Yesaya 66:2

66:2 My hand made them; ¹ 

that is how they came to be,” ²  says the Lord.

I show special favor ³  to the humble and contrite,

who respect what I have to say. ⁴ 

Yeremia 31:19

31:19 For after we turned away from you we repented.

After we came to our senses ⁵  we beat our breasts in sorrow. ⁶ 

We are ashamed and humiliated

because of the disgraceful things we did previously.’ ⁷ 

Lukas 23:48

23:48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. ⁸ 

[66:2]  ¹ tn Heb “all these.” The phrase refers to the heavens and earth, mentioned in the previous verse.

[66:2]  ² tn Heb “and all these were.” Some prefer to emend וַיִּהְיוּ (vayyihyu, “and they were”) to וְלִי הָיוּ (vÿli hayu, “and to me they were”), i.e., “and they belong to me.”

[66:2]  ³ tn Heb “and to this one I look” (KJV and NASB both similar).

[66:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “to the humble and the lowly in spirit and the one who trembles at my words.”

[31:19]  ⁵ tn For this meaning of the verb see HAL 374 s.v. יָדַע Nif 5 or W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 129. REB translates “Now that I am submissive” relating the verb to a second root meaning “be submissive.” (See HALOT 375 s.v. II יָדַע and J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 19-21, for evidence for this verb. Other passages cited with this nuance are Judg 8:16; Prov 10:9; Job 20:20.)

[31:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “I struck my thigh.” This was a gesture of grief and anguish (cf. Ezek 21:12 [21:17 HT]). The modern equivalent is “to beat the breast.”

[31:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “because I bear the reproach of my youth.” For the plural referents see the note at the beginning of v. 18.

[31:19]  sn The expression the disgraceful things we did in our earlier history refers to the disgrace that accompanied the sins that Israel did in her earlier years before she learned the painful lesson of submission to the Lord through the discipline of exile. For earlier references to the sins of her youth (i.e., in her earlier years as a nation) see 3:24-25; 22:21 and see also 32:29. At the time that these verses were written, neither northern Israel or Judah had expressed the kind of contrition voiced in vv. 18-19. As one commentator notes, the words here are both prophetic and instructive.

[23:48]  ⁸ sn Some apparently regretted what had taken place. Beating their breasts was a sign of lamentation.