Psalms 90:9

90:9 Yes, ¹  throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; ² 

the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. ³ 

Psalms 90:11

90:11 Who can really fathom the intensity of your anger? ⁴ 

Your raging fury causes people to fear you. ⁵ 

Psalms 39:11

39:11 You severely discipline people for their sins; ⁶ 

like a moth you slowly devour their strength. ⁷ 

Surely all people are a mere vapor. (Selah)

Psalms 59:13

59:13 Angrily wipe them out! Wipe them out so they vanish!

Let them know that God rules

in Jacob and to the ends of the earth! (Selah)

Numbers 17:12-13

17:12 The Israelites said to Moses, “We are bound to die! ⁸  We perish, we all perish! 17:13 (17:28) ⁹  Anyone who even comes close to the tabernacle of the Lord will die! Are we all to die?” ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 2:14-16

2:14 Now the length of time it took for us to go from Kadesh Barnea to the crossing of Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, time for all the military men of that generation to die, just as the Lord had vowed to them. 2:15 Indeed, it was the very hand of the Lord that eliminated them from within ¹¹  the camp until they were all gone.

Instructions Concerning Ammon

2:16 So it was that after all the military men had been eliminated from the community, ¹² 

Hebrews 3:10-11

3:10 “Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering ¹³  and they have not known my ways.’

3:11 “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’” ¹⁴ 

Hebrews 3:17--4:2

3:17 And against whom was God ¹⁵  provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁶  3:18 And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient? 3:19 So ¹⁷  we see that they could not enter because of unbelief.

God’s Promised Rest

4:1 Therefore we must be wary ¹⁸  that, while the promise of entering his rest remains open, none of you may seem to have come short of it. 4:2 For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did. But the message they heard did them no good, since they did not join in ¹⁹  with those who heard it in faith. ²⁰ 

[90:9]  ¹ tn Or “for.”

[90:9]  ² tn Heb “all our days pass by in your anger.”

[90:9]  ³ tn Heb “we finish our years like a sigh.” In Ezek 2:10 the word הֶגֶה (hegeh) elsewhere refers to a grumbling or moaning sound. Here a brief sigh or moan is probably in view. If so, the simile pictures one’s lifetime as transient. Another option is that the simile alludes to the weakness that characteristically overtakes a person at the end of one’s lifetime. In this case the phrase could be translated, “we end our lives with a painful moan.”

[90:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “Who knows the strength of your anger?”

[90:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “and like your fear [is] your raging fury.” Perhaps one should emend וּכְיִרְאָתְךְ (ukhyir’otekh, “and like your fear”) to יִרְאָתְךְ (yir’otkh, “your fear”), understanding a virtual dittography (אַפֶּךָ וּכְיִרְאָתְךְ, ’apekha ukhyir’otekh) to have occurred. In this case the psalmist asserts “your fear [is] your raging fury,” that is, your raging fury is what causes others to fear you. The suffix on “fear” is understood as objective.

[39:11]  ⁷ tn “with punishments on account of sin you discipline a man.”

[39:11]  ⁸ tc Heb “you cause to dissolve, like a moth, his desired [thing].” The translation assumes an emendation of חֲמוּדוֹ (khamudo, “his desirable [thing]”) to חֶמְדוֹ (khemdo, “his loveliness” [or “beauty”]), a reading that is supported by a few medieval Hebrew mss.

[17:12]  ¹⁰ tn The use of הֵן (hen) and the perfect tense in the nuance of a prophetic perfect expresses their conviction that they were bound to die – it was certain (see GKC 312-13 §106.n).

[17:13]  ¹³ sn Num 17:13 in the English Bible is 17:28 in the Hebrew text (BHS). See also the note on 16:36.

[17:13]  ¹⁴ tn The verse stresses the completeness of their death: “will we be consumed by dying” (הַאִם תַּמְנוּ לִגְוֹעַ, ha’im tamnu ligvoa’).

[2:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the middle of.” Although many recent English versions leave this expression untranslated, the point seems to be that these soldiers did not die in battle but “within the camp.”

[2:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and it was when they were eliminated, all the men of war, to die from the midst of the people.”

[3:10]  ²² tn Grk “they are wandering in the heart.”

[3:11]  ²⁵ tn Grk “if they shall enter my rest,” a Hebrew idiom expressing an oath that something will certainly not happen.

[3:17]  ²⁸ tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (God) has been specified for clarity.

[3:17]  ²⁹ sn An allusion to God’s judgment pronounced in Num 14:29, 32.

[3:19]  ³¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate a summary or conclusion to the argument of the preceding paragraph.

[4:1]  ³⁴ tn Grk “let us fear.”

[4:2]  ³⁷ tn Or “they were not united.”

[4:2]  ³⁸ tc A few mss (א and a few versional witnesses) have the nominative singular participle συγκεκερασμένος (sunkekerasmeno", “since it [the message] was not combined with faith by those who heard it”), a reading that refers back to the ὁ λόγος (Jo logo", “the message”). There are a few other variants here (e.g., συγκεκεραμμένοι [sunkekerammenoi] in 104, συγκεκεραμένους [sunkekeramenou"] in 1881 Ï), but the accusative plural participle συγκεκερασμένους (sunkekerasmenou"), found in Ì^13vid,46 A B C D* Ψ 0243 0278 33 81 1739 2464 pc, has by far the best external credentials. This participle agrees with the previous ἐκείνους (ekeinou", “those”), a more difficult construction grammatically than the nominative singular. Thus, both on external and internal grounds, συγκεκερασμένους is preferred.