Psalms 85:9-12

85:9 Certainly his loyal followers will soon experience his deliverance; ¹ 

then his splendor will again appear in our land. ² 

85:10 Loyal love and faithfulness meet; ³ 

deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. ⁴ 

85:11 Faithfulness grows from the ground,

and deliverance looks down from the sky. ⁵ 

85:12 Yes, the Lord will bestow his good blessings, ⁶ 

and our land will yield ⁷  its crops.

Leviticus 26:4

26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ⁸  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ⁹ 

Isaiah 1:19

1:19 If you have a willing attitude and obey, ¹⁰ 

then you will again eat the good crops of the land.

Isaiah 30:23-24

30:23 He will water the seed you plant in the ground,

and the ground will produce crops in abundance. ¹¹ 

At that time ¹²  your cattle will graze in wide pastures.

30:24 The oxen and donkeys used in plowing ¹³ 

will eat seasoned feed winnowed with a shovel and pitchfork. ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 34:26-27

34:26 I will turn them and the regions around my hill into a blessing. I will make showers come down in their season; they will be showers that bring blessing. ¹⁵  34:27 The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the earth will yield its crops. They will live securely on their land; they will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hand of those who enslaved them.

Hosea 2:21-22

Agricultural Fertility Restored to the Repentant Nation

2:21 “At that time, ¹⁶  I will willingly respond,” ¹⁷  declares the Lord.

“I will respond to the sky,

and the sky ¹⁸  will respond to the ground;

2:22 then the ground will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil;

and they will respond to ‘God Plants’ (Jezreel)! ¹⁹ 

Hosea 2:1

2:1 Then you will call ²⁰  your ²¹  brother, “My People” (Ammi)! You will call your sister, “Pity” (Ruhamah)!

Colossians 3:6-9

3:6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience. ²²  3:7 You also lived your lives ²³  in this way at one time, when you used to live among them. 3:8 But now, put off all such things ²⁴  as anger, rage, malice, slander, abusive language from your mouth. 3:9 Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with its practices

[85:9]  ¹ tn Heb “certainly his deliverance [is] near to those who fear him.”

[85:9]  ² tn Heb “to dwell, glory, in our land.” “Glory” is the subject of the infinitive. The infinitive with -לְ (lÿ), “to dwell,” probably indicates result here (“then”). When God delivers his people and renews his relationship with them, he will once more reveal his royal splendor in the land.

[85:10]  ³ tn The psalmist probably uses the perfect verbal forms in v. 10 in a dramatic or rhetorical manner, describing what he anticipates as if it were already occurring or had already occurred.

[85:10]  ⁴ sn Deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. The psalmist personifies these abstract qualities to emphasize that God’s loyal love and faithfulness will yield deliverance and peace for his people.

[85:11]  ⁵ sn The psalmist already sees undeniable signs of God’s faithfulness and expects deliverance to arrive soon.

[85:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “what is good.”

[85:12]  ⁸ tn Both “bestow” and “yield” translate the same Hebrew verb (נָתַן, natan). The repetition of the word emphasizes that agricultural prosperity is the direct result of divine blessing.

[26:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[1:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “listen”; KJV “obedient”; NASB “If you consent and obey.”

[30:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he will give rain for your seed which you plant in the ground, and food [will be] the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and abundant.”

[30:23]  ¹⁴ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[30:24]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground.”

[30:24]  ¹⁶ sn Crops will be so abundant that even the work animals will eat well.

[34:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “showers of blessing.” Abundant rain, which in turn produces fruit and crops (v. 27), is a covenantal blessing for obedience (Lev 26:4).

[2:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “And in that day”; NAB, NRSV “On that day.”

[2:21]  ²⁰ tn The verb עָנָה, (’anah) which is used throughout 2:23-24, is related to the root I עָנָה (’anah), “to answer, listen attentively, react willingly” (BDB 772 s.v. 1.b; HALOT 852 s.v. ענה 3.b).

[2:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “and they.” In the Hebrew text the plural pronoun is used because it refers back to the term translated “sky,” which is a dual form in Hebrew. Many English versions (e.g., NAB, NASB, NRSV) use the plural term “heavens” here, which agrees with a plural pronoun (cf. also NIV, NCV “skies”).

[2:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “Jezreel.” The use of the name יִזְרְעֶאל (yizré’e’l, “Jezreel”) creates a powerful three-fold wordplay: (1) The proper name יִזְרְעֶאל (“Jezreel”) is a phonetic wordplay on the similar sounding name יִשְׂרָאֵל (yisra’el, “Israel”): God will answer Israel, that is, Jezreel. (2) The name יִזְרְעֶאל (“Jezreel”) plays on the verb זָרַע (zara’, “to sow, plant”), the immediately following word: וּזְרַעְתִּיהָ (uzéra’tiha, vav + Qal perfect 1st person common singular + 3rd person feminine singular suffix: “I will sow/plant her”). This wordplay creates a popular etymology for יִזְרְעֶאל meaning, “God sows/plants,” which fits well into the agricultural fertility imagery in 2:21-23 [2:23-25]. (3) This positive connotation of יִזְרְעֶאל (“Jezreel”) in 2:21-23[23-25] reverses the negative connotation of יִזְרְעֶאל (“Jezreel”) in 1:4-5 (bloodshed of Jehu in the Jezreel Valley).

[2:1]  ²³ tn Heb “Say to….” The imperative אִמְרוּ (’imru, Qal imperative masculine plural) functions rhetorically, as an example of erotesis of one verbal form (imperative) for another (indicative). The imperative is used as a rhetorical device to emphasize the certainty of a future action.

[2:1]  ²⁴ sn The suffixes on the nouns אֲחֵיכֶם (’akhekhem, “your brother”) and אֲחוֹתֵיכֶם (’akhotekhem, “your sister”) are both plural forms. The brother/sister imagery is being applied to Israel and Judah collectively.

[3:6]  ²⁵ tc The words ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας (epi tou" Juiou" th" apeiqeia", “on the sons of disobedience”) are lacking in Ì⁴⁶ B b sa, but are found in א A C D F G H I Ψ 075 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy bo. The words are omitted by several English translations (NASB, NIV, ESV, TNIV). This textual problem is quite difficult to resolve. On the one hand, the parallel account in Eph 5:6 has these words, thus providing scribes a motive for adding them here. On the other hand, the reading without the words may be too hard: The ἐν οἷς (en |oi") of v. 7 seems to have no antecedent without υἱούς already in the text, although it could possibly be construed as neuter referring to the vice list in v. 5. Further, although the witness of B is especially important, there are other places in which B and Ì⁴⁶ share errant readings of omission. Nevertheless, the strength of the internal evidence against the longer reading is at least sufficient to cause doubt here. The decision to retain the words in the text is less than certain.

[3:7]  ²⁷ tn Grk “you also walked.” The verb περιπατέω (peripatew) is commonly used in the NT to refer to behavior or conduct of one’s life (L&N 41.11).

[3:8]  ²⁹ tn The Greek article with τὰ πάντα (ta panta) is anaphoric, referring to the previous list of vices, and has been translated here as “all such things.”