Psalms 62:8

62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people!

Pour out your hearts before him! ¹ 

God is our shelter! (Selah)

Psalms 64:10

64:10 The godly will rejoice in the Lord

and take shelter in him.

All the morally upright ²  will boast. ³ 

Psalms 118:8-9

118:8 It is better to take shelter ⁴  in the Lord

than to trust in people.

118:9 It is better to take shelter in the Lord

than to trust in princes.

John 14:1

Jesus’ Parting Words to His Disciples

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. ⁵  You believe in God; ⁶  believe also in me.

Acts 27:25

27:25 Therefore keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God ⁷  that it will be just as I have been told.

[62:8]  ¹ tn To “pour out one’s heart” means to offer up to God intense, emotional lamentation and petitionary prayers (see Lam 2:19).

[64:10]  ² tn Heb “upright in heart.”

[64:10]  ³ tn That is, about the Lord’s accomplishments on their behalf.

[118:8]  ⁴ 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 5:11-12; 31:17-20; 34:21-22).

[14:1]  ⁵ sn The same verb is used to describe Jesus’ own state in John 11:33, 12:27, and 13:21. Jesus is looking ahead to the events of the evening and the next day, his arrest, trials, crucifixion, and death, which will cause his disciples extreme emotional distress.

[14:1]  ⁶ tn Or “Believe in God.” The translation of the two uses of πιστεύετε (pisteuete) is difficult. Both may be either indicative or imperative, and as L. Morris points out (John [NICNT], 637), this results in a bewildering variety of possibilities. To complicate matters further, the first may be understood as a question: “Do you believe in God? Believe also in me.” Morris argues against the KJV translation which renders the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative on the grounds that for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, faith in Jesus is inseparable from faith in God. But this is precisely the point that Jesus is addressing in context. He is about to undergo rejection by his own people as their Messiah. The disciples’ faith in him as Messiah and Lord would be cast into extreme doubt by these events, which the author makes clear were not at this time foreseen by the disciples. After the resurrection it is this identification between Jesus and the Father which needs to be reaffirmed (cf. John 20:24-29). Thus it seems best to take the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative, producing the translation “You believe in God; believe also in me.”

[27:25]  ⁷ tn BDAG 817 s.v. πιστεύω 1.c states, “w. pers. and thing added π. τινί τι believe someone with regard to someth….W. dat. of pers. and ὅτι foll…. πιστεύετέ μοι ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί J 14:11a. Cp. 4:21; Ac 27:25.”