Imamat 26:3-13

The Benefits of Obedience

26:3 “‘If you walk in my statutes and are sure to obey my commandments, ¹  26:4 I will give you your rains in their time so that ²  the land will give its yield and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. ³  26:5 Threshing season will extend for you until the season for harvesting grapes, ⁴  and the season for harvesting grapes will extend until sowing season, so ⁵  you will eat your bread until you are satisfied, ⁶  and you will live securely in your land. 26:6 I will grant peace in the land so that ⁷  you will lie down to sleep without anyone terrifying you. ⁸  I will remove harmful animals ⁹  from the land, and no sword of war ¹⁰  will pass through your land. 26:7 You will pursue your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. ¹¹  26:8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 26:9 I will turn to you, make you fruitful, multiply you, and maintain ¹²  my covenant with you. 26:10 You will still be eating stored produce from the previous year ¹³  and will have to clean out what is stored from the previous year to make room for new. ¹⁴ 

26:11 “‘I will put my tabernacle ¹⁵  in your midst and I will not abhor you. ¹⁶  26:12 I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be my people. 26:13 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, ¹⁷  and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright. ¹⁸ 

Ulangan 28:1-14

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ¹⁹  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ²⁰  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. 28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ²¹  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ²²  28:4 Your children ²³  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ²⁴  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ²⁵  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ²⁶  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ²⁷  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ²⁸  and obey him. ²⁹  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ³⁰  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ³¹  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ³²  promised your ancestors ³³  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ³⁴  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 28:13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ³⁵  commandments which I am urging ³⁶  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ³⁷  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ³⁸  them.

Mazmur 105:8-9

105:8 He always remembers his covenantal decree,

the promise he made ³⁹  to a thousand generations –

105:9 the promise ⁴⁰  he made to Abraham,

the promise he made by oath to Isaac!

Mikha 7:20

7:20 You will be loyal to Jacob

and extend your loyal love to Abraham, ⁴¹ 

which you promised on oath to our ancestors ⁴² 

in ancient times. ⁴³ 

[26:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and my commandments you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8; 25:18, etc.).

[26:4]  ² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:4]  ³ tn Heb “the tree of the field will give its fruit.” As a collective singular this has been translated as plural.

[26:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “will reach for you the vintage season.”

[26:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “to satisfaction”; KJV, ASV, NASB “to the full.”

[26:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[26:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and there will be no one who terrifies.” The words “to sleep” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[26:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “harmful animal,” singular, but taken here as a collective plural (so almost all English versions).

[26:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “no sword”; the words “of war” are supplied in the translation to indicate what the metaphor of the sword represents.

[26:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to the sword.”

[26:9]  ¹² tn Heb “cause to arise,” but probably used here for the Lord’s intention of confirming or maintaining the covenant commitment made at Sinai. Cf. KJV “establish”; NASB “will confirm”; NAB “carry out”; NIV “will keep.”

[26:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “old [produce] growing old.”

[26:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and old from the presence of new you will bring out.”

[26:11]  ¹⁵ tn LXX codexes Vaticanus and Alexandrinus have “my covenant” rather than “my tabernacle.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “my dwelling.”

[26:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and my soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] will not abhor you.”

[26:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from being to them slaves.”

[26:13]  ¹⁸ tn In other words, to walk as free people and not as slaves. Cf. NIV “with (+ your CEV, NLT) heads held high”; NCV “proudly.”

[28:1]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[28:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[28:3]  ²² tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ²³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:6]  ²⁴ sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.

[28:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

[28:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

[28:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.

[28:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).

[28:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ³² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ³³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[28:13]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:13]  ³⁶ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

[28:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

[28:14]  ³⁸ tn Heb “in order to serve.”

[105:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “[the] word he commanded.” The text refers here to God’s unconditional covenantal promise to Abraham and the patriarchs, as vv. 10-12 make clear.

[105:9]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “which.”

[7:20]  ⁴¹ tn More literally, “You will extend loyalty to Jacob, and loyal love to Abraham.

[7:20]  ⁴² tn Heb “our fathers.” The Hebrew term refers here to more distant ancestors, not immediate parents.

[7:20]  ⁴³ tn Heb “which you swore [or, “pledged”] to our fathers from days of old.”