104:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and wine [that] makes the heart of man happy.”

[104:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to make [the] face shine from oil.” The Hebrew verb צָהַל (tsahal, “to shine”) occurs only here in the OT. It appears to be an alternate form of צָהַר (tsahar), a derivative from צָהָרִים (tsaharim, “noon”).

[104:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and food [that] sustains the heart of man.”

[36:16]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew verb means “to entice; to lure; to allure; to seduce,” but these have negative connotations. The English “to persuade; to draw” might work better. The verb is the Hiphil perfect of סוּת (sut). But the nuance of the verb is difficult. It can be equivalent to an English present expressing what God is doing (Peake). But the subject is contested as well. Since the verb usually has an evil connotation, there have been attempts to make the “plaza” the subject – “the wide place has led you astray” (Ewald).

[36:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a broad place where there is no cramping beneath [or under] it.”

[36:16]  ¹⁹ tn The word נַחַת (nakhat) could be translated “set” if it is connected with the verb נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest,” but then “to lay to rest, to set”). Kissane translates it “comfort.” Dhorme thinks it could come from נוּחַ (nuakh, “to rest”) or נָחַת (nakhat, “to descend”). But his conclusion is that it is a dittography after “under it” (p. 545).

[36:16]  ²⁰ tn Heb “filled with fat.”

[25:6]  ²¹ sn That is, Mount Zion (see 24:23); cf. TEV; NLT “In Jerusalem.”

[25:6]  ²² tn Heb “And the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] will make for all the nations on this mountain a banquet of meats, a banquet of wine dregs, meats filled with marrow, dregs that are filtered.”

[6:53]  ²³ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[6:53]  ²⁴ sn Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood. These words are at the heart of the discourse on the Bread of Life, and have created great misunderstanding among interpreters. Anyone who is inclined toward a sacramental viewpoint will almost certainly want to take these words as a reference to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist, because of the reference to eating and drinking. But this does not automatically follow: By anyone’s definition there must be a symbolic element to the eating which Jesus speaks of in the discourse, and once this is admitted, it is better to understand it here, as in the previous references in the passage, to a personal receiving of (or appropriation of) Christ and his work.

[6:53]  ²⁵ tn That is, “no eternal life” (as opposed to physical life).

[6:54]  ²⁶ tn Or “who chews”; Grk ὁ τρώγων (Jo trwgwn). The alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) may simply reflect a preference for one form over the other on the author’s part, rather than an attempt to express a slightly more graphic meaning. If there is a difference, however, the word used here (τρώγω) is the more graphic and vivid of the two (“gnaw” or “chew”).

[6:54]  ²⁷ sn Notice that here the result (has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day) is produced by eating (Jesus’) flesh and drinking his blood. Compare John 6:40 where the same result is produced by “looking on the Son and believing in him.” This suggests that the phrase here (eats my flesh and drinks my blood) is to be understood by the phrase in 6:40 (looks on the Son and believes in him).

[6:55]  ²⁸ tn Or “real.”

[6:55]  ²⁹ tn Or “real.”

[6:56]  ³⁰ tn Or “who chews.” On the alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) see the note on “eats” in v. 54.

[6:56]  ³¹ sn Resides in me, and I in him. Note how in John 6:54 eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood produces eternal life and the promise of resurrection at the last day. Here the same process of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood leads to a relationship of mutual indwelling (resides in me, and I in him). This suggests strongly that for the author (and for Jesus) the concepts of ‘possessing eternal life’ and of ‘residing in Jesus’ are virtually interchangeable.

[10:9]  ³² tn Since the Greek phrase εἰσέρχομαι καὶ ἐξέρχομαι (eisercomai kai exercomai, “come in and go out”) is in some places an idiom for living or conducting oneself in relationship to some community (“to live with, to live among” [cf. Acts 1:21; see also Num 27:17; 2 Chr 1:10]), it may well be that Jesus’ words here look forward to the new covenant community of believers. Another significant NT text is Luke 9:4, where both these verbs occur in the context of the safety and security provided by a given household for the disciples. See also BDAG 294 s.v. εἰσέρχομαι 1.b.β.

[10:9]  ³³ sn That is, pasture land in contrast to cultivated land.

[10:10]  ³⁴ tn That is, “to slaughter” (in reference to animals).

[10:10]  ³⁵ tn That is, more than one would normally expect or anticipate.

[16:22]  ³⁶ tn Or “distress.”

[16:22]  ³⁷ sn An allusion to Isa 66:14 LXX, which reads: “Then you will see, and your heart will be glad, and your bones will flourish like the new grass; and the hand of the Lord will be made known to his servants, but he will be indignant toward his enemies.” The change from “you will see [me]” to I will see you places more emphasis on Jesus as the one who reinitiates the relationship with the disciples after his resurrection, but v. 16 (you will see me) is more like Isa 66:14. Further support for seeing this allusion as intentional is found in Isa 66:7, which uses the same imagery of the woman giving birth found in John 16:21. In the context of Isa 66 the passages refer to the institution of the messianic kingdom, and in fact the last clause of 66:14 along with the following verses (15-17) have yet to be fulfilled. This is part of the tension of present and future eschatological fulfillment that runs throughout the NT, by virtue of the fact that there are two advents. Some prophecies are fulfilled or partially fulfilled at the first advent, while other prophecies or parts of prophecies await fulfillment at the second.