Mazmur 105:4

105:4 Seek the Lord and the strength he gives!

Seek his presence continually!

Yesaya 31:1

Egypt Will Disappoint

31:1 Those who go down to Egypt for help are as good as dead, ¹ 

those who rely on war horses,

and trust in Egypt’s many chariots ² 

and in their many, many horsemen. ³ 

But they do not rely on the Holy One of Israel ⁴ 

and do not seek help from the Lord.

Yesaya 55:6

55:6 Seek the Lord while he makes himself available; ⁵ 

call to him while he is nearby!

Yeremia 29:12-14

29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ⁶  I will hear your prayers. ⁷  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, ⁸  29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ ⁹  says the Lord. ¹⁰  ‘Then I will reverse your plight ¹¹  and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ¹²  ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

Yeremia 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ¹³ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ¹⁴ 

Amos 5:4

5:4 The Lord says this to the family ¹⁵  of Israel:

“Seek me ¹⁶  so you can live!

Amos 5:6

5:6 Seek the Lord so you can live!

Otherwise he will break out ¹⁷  like fire against Joseph’s ¹⁸  family; ¹⁹ 

the fire ²⁰  will consume

and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel. ²¹ 

Amos 5:8

5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight ²²  into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

Amos 5:15

5:15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right!

Promote ²³  justice at the city gate! ²⁴ 

Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on ²⁵  those who are left from ²⁶  Joseph. ²⁷ 

Zefanya 2:1-3

The Prophet Warns the People

2:1 Bunch yourselves together like straw, ²⁸  you undesirable ²⁹  nation,

2:2 before God’s decree becomes reality ³⁰  and the day of opportunity disappears like windblown chaff, ³¹ 

before the Lord’s raging anger ³²  overtakes ³³  you –

before the day of the Lord’s angry judgment overtakes you!

2:3 Seek the Lord’s favor, ³⁴  all you humble people ³⁵  of the land who have obeyed his commands! ³⁶ 

Strive to do what is right! ³⁷  Strive to be humble! ³⁸ 

Maybe you will be protected ³⁹  on the day of the Lord’s angry judgment.

Lukas 13:24

13:24 “Exert every effort ⁴⁰  to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.

[31:1]  ¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who go down to Egypt for help.”

[31:1]  ² tn Heb “and trust in chariots for they are many.”

[31:1]  ³ tn Heb “and in horsemen for they are very strong [or “numerous”].”

[31:1]  ⁴ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[55:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “while he allows himself to be found.” The Niphal form has a tolerative force here.

[29:12]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:14]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.

[5:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “house.”

[5:4]  ¹⁶ sn The following verses explain what it meant to seek the Lord. Israel was to abandon the mere formalism and distorted view of God and reality that characterized religious activity at the worship sites, as well as the social injustice that permeated Israelite society. Instead the people were to repent and promote justice in the land. This call to seek the Lord echoes the challenge in 4:13 to prepare to meet him as he truly is.

[5:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “rush.” The verb depicts swift movement.

[5:6]  ¹⁸ sn Here Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.

[5:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “house.”

[5:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[5:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “to/for Bethel.” The translation assumes that the preposition indicates advantage, “on behalf of.” Another option is to take the preposition as vocative, “O Bethel.”

[5:8]  ²² tn Heb “darkens the day into night.”

[5:15]  ²³ tn Heb “set up, establish.” In the ancient Near East it was the responsibility especially of the king to establish justice. Here the prophet extends that demand to local leaders and to the nation as a whole (cf. 5:24).

[5:15]  ²⁴ sn Legal disputes were resolved in the city gate (see the note in v. 12). This repetition of this phrase serves to highlight a deliberate contrast to the injustices cited in vv. 11-13.

[5:15]  ²⁵ tn Or “will show favor to.”

[5:15]  ²⁶ tn Or “the remnant of” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “what’s left of your people.”

[5:15]  ²⁷ sn Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.

[2:1]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew text combines a Hitpolel imperative of קָשַׁשׁ (qashash) with a Qal imperative of the same root. Elsewhere this root appears in the polel stem with the meaning “gather stubble.” Zephaniah’s command is ironic, implying the people are like stubble or straw. As such, they are vulnerable to the Lord’s fiery judgment that will quickly consume them (see 1:18). See Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 96.

[2:1]  ²⁹ tn Some relate this word to an Aramaic cognate meaning “to be ashamed.” With the negative particle it would then mean “unashamed” (cf. NIV “shameful”; NRSV “shameless”). However, elsewhere in biblical Hebrew the verb means “to desire,” or with the negative particle “undesirable.” Cf. also NEB “unruly.”

[2:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “before the giving birth of a decree.” For various alternative readings, see J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 187-88.

[2:2]  ³¹ tn The second half of the line reads literally, “like chaff it passes by a day.” The translation above assumes the “day” is the brief time God is giving the nation to repent. The comparison of this quickly passing opportunity to chaff is consistent with the straw imagery of v. 1.

[2:2]  ³² tn Heb “the fury of the anger of the Lord.” The synonyms are combined to emphasize the extreme degree of the Lord’s anger.

[2:2]  ³³ tn Heb “comes upon.” This phrase occurs twice in this verse.

[2:3]  ³⁴ tn Heb “seek the Lord,” but “favor” seems to be implied from the final line of the verse.

[2:3]  ³⁵ tn Or “poor.” The precise referent of this Hebrew term is unclear. The word may refer to the economically poor or to the spiritually humble.

[2:3]  ³⁶ tn The present translation assumes the Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) here refers to God’s covenantal requirements and is a synonym for the Law. The word can mean “justice” and could refer more specifically to the principles of justice contained in the Law. In this case the phrase could be translated, “who have promoted the justice God demands.”

[2:3]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Seek what is right.”

[2:3]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Seek humility.”

[2:3]  ³⁹ tn Heb “hidden.” Cf. NEB “it may be that you will find shelter”; NRSV “perhaps you may be hidden.”

[13:24]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “Make every effort” (L&N 68.74; cf. NIV); “Do your best” (TEV); “Work hard” (NLT); Grk “Struggle.” The idea is to exert one’s maximum effort (cf. BDAG 17 s.v. ἀγωνίζομαι 2.b, “strain every nerve to enter”) because of the supreme importance of attaining entry into the kingdom of God.