Ezra 9:9

9:9 Although we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our servitude. He has extended kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, in that he has revived us ¹  to restore the temple of our God and to raise ²  up its ruins and to give us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ³ 

Mazmur 51:1

Psalm 51 ⁴ 

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. ⁵ 

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of ⁶  your loyal love!

Because of ⁷  your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! ⁸ 

Yesaya 54:8-10

54:8 In a burst ⁹  of anger I rejected you ¹⁰  momentarily,

but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you,”

says your protector, ¹¹  the Lord.

54:9 “As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, ¹² 

when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood ¹³  would never again cover the earth.

In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.

54:10 Even if the mountains are removed

and the hills displaced,

my devotion will not be removed from you,

nor will my covenant of friendship ¹⁴  be displaced,”

says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you.

Yesaya 61:4

61:4 They will rebuild the perpetual ruins

and restore the places that were desolate; ¹⁵ 

they will reestablish the ruined cities,

the places that have been desolate since ancient times.

[9:9]  ¹ tn Heb “has granted us reviving.”

[9:9]  ² tn Heb “to cause to stand.”

[9:9]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[51:1]  ⁴ sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. The exiles could relate to David’s experience, for they, like him, and had been forced to confront their sin. They appropriated David’s ancient prayer and applied it to their own circumstances.

[51:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”

[51:1]  ⁶ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁷ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁸ tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”

[54:8]  ⁹ tn According to BDB 1009 s.v. שֶׁטֶף the noun שֶׁצֶף here is an alternate form of שֶׁטֶף (shetef, “flood”). Some relate the word to an alleged Akkadian cognate meaning “strength.”

[54:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I hid my face from you.”

[54:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[54:9]  ¹² tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “For [or “indeed”] the waters of Noah [is] this to me.” כִּי־מֵי (ki-me, “for the waters of”) should be emended to כְּמֵי (kÿmey, “like the days of”), which is supported by the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and all the ancient versions except LXX.

[54:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “the waters of Noah” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[54:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “peace” (so many English versions); NLT “of blessing.”

[61:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the formerly desolate places they will raise up.”