Imamat 26:39-42

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ¹  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ²  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ³  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁴  by which they also walked ⁵  in hostility against me ⁶  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ⁷  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁸  their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ⁹  and I will remember the land.

Ulangan 4:29-31

4:29 But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul. ¹⁰  4:30 In your distress when all these things happen to you in the latter days, ¹¹  if you return to the Lord your God and obey him ¹²  4:31 (for he ¹³  is a merciful God), he will not let you down ¹⁴  or destroy you, for he cannot ¹⁵  forget the covenant with your ancestors that he confirmed by oath to them.

Ulangan 30:2-5

30:2 Then if you and your descendants ¹⁶  turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being ¹⁷  just as ¹⁸  I am commanding you today, 30:3 the Lord your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he ¹⁹  has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, ²⁰  from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 30:5 Then he ²¹  will bring you to the land your ancestors ²²  possessed and you also will possess it; he will do better for you and multiply you more than he did your ancestors.

Yeremia 29:11-14

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ²³  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ²⁴  a future filled with hope. ²⁵  29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ²⁶  I will hear your prayers. ²⁷  29:13 When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, ²⁸  29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ ²⁹  says the Lord. ³⁰  ‘Then I will reverse your plight ³¹  and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ³²  ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

[26:39]  ¹ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ² tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[26:40]  ³ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁴ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁵ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁶ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:41]  ⁷ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

[26:41]  ⁸ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

[26:42]  ⁹ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[4:29]  ¹⁰ tn Or “mind and being.” See Deut 6:5.

[4:30]  ¹¹ sn The phrase is not used here in a technical sense for the eschaton, but rather refers to a future time when Israel will be punished for its sin and experience exile. See Deut 31:29.

[4:30]  ¹² tn Heb “hear his voice.” The expression is an idiom meaning “obey,” occurring in Deut 8:20; 9:23; 13:18; 21:18, 20; 26:14, 17; 27:10; 28:1-2, 15, 45, 62; 30:2, 8, 10, 20.

[4:31]  ¹³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 4:3.

[4:31]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he will not drop you,” i.e., “will not abandon you” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[4:31]  ¹⁵ tn Or “will not.” The translation understands the imperfect verbal form to have an added nuance of capability here.

[30:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “children.”

[30:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “heart and soul” (also in vv. 6, 10).

[30:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “according to all.”

[30:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[30:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “are at the farthest edge of the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[30:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[30:5]  ²² tn Heb “fathers” (also later in this verse and in vv. 9, 20).

[29:11]  ²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

[29:11]  ²⁵ tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.

[29:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “come and pray to me.” This is an example of verbal hendiadys where two verb formally joined by “and” convey a main concept with the second verb functioning as an adverbial qualifier.

[29:12]  ²⁷ tn Or “You will call out to me and come to me in prayer and I will hear your prayers.” The verbs are vav consecutive perfects and can be taken either as unconditional futures or as contingent futures. See GKC 337 §112.kk and 494 §159.g and compare the usage in Gen 44:22 for the use of the vav consecutive perfects in contingent futures. The conditional clause in the middle of 29:13 and the deuteronomic theology reflected in both Deut 30:1-5 and 1 Kgs 8:46-48 suggest that the verbs are continent futures here. For the same demand for wholehearted seeking in these contexts which presuppose exile see especially Deut 30:2, 1 Kgs 8:48.

[29:13]  ²⁸ tn Or “If you wholeheartedly seek me”; Heb “You will seek me and find [me] because you will seek me with all your heart.” The translation attempts to reflect the theological nuances of “seeking” and “finding” and the psychological significance of “heart” which refers more to intellectual and volitional concerns in the OT than to emotional ones.

[29:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I will let myself be found by you.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 594 s.v. מָצָא Niph.1.f and compare the usage in Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:2. The Greek version already noted that nuance when it translated the phrase “I will manifest myself to you.”

[29:14]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:14]  ³¹ tn Heb “restore your fortune.” Alternately, “I will bring you back from exile.” This idiom occurs twenty-six times in the OT and in several cases it is clearly not referring to return from exile but restoration of fortunes (e.g., Job 42:10; Hos 6:11–7:1; Jer 33:11). It is often followed as here by “regather” or “bring back” (e.g., Jer 30:3; Ezek 29:14) so it is often misunderstood as “bringing back the exiles.” The versions (LXX, Vulg., Tg., Pesh.) often translate the idiom as “to go away into captivity,” deriving the noun from שְׁבִי (shÿvi, “captivity”). However, the use of this expression in Old Aramaic documents of Sefire parallels the biblical idiom: “the gods restored the fortunes of the house of my father again” (J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire [BibOr], 100-101, 119-20). The idiom means “to turn someone's fortune, bring about change” or “to reestablish as it was” (HALOT 1386 s.v. 3.c). In Ezek 16:53 it is paralleled by the expression “to restore the situation which prevailed earlier.” This amounts to restitutio in integrum, which is applicable to the circumstances surrounding the return of the exiles.

[29:14]  ³² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”