Psalms 46:11

46:11 The Lord who commands armies is on our side! ¹ 

The God of Jacob ²  is our protector! ³  (Selah)

Numbers 14:9

14:9 Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. ⁴  Their protection ⁵  has turned aside from them, but the Lord is with us. Do not fear them!”

Numbers 14:2

14:2 And all the Israelites murmured ⁶  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ⁷  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ⁸  in this wilderness!

Numbers 13:12

13:12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli;

Isaiah 8:10

8:10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted!

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ⁹ 

For God is with us! ¹⁰ 

Matthew 28:20

28:20 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, ¹¹  I am with you ¹²  always, to the end of the age.” ¹³ 

Romans 8:31

8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:2

8:2 For the law of the life-giving Spirit ¹⁴  in Christ Jesus has set you ¹⁵  free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 4:22

4:22 So indeed it was credited to Abraham ¹⁶  as righteousness.

[46:11]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord of hosts is with us.” The title “Lord of hosts” here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle (see Ps 24:10). The military imagery is further developed in vv. 8-9.

[46:11]  ² tn That is, Israel, or Judah (see Ps 20:1).

[46:11]  ³ tn Heb “our elevated place” (see Pss 9:9; 18:2).

[14:9]  ⁴ sn The expression must indicate that they could destroy the enemies as easily as they could eat bread.

[14:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “their shade.” The figure compares the shade from the sun with the protection from the enemy. It is also possible that the text is alluding to their deities here.

[14:2]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew verb “to murmur” is לוּן (lun). It is a strong word, signifying far more than complaining or grumbling, as some of the modern translations have it. The word is most often connected to the wilderness experience. It is paralleled in the literature with the word “to rebel.” The murmuring is like a parliamentary vote of no confidence, for they no longer trusted their leaders and wished to choose a new leader and return. This “return to Egypt” becomes a symbol of their lack of faith in the Lord.

[14:2]  ⁷ tn The optative is expressed by לוּ (lu) and then the verb, here the perfect tense מַתְנוּ (matnu) – “O that we had died….” Had they wanted to die in Egypt they should not have cried out to the Lord to deliver them from bondage. Here the people became consumed with the fear and worry of what lay ahead, and in their panic they revealed a lack of trust in God.

[14:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “died.”

[8:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ¹⁰ sn In these vv. 9-10 the tone shifts abruptly from judgment to hope. Hostile nations like Assyria may attack God’s people, but eventually they will be destroyed, for God is with his people, sometimes to punish, but ultimately to vindicate. In addition to being a reminder of God’s presence in the immediate crisis faced by Ahaz and Judah, Immanuel (whose name is echoed in this concluding statement) was a guarantee of the nation’s future greatness in fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Eventually God would deliver his people from the hostile nations (vv. 9-10) through another child, an ideal Davidic ruler who would embody God’s presence in a special way (see 9:6-7). Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Davidic ideal prophesied by Isaiah, the one whom Immanuel foreshadowed. Through the miracle of the incarnation he is literally “God with us.” Matthew realized this and applied Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of Immanuel’s birth to Jesus (Matt 1:22-23). The first Immanuel was a reminder to the people of God’s presence and a guarantee of a greater child to come who would manifest God’s presence in an even greater way. The second Immanuel is “God with us” in a heightened and infinitely superior sense. He “fulfills” Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy by bringing the typology intended by God to realization and by filling out or completing the pattern designed by God. Of course, in the ultimate fulfillment of the type, the incarnate Immanuel’s mother must be a virgin, so Matthew uses a Greek term (παρθένος, parqenos), which carries that technical meaning (in contrast to the Hebrew word עַלְמָה [’almah], which has the more general meaning “young woman”). Matthew draws similar analogies between NT and OT events in 2:15, 18. The linking of these passages by analogy is termed “fulfillment.” In 2:15 God calls Jesus, his perfect Son, out of Egypt, just as he did his son Israel in the days of Moses, an historical event referred to in Hos 11:1. In so doing he makes it clear that Jesus is the ideal Israel prophesied by Isaiah (see Isa 49:3), sent to restore wayward Israel (see Isa 49:5, cf. Matt 1:21). In 2:18 Herod’s slaughter of the infants is another illustration of the oppressive treatment of God’s people by foreign tyrants. Herod’s actions are analogous to those of the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites, causing the personified land to lament as inconsolably as a mother robbed of her little ones (Jer 31:15).

[28:20]  ¹¹ tn The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has been translated here as “remember” (BDAG 468 s.v. 1.c).

[28:20]  ¹² sn I am with you. Matthew’s Gospel begins with the prophecy that the Savior’s name would be “Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with us,’” (1:23, in which the author has linked Isa 7:14 and 8:8, 10 together) and it ends with Jesus’ promise to be with his disciples forever. The Gospel of Matthew thus forms an inclusio about Jesus in his relationship to his people that suggests his deity.

[28:20]  ¹³ tc Most mss (A^c Θ Ë¹³ Ï it sy) have ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”) at the end of v. 20. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, no good reason exists for the omission of the particle in significant and early witnesses such as א A* B D W ˹ 33 al lat sa.

[8:2]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”

[8:2]  ¹⁵ tc Most mss read the first person singular pronoun με (me) here (A D 1739^c 1881 Ï lat sa). The second person singular pronoun σε (se) is superior because of external support (א B {F which reads σαι} G 1506* 1739*) and internal support (it is the harder reading since ch. 7 was narrated in the first person). At the same time, it could have arisen via dittography from the final syllable of the verb preceding it (ἠλευθέρωσεν, hleuqerwsen; “has set free”). But for this to happen in such early and diverse witnesses is unlikely, especially as it depends on various scribes repeatedly overlooking either the nu or the nu-bar at the end of the verb.

[4:22]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.