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June 23, 2020

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 6

Psalm 6^[a]

For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments, according to the sheminith style;^[b] a psalm of David.

6 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger.
Do not discipline me in your raging fury.^[c]
²Have mercy on me,^[d] Lord, for I am frail.
Heal me, Lord, for my bones are shaking.^[e]
³I am absolutely terrified,^[f]
and you, Lord—how long will this continue?^[g]
⁴Relent, Lord, rescue me!^[h]
Deliver me because of your faithfulness.^[i]
⁵For no one remembers you in the realm of death.^[j]
In Sheol who gives you thanks?^[k]
⁶I am exhausted as I groan.
All night long I drench my bed in tears;^[l]
my tears saturate the cushion beneath me.^[m]
⁷My eyes^[n] grow dim^[o] from suffering;
they grow weak^[p] because of all my enemies.^[q]
⁸Turn back from me, all you who behave wickedly,^[r]
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.^[s]
⁹The Lord has heard my appeal for mercy;
the Lord has accepted^[t] my prayer.
¹⁰They will be humiliated^[u] and absolutely terrified.^[v]
All my enemies will turn back and be suddenly humiliated.

Footnotes

Psalm 6:1 sn Psalm 6. The psalmist begs the Lord to withdraw his anger and spare his life. Having received a positive response to his prayer, the psalmist then confronts his enemies and describes how they retreat.
Psalm 6:1 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term שְׁמִינִית (sh^eminit, “sheminith”) is uncertain; perhaps it refers to a particular style of music. See 1 Chr 15:21.
Psalm 6:1 sn The implication is that the psalmist has sinned, causing God to discipline him by bringing a life-threatening illness upon him (see vv. 2-7).
Psalm 6:2 tn Or “show me favor.”
Psalm 6:2 tn Normally the verb בָּהַל (bahal) refers to an emotional response and means “tremble with fear, be terrified” (see vv. 3, 10). Perhaps here the “bones” are viewed as the seat of the psalmist’s emotions. However, the verb may describe one of the effects of his physical ailment, perhaps a fever. In Ezek 7:27 the verb describes how the hands of the people will shake with fear when they experience the horrors of divine judgment.
Psalm 6:3 tn Heb “my being is very terrified.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.
Psalm 6:3 tn Heb “and you, Lord, how long?” The suffering psalmist speaks in broken syntax. He addresses God, but then simply cries out with a brief, but poignant, question: How long will this (= his suffering) continue?
Psalm 6:4 tn Heb “my being,” or “my life.” The suffixed form of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being”) is often equivalent to a pronoun in poetic texts.
Psalm 6:4 sn Deliver me because of your faithfulness. Though the psalmist is experiencing divine discipline, he realizes that God has made a commitment to him in the past, so he appeals to God’s faithfulness in his request for help.
Psalm 6:5 tn Heb “for there is not in death your remembrance.” The Hebrew noun זֵכֶר (zekher, “remembrance”) here refers to the name of the Lord as invoked in liturgy and praise. Cf. Pss 30:4; 97:12. “Death” here refers to the realm of death where the dead reside. See the reference to Sheol in the next line.
Psalm 6:5 tn The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “no one.”sn In Sheol who gives you thanks? According to the OT, those who descend into the realm of death/Sheol are cut off from God’s mighty deeds and from the worshiping covenant community that experiences divine intervention (Pss 30:9; 88:10-12; Isa 38:18). In his effort to elicit a positive divine response, the psalmist reminds God that he will receive no praise or glory if he allows the psalmist to die. Dead men do not praise God!
Psalm 6:6 tn Heb “I cause to swim through all the night my bed.”
Psalm 6:6 tn Heb “with my tears my bed I flood/melt.”
Psalm 6:7 tn The Hebrew text has the singular “eye” here.
Psalm 6:7 tn Or perhaps, “are swollen.”
Psalm 6:7 tn Or perhaps, “grow old.”
Psalm 6:7 sn In his weakened condition the psalmist is vulnerable to the taunts and threats of his enemies.
Psalm 6:8 tn Heb “all [you] workers of wickedness.” See Ps 5:5.
Psalm 6:8 sn The Lord has heard. The psalmist’s mood abruptly changes because the Lord responded positively to the lament and petition of vv. 1-7 and promised him deliverance.
Psalm 6:9 tn The prefixed verbal form is probably a preterite here; it is parallel to a perfect and refers to the fact that the Lord has responded favorably to the psalmist’s request.
Psalm 6:10 tn In the structure of the Psalm, this verse is either another petition or a statement of confidence. If a petition, the four prefixed verbal forms in this verse should be understood as jussives. By form, many prefixed verbs can be either imperfect or jussive. But the third verb in the series, יָשֻׁבוּ (yashuvu), can be distinguished as an imperfect by its qibbuts theme vowel, and is not a jussive (which would have had a qamets hatuph or holem). Expecting all four verbs to be the same due to parallelism leads to the conclusion that this section is a statement of confidence, in which the imperfect verbs should be treated as future.
Psalm 6:10 sn The psalmist uses the same expression in v. 3 to describe the terror he was experiencing. He is confident that the tables will be turned and his enemies will know what absolute terror feels like.

Jeremiah 26:1-12

Jeremiah Is Put on Trial as a False Prophet^[a]

26 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah^[b] at the beginning of the reign^[c] of Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim of Judah. ²The Lord said, “Go stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.^[d] Speak out to all the people who are coming from the towns of Judah to worship in the Lord’s temple. Tell them everything I command you to tell them. Do not leave out a single word. ³Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do.^[e] If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them^[f] as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing.^[g] ⁴Tell them that the Lord says,^[h] ‘You must obey me; you must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws.^[i] ⁵You must pay attention to the exhortations of my servants the prophets. I have sent them to you over and over again.^[j] But you have not paid any attention to them. ⁶If you do not obey me,^[k] then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh.^[l] And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

⁷The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say these things in the Lord’s temple. ⁸Jeremiah had just barely finished saying all the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people when all at once some^[m] of the priests, the prophets, and the people grabbed him and shouted, “You deserve to die!^[n] ⁹How dare you claim the Lord’s authority to prophesy such things! How dare you claim his authority to prophesy that this temple will become like Shiloh and that this city will become an uninhabited ruin!”^[o] Then all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the Lord’s temple.

¹⁰However, some of the officials^[p] of Judah heard about what was happening^[q] and they rushed up to the Lord’s temple from the royal palace. They set up court^[r] at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s temple.^[s] ¹¹Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said,^[t] “This man should be condemned to die^[u] because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so^[v] with your own ears.”

¹²Then Jeremiah made his defense before all the officials and all the people.^[w] “The Lord sent me to prophesy everything you have heard me say against this temple and against this city.

Footnotes

Jeremiah 26:1 sn Beginning with Jer 26 up to Jer 45, the book narrates in third person style incidents in the life of Jeremiah and prophecies (or sermons) he gave in obedience to the Lord’s commands. Baruch is the probable narrator, passing on information gleaned from Jeremiah himself. (See Jer 36:4, 18, 32; 45:1 and also 32:13-14, where it is clear that Baruch is Jeremiah’s scribe or secretary.) Chapters 26-29 contain narratives concerning reactions to Jeremiah’s prophecies and his conflict with the prophets who were prophesying that things would be all right (see, e.g., 14:14-15; 23:21).
Jeremiah 26:1 tn The words “to Jeremiah” are not in the Hebrew text. They are added by the Old Latin (not the Vulgate) and the Syriac versions. They are implicit, however, to the narrative style, which speaks of Jeremiah in the third person (cf. vv. 7, 12). They have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
Jeremiah 26:1 tn It is often thought that the term here is equivalent to a technical term in Akkadian (resh sharruti) that refers to the part of the year remaining from the death or deposing of the previous king until the beginning of the calendar year, when the new king officially ascended the throne. In this case it would refer to the part of the year between September, 609 b.c., when Jehoiakim was placed on the throne as a puppet king by Pharaoh Necho (2 Kgs 23:34-35), and April, 608 b.c., when he would have been officially celebrated as king. However, it will be suggested below, in conjunction with the textual problems in 27:1 and 28:1, that the term does not necessarily refer to this period.
Jeremiah 26:2 sn It is generally agreed that the incident recorded in this chapter relates to the temple message that Jeremiah gave in 7:1-15. The message there is summarized here in vv. 3-6. The primary interest here is in the response to that message.
Jeremiah 26:3 tn Heb “will turn from his wicked way.”
Jeremiah 26:3 tn For the idiom and translation of terms involved here, see 18:8 and the translator’s note there.sn The Lord is being consistent in the application of the principle, laid down in Jer 18:7-8, that reformation of character will result in the withdrawal of the punishment of “uprooting, tearing down, destroying.” His prophecies of doom are conditional threats, open to change with change in behavior.
Jeremiah 26:3 tn Heb “because of the wickedness of their deeds.”
Jeremiah 26:4 tn Heb “thus says the Lord, ‘…’.” The use of the indirect quotation in the translation eliminates one level of embedded quotation to avoid confusion.
Jeremiah 26:4 tn Heb “by walking in my law that I set before you.”sn Examples of those laws are found in Jer 7:5-6, 9. The law was summarized or epitomized in the ten commandments, which are called the “words of the covenant” in Exod 34:28, but it contained much more. However, when Israel is taken to task by God, it often relates to their failure to live up to the standards of the ten commandments (Heb “the ten words”; see Hos 4:1-3; Jer 7:9).
Jeremiah 26:5 tn See the translator’s note on 7:13 for the idiom here.
Jeremiah 26:6 tn 26:4-6 are all one long sentence containing a long condition with subordinate clauses (vv. 4-5) and a compound consequence in v. 6: Heb “If you will not obey me by walking in my law…by paying attention to the words of the prophets, whom…and you did not pay heed, then I will make…and I will make…” The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style, but an attempt has been made to reflect all the subordinations in the English translation.
Jeremiah 26:6 sn See the study note on Jer 7:13.
Jeremiah 26:8 tn The translation again represents an attempt to break up a long, complex Hebrew sentence into equivalent English ones that conform more to contemporary English style: Heb “And as soon as Jeremiah finished saying all that…, the priests…grabbed him and said…” The word “some” has been supplied in the translation because obviously it was not all the priests and prophets, and all the people, but only some of them. There is, of course, rhetorical intent here to show that all were implicated, although all may not have actually participated. (This is a common figure called synecdoche, where all is put for a part—all for all kinds or representatives of all kinds. See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 614-19, and compare usage in Acts 10:12; Matt 3:5.)
Jeremiah 26:8 tn Or “You must certainly die!” The construction here is again emphatic with the infinitive preceding the finite verb (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Exod 21:28).
Jeremiah 26:9 tn Heb “Why have you prophesied in the Lord’s name, saying, ‘This house will become like Shiloh, and this city will become a ruin without inhabitant?’” It is clear from the context here and in 7:1-15 that the emphasis is on “in the Lord’s name” and that the question is rhetorical. The question is not a quest for information but an accusation, a remonstrance. (For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 953-54, who calls a question like this a rhetorical question of remonstrance or expostulation. For good examples see Pss 11:1; 50:16.) For the significance of “prophesying in the Lord’s name,” see the study note on 14:14. The translation again utilizes the indirect quote to eliminate one level of embedded quotation.sn They are questioning his right to claim the Lord’s authority for what they see as a false prophecy. They believed that the presence of the Lord in the temple guaranteed their safety (7:4, 10, 14), and that the Lord could not possibly be threatening its destruction. Hence they were ready to put him to death as a false prophet, according to the law of Moses (Deut 18:20).
Jeremiah 26:10 sn These officials of Judah were officials from the royal court. They may have included some of the officials mentioned in Jer 36:12-25. They would have been concerned about any possible “illegal” proceedings going on in the temple.
Jeremiah 26:10 tn Heb “these things.”
Jeremiah 26:10 tn Heb “they sat” or “they took their seats.” However, the context is one of judicial trial.sn The gateway or gate complex of an ancient Near Eastern city was often used for court assemblies (cf. Deut 21:19; 22:15; Ruth 4:1; Isa 29:21). Here the gate of the temple was used for the convening of a court to try Jeremiah for the charge of being a false prophet.
Jeremiah 26:10 tn The translation follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions in reading the word “house” (= temple) here. The majority of Hebrew mss do not have this word. It is, however, implicit in the construction “the New Gate of the Lord.”sn The location of the New Gate is uncertain. It is mentioned again in Jer 36:10, where it is connected with the upper (i.e., inner) court of the temple. Some equate it with the Upper Gate that Jotham rebuilt during his reign (2 Kgs 15:35; Jotham reigned from 750-735 b.c.). That gate, however, has already been referred to as the Upper Gate of Benjamin in Jer 20:2 (for more detail see the study note there) and would not likely have been called something different here.
Jeremiah 26:11 tn Heb “the priests and prophets said to the leaders and the people….” The long sentence has been broken up to conform better with contemporary English style, and the situational context is reflected in “laid their charges.”
Jeremiah 26:11 tn Heb “a sentence of death to this man.”
Jeremiah 26:11 tn Heb “it.”
Jeremiah 26:12 tn Heb “Jeremiah said to all the leaders and all the people….” See the note on the word “said” in the preceding verse.

Revelation 2:8-11

To the Church in Smyrna

⁸“To^[a] the angel of the church in Smyrna write the following:^[b]

“This is the solemn pronouncement of^[c] the one who is the first and the last, the one who was dead, but^[d] came to life: ⁹‘I know the distress you are suffering^[e] and your poverty (but you are rich). I also know^[f] the slander against you^[g] by those who call themselves Jews and really are not, but are a synagogue^[h] of Satan. ¹⁰Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. The devil is about to have some of you thrown^[i] into prison so you may be tested,^[j] and you will experience suffering^[k] for ten days. Remain faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown that is life itself.^[l] ¹¹The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers^[m] will in no way be harmed by the second death.’

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 6[a]

For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments, according to the sheminith style;[b] a psalm of David.

Footnotes

Jeremiah Is Put on Trial as a False Prophet[a]

Footnotes

To the Church in Smyrna

Footnotes

Psalm 6^[a]

For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments, according to the sheminith style;^[b] a psalm of David.

Jeremiah Is Put on Trial as a False Prophet^[a]