Yesaya 49:14-23

The Lord Remembers Zion

49:14 “Zion said, ‘The Lord has abandoned me,

the sovereign master ¹  has forgotten me.’

49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ² 

Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ³ 

Even if mothers ⁴  were to forget,

I could never forget you! ⁵ 

49:16 Look, I have inscribed your name ⁶  on my palms;

your walls are constantly before me.

49:17 Your children hurry back,

while those who destroyed and devastated you depart.

49:18 Look all around you! ⁷ 

All of them gather to you.

As surely as I live,” says the Lord,

“you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry;

you will put them on as if you were a bride.

49:19 Yes, your land lies in ruins;

it is desolate and devastated. ⁸ 

But now you will be too small to hold your residents,

and those who devoured you will be far away.

49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement

will say within your hearing,

‘This place is too cramped for us, ⁹ 

make room for us so we can live here.’ ¹⁰ 

49:21 Then you will think to yourself, ¹¹ 

‘Who bore these children for me?

I was bereaved and barren,

dismissed and divorced. ¹² 

Who raised these children?

Look, I was left all alone;

where did these children come from?’”

49:22 This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“Look I will raise my hand to the nations;

I will raise my signal flag to the peoples.

They will bring your sons in their arms

and carry your daughters on their shoulders.

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ¹³  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ¹⁴ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ¹⁵  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

Yesaya 54:5-7

54:5 For your husband is the one who made you –

the Lord who commands armies is his name.

He is your protector, ¹⁶  the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁷ 

He is called “God of the entire earth.”

54:6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back

like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, ¹⁸ 

like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.

54:7 “For a short time I abandoned ¹⁹  you,

but with great compassion I will gather you.

Yesaya 60:1-4

Zion’s Future Splendor

60:1 “Arise! Shine! For your light arrives!

The splendor ²⁰  of the Lord shines on you!

60:2 For, look, darkness covers the earth

and deep darkness covers ²¹  the nations,

but the Lord shines on you;

his splendor ²²  appears over you.

60:3 Nations come to your light,

kings to your bright light.

60:4 Look all around you! ²³ 

They all gather and come to you –

your sons come from far away

and your daughters are escorted by guardians.

Hosea 2:19-20

2:19 I will commit myself to you ²⁴  forever;

I will commit myself to you in ²⁵  righteousness and justice,

in steadfast love and tender compassion.

2:20 I will commit myself to you in faithfulness;

then ²⁶  you will acknowledge ²⁷  the Lord.” ²⁸ 

Yohanes 3:29

3:29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly ²⁹  when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This then is my joy, and it is complete. ³⁰ 

Yohanes 3:2

3:2 came to Jesus ³¹  at night ³²  and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs ³³  that you do unless God is with him.”

Kolose 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ³⁴  brothers and sisters ³⁵  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ³⁶  from God our Father! ³⁷ 

Efesus 5:25-27

5:25 Husbands, love your ³⁸  wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 5:26 to sanctify her by cleansing her ³⁹  with the washing of the water by the word, 5:27 so that he ⁴⁰  may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ⁴¹ 

Efesus 5:32

5:32 This mystery is great – but I am actually ⁴²  speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

[49:14]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[49:15]  ² tn Heb “her suckling”; NASB “her nursing child.”

[49:15]  ³ tn Heb “so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?”

[49:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “these” (so ASV, NASB).

[49:15]  ⁵ sn The argument of v. 15 seems to develop as follows: The Lord has an innate attachment to Zion, just like a mother does for her infant child. But even if mothers were to suddenly abandon their children, the Lord would never forsake Zion. In other words, the Lord’s attachment to Zion is like a mother’s attachment to her infant child, but even stronger.

[49:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “you.” Here the pronoun is put by metonymy for the person’s name.

[49:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”

[49:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “Indeed your ruins and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction.” This statement is abruptly terminated in the Hebrew text and left incomplete.

[49:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.

[49:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”

[49:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”

[49:21]  ¹² tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”

[49:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ¹⁵ tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”

[54:5]  ¹⁶ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[54:5]  ¹⁷ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[54:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “like a woman abandoned and grieved in spirit.”

[54:7]  ¹⁹ tn Or “forsook” (NASB).

[60:1]  ²⁰ tn Or “glory” (so most English versions).

[60:2]  ²¹ tn The verb “covers” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[60:2]  ²² tn Or “glory” (so most English versions); TEV “the brightness of his presence.”

[60:4]  ²³ tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see!”

[2:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I will betroth you to me” (so NIV) here and in the following lines. Cf. NRSV “I will take you for my wife forever.”

[2:19]  ²⁵ tn The preposition בְּ (bet), which is repeated throughout 2:19-20 [21-22], denotes price paid (BDB 90 s.v. בְּ III.3; e.g., Ezek 3:14). The text contains an allusion to the payment of bridal gifts. The Lord will impute the moral character to Israel that will be necessary for a successful covenant relationship (contra 4:1).

[2:20]  ²⁶ tn The vav consecutive on the suffix conjugation verb וְיָדַעַתְּ (véyada’at, “then you will know”) introduces a result clause (cf. NASB, CEV).

[2:20]  ²⁷ tn Or “know.” The term יָדַע (yada’, “know, acknowledge”) is often used in covenant contexts. It can refer to the suzerain’s acknowledgment of his covenant obligations to his vassal or to the vassal’s acknowledgment of his covenant obligations to his suzerain. When used in reference to a vassal, the verb “know” is metonymical (cause for effect) for “obey.” See H. Huffmann, “The Treaty Background of Hebrew ya„daà,” BASOR 181 (1966): 31-37.

[2:20]  ²⁸ tc The MT reads יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”); however, many Hebrew mss read כִּי אָנִי (ki ’ani, “that it is I”), as also reflected in the Latin Vulgate (cf. CEV “know who I am”).

[3:29]  ²⁹ tn Grk “rejoices with joy” (an idiom).

[3:29]  ³⁰ tn Grk “Therefore this my joy is fulfilled.”

[3:2]  ³¹ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:2]  ³² tn Or “during the night.”

[3:2]  sn Possibly Nicodemus came…at night because he was afraid of public association with Jesus, or he wanted a lengthy discussion without interruptions; no explanation for the timing of the interview is given by the author. But the timing is significant for John in terms of the light-darkness motif – compare John 9:4, 11:10, 13:30 (especially), 19:39, and 21:3. Out of the darkness of his life and religiosity Nicodemus came to the Light of the world. The author probably had multiple meanings or associations in mind here, as is often the case.

[3:2]  ³³ sn The reference to signs (σημεῖα, shmeia) forms a link with John 2:23-25. Those people in Jerusalem believed in Jesus because of the signs he had performed. Nicodemus had apparently seen them too. But for Nicodemus all the signs meant is that Jesus was a great teacher sent from God. His approach to Jesus was well-intentioned but theologically inadequate; he had failed to grasp the messianic implications of the miraculous signs.

[1:2]  ³⁴ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ³⁵ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ³⁶ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ³⁷ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[5:25]  ³⁸ tn The Greek article has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[5:26]  ³⁹ tn The direct object “her” is implied, but not found in the Greek text. It has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the passage.

[5:27]  ⁴⁰ tn The use of the pronoun αὐτός (autos) is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious.

[5:27]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “but in order that it may be holy and blameless.”

[5:32]  ⁴² tn The term “actually” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied in the English translation to bring out the heightened sense of the statement.