Isaiah's oracle that 'the haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the LORD alone exalted,' targeting 'every one that is proud and lofty' and 'every high tower,' directly underwrites Paul's 'every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God.' The shared lexicon of loftiness/exaltation humbled before God gives high volume and thematic coherence.

The lofty looks of man will be brought low, the haughtiness of men will be bowed down, and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day. For there will be a day of Yahweh of Armies for all that is proud and haughty, and for all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low: For all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, for all the oaks of Bashan, For all the high mountains, for all the hills that are lifted up, For every lofty tower, for every […]


'The high fortress of your walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground' couples the very images Paul fuses: high things and strongholds thrown down by God. Recurrence within Isaiah's strongholds-of-pride theme strengthens the case, though Paul names no source.

He has brought the high fortress of your walls down, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.


'He has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city he lays low, even to the ground' restates the casting-down-the-proud motif undergirding 10:5. The recurrence of Isaiah's lofty-city/stronghold language alongside Isaiah 2 and 25 raises the cumulative likelihood that Paul draws on this prophetic stock imagery.

For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to the dust.


Jeremiah's commission 'to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant' frames prophetic authority as power to demolish and to build — the same dual structure Paul invokes (here the destroying side; the building side surfaces in 10:8). Coherence with Paul's apostolic self-understanding is strong, though the destroying half is generic.

Behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”


God's challenge to 'look on everyone who is proud and abase him... tread down the wicked where they stand' matches Paul's casting down of 'every high thing.' The motif of proud heights leveled is shared, but the link is thematic rather than verbal, so the echo is faint.

Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low. Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place.


'You save a humble people, but haughty eyes you bring down' encapsulates the same reversal — God humbling the lofty — that Paul applies to thoughts 'exalted against the knowledge of God.' Coherence is good but volume low; one of several proud-brought-low texts in the OT stock Paul echoes.

For you will save the afflicted people, but the haughty eyes you will bring down.


God 'will take his zeal as a panoply' and arm creation as weapons against his foes; this Second-Temple militarization of divine 'weapons' parallels Paul's 'weapons of our warfare... mighty before God.' Availability and coherence support an echo of the divine-armor topos, though Paul's vocabulary differs.

He will take his jealousy as complete armor, And will make the whole creation his weapons for vengeance on his enemies: He will put on righteousness as a breastplate, And will array himself with judgement unfeigned as with a helmet; He will take holiness as an invincible shield, And he will sharpen stern wrath for a sword: And the world will go forth with him to fight against his insensate foes.


Paul's phrase 'the knowledge of God' as the contested prize echoes the prophetic idiom where Israel is destroyed 'for lack of knowledge' of God (cf. Hosea 6:6). The theme coheres with Paul's polemic, but the genitive phrase is common biblical idiom, so the echo is faint and contested.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.


'Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face?' rebukes judgment by outward appearance, the exact contrast of 1 Samuel 16:7: 'man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.' The shared appearance/heart antithesis, applied to who truly belongs to Christ, gives strong coherence and volume.

But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for I see not as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”


Paul defines his Lord-given authority as 'for building you up, and not for casting you down,' directly drawing on Jeremiah's commission 'to build and to plant' over against 'to break down... and to overthrow.' The build-up/tear-down polarity is distinctively Jeremianic and recurs across Jeremiah, giving high volume and coherence.


'I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not pluck them up' is the positive restoration form of Jeremiah's formula that Paul echoes in 'building up, and not casting down.' Recurrence of this exact build/not-tear-down pairing (also 31:28; 42:10) strengthens the allusion's likelihood.

For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.


'As I watched over them to pluck up and break down... so I will watch over them to build and to plant' is a further occurrence of the Jeremianic build/destroy idiom behind 10:8. Listed for recurrence; lower confidence since 1:10 and 24:6 already carry the allusion.

It shall happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, says Yahweh.


'Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips' is the proverbial backbone of Paul's argument that self-commendation is worthless and only the one 'whom the Lord commends' is approved (10:18; cf. 10:12). The shared self-praise/another-praises antithesis gives strong volume and coherence.

Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.


10:17 'He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord' is a direct quotation of Jeremiah 9:24 (LXX 9:23), abbreviating the prophet's contrast: not the wise, mighty, or rich, but the one who understands and knows the LORD. The verbatim agreement and Paul's repeated use (also 1 Cor 1:31) make this a secure citation.

Thus says Yahweh, Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, don’t let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh.


'It isn't he who commends himself who is approved, but whom the Lord commends' rests on the principle that the Lord, not human self-assessment, is the true evaluator — the same divine-versus-human judgment of 1 Samuel 16:7. Coherence with the appearance/heart contrast already invoked in 10:7 reinforces the allusion across the chapter.


Paul's boasting only 'within the boundaries (the measuring-line/sphere) which God appointed to us' echoes the lot/portion language of 'the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.' The shared notion of a divinely allotted measure or sphere supports a faint echo, though the metaphor is common.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.


'Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give' parallels Paul's refusal to 'boast in other men's labors' or in work not his own (10:15-16). The shared censure of empty boasting in what one has not done gives thematic coherence, but the link is faint.

As clouds and wind without rain, so is he who boasts of gifts deceptively.


Paul's claim to have 'betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ' draws on the prophetic marriage of YHWH to Israel, where God betroths his people to himself in righteousness and faithfulness. Hosea's betrothal language supplies the covenant-marriage logic underwriting Paul's 'godly jealousy.' Volume and coherence are strong since the bride/jealous-husband motif governs the whole pericope.

I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh.


'I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy' invokes the divine attribute that YHWH names his very self ('a jealous God,' literally 'whose name is Jealous'). The jealousy is covenantal: it presupposes the marriage bond and forbids rival lovers, precisely Paul's worry about 'another Jesus.' The conceptual link is dense even without verbatim quotation.

for you shall worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.


The figure of God espousing a people and the demand for the bride's purity (and the betrayal that follows) is most fully narrated in Ezekiel's allegory of Jerusalem as YHWH's bride. Paul's anxiety that the virgin will be corrupted/seduced coheres with Ezekiel's adultery imagery. Volume is diffuse, so allusion rather than quotation.

Again Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Jerusalem: Your birth and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite. As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, neither were you washed in water to cleanse you; you weren’t salted at all, nor swaddled at all. No eye pitied you, to do any of […]


'Your Maker is your husband' is the clearest single-verse statement of the divine-marriage theme that Paul presupposes when he presents the church as betrothed to Christ. The echo strengthens the coherence of the bride imagery in the pericope, though Paul does not cite it. Recurrence of the motif across Isaiah supports availability.

For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of Armies is his name: and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.


'As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you' contributes to the eschatological-marriage backdrop of presenting a pure virgin. Volume is low and the wording is not echoed, but the motif is coherent with Paul's betrothal language. Marked low as one strand of a cluster.

For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons shall marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.


'As the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted' explicitly names the Eden narrative, where the serpent is more 'crafty/subtle' than any beast and Eve confesses 'the serpent deceived me.' This is a near-quotation of Genesis 3:13 LXX (the verb for deceive) plus 3:1 (craftiness). Volume, coherence, and explicit naming make this the surest OT use in the chapter.

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t surely […]


The Song of Moses links Israel's turning to a foreign god with provoking YHWH to jealousy; Paul's pairing of jealousy with the threat of 'another Jesus' and 'a different spirit' coheres with that covenant-jealousy logic. Volume is faint and the connection is thematic. Flagged low as supporting the jealousy cluster.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.


Paul's refusal of self-commendation and insistence on a 'boasting' rightly grounded (preaching free of charge, love attested by God who 'knows') anticipates the chapter's larger reframing of boasting along the lines of Jeremiah's 'let him who boasts boast in this, that he knows the Lord.' Volume here is low; the motif crystallizes more clearly at v. 30. Marked contested.


The 'deceitful workers' who masquerade and the figure of Satan disguising himself extend the Eden serpent's deception introduced in v. 3. The serpent who appears attractive while corrupting coheres with false apostles masquerading as ministers of righteousness. Recurrence of the serpent motif within the chapter strengthens the link.


'Satan masquerades as an angel of light' has its closest extant parallel in the Adam-and-Eve pseudepigrapha, where Satan transforms himself into the brightness/form of an angel to deceive Eve a second time. This Second-Temple tradition explains why Paul attaches the disguise-as-light motif specifically to the serpent/Eve material of v. 3. Availability is plausible for a learned Pharisee; volume is conceptual rather than verbal.

[source text not in the World English Bible]


The Satan who moves among the 'sons of God' and operates by accusation and testing supplies the canonical adversary figure Paul names. The notion of Satan as a deceptive agent licensed within the heavenly court loosely coheres, though Job lacks the 'angel of light' disguise. Volume is faint; flagged low and contested.

Now on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, Satan also came among them. Yahweh said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil.” Then Satan […]


Satan standing to accuse Joshua the high priest before the angel of the LORD contributes to the canonical portrait of the satan as adversary opposing God's true servants, which Paul reapplies to those opposing his ministry. The link is thematic, not verbal. Marked low/contested.

He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before Yahweh’s angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.


The 'Day Star/shining one' fallen from heaven who aspired to angelic/divine status was, in later reading, fused with Satan and supplies a figural backdrop for 'an angel of light.' Paul need not intend Isaiah directly, but the shining-but-false image coheres figurally. Availability of the fused tradition is Second-Temple-plausible; flagged low and contested.

How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”


Paul's reluctant adoption of the fool's role ('receive me as foolish, that I also may boast a little'; 'answering' opponents on their own terms) plays on wisdom's paradox of whether to answer a fool according to his folly. The interplay of speaking-as-a-fool to expose folly coheres with Proverbs' aphorisms on fools and boasting. Volume is low; thematic only.

Don’t answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.


'Let another praise you, and not your own mouth' is the proverbial wisdom Paul transgresses self-consciously as he boasts 'after the flesh.' His apology for the foolish boast presupposes exactly this sapiential prohibition against self-praise. The echo is conceptual; flagged low and contested.


'Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I' appeals to the covenant promise of Abraham's 'seed,' the pedigree of God's elect people. The Abrahamic offspring formula is the foundation of the Hebrew/Israelite identity Paul claims. Volume rests on the loaded covenant term 'seed' rather than a quotation.

I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you. I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God.”


The promise that Abraham's offspring would be innumerable underwrites the privileged status Paul invokes by naming himself 'seed of Abraham.' The verse is the classic charter of the lineage to which the opponents and Paul both lay claim. Coherence is high; verbal volume modest.

Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So will your seed be.”


'Israelites' derives identity from Jacob's renaming as Israel, the eponymous ancestor of the covenant people Paul claims membership in. The link is etymological/identitarian rather than a textual citation. Marked low.

He said, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed.”


'Five times I received forty stripes minus one' presupposes the Torah's limit of forty lashes on a guilty man, with the synagogue practice of stopping at thirty-nine to avoid exceeding the law. The 'forty minus one' is unintelligible apart from this statute. Volume is high through the precise legal number even without quotation.

If there is a controversy between men, and they come to judgment, and the judges judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. It shall be, if the wicked man is worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his wickedness, by number. He may sentence him to no more than forty stripes. He shall not give more; lest, if he should give more, and beat him more than […]


'Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all' frames Paul's catalog of sufferings as the lot of the righteous sufferer whom God preserves. The peristasis list reads as an enactment of this psalmic maxim, coherent with Paul's boast 'in weakness.' Volume is thematic.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all.


The covenant-curse list of serving 'in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and want of all things' supplies the lexical cluster behind Paul's 'hunger and thirst... cold and nakedness.' Paul ironically wears the curse-catalog as apostolic credential. Volume is low and the wording is common to affliction lists; flagged contested.

therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you.


The beating and imprisonment of the persecuted prophet Jeremiah typifies the suffering true messenger over against false prophets, the very contrast Paul presses against the 'super-apostles.' The link is figural, conforming Paul to the prophetic sufferer rather than citing a text. Marked low and contested.

Now Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was chief officer in Yahweh’s house, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in Yahweh’s house.


'A night and a day in the deep,' perils of waters and being engulfed, resonate with the lament psalmist sinking in deep waters where the floods overwhelm him, a classic image of the righteous sufferer's distress. Volume is faint and the danger is literal for Paul, so flagged low and contested.

Save me, God, for the waters have come up to my neck! I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.


'If I must boast, I will boast of the things that concern my weakness' inverts ordinary boasting along the lines of Jeremiah's oracle that the wise, mighty, and rich must not boast in their strength but only in knowing the LORD. Paul's recurring 'boast in the Lord' motif (cf. 10:17) makes this the controlling subtext for his weakness-boast. Coherence is strong across the letter.

Thus says Yahweh, Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, don’t let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh.


The escape from Damascus, 'let down in a basket through a window by the wall,' replays Rahab lowering the spies by a rope through her window in the city wall. The shared escape-through-the-wall-window motif suggests Paul casts his flight in the idiom of the rescued/rescuing agent. Volume rests on the distinctive window-and-wall lowering.

Then she let them down by a cord through the window; for her house was on the side of the wall, and she lived on the wall.


Michal lets David down through a window so he escapes the king who seeks his life, a close structural parallel to Paul evading King Aretas's governor. The persecuted-servant-lowered-through-a-window motif coheres, though Paul does not cite it. Offered as an alternative/companion source to the Rahab episode; flagged low.

So Michal let David down through the window. He went, fled, and escaped.


'The God and Father... who is blessed forever more' follows the berakah pattern of the psalter's doxologies ('Blessed be the LORD... forever and ever, Amen'). Paul's eulogy formula is liturgically shaped by such blessings. Volume is formulaic and low; flagged contested.

Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting! Amen and amen.


Paul opens his account of ascent with the rubric 'visions and revelations of the Lord,' echoing the prophetic-apocalyptic technical language for throne and merkabah experience inaugurated by Ezekiel's 'I saw visions of God' (Ezek 1:1). The recurrence of such opening formulae across Ezekiel and Daniel makes this the native idiom Paul reworks; coherence is high since the whole pericope is a heavenly vision.

Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.


The apocalyptic 'visions' frame and the motif of being shown heavenly realities draw on Danielic seer-vision conventions, where Daniel beholds the divine throne 'in the visions of the night.' Faint and generic; flagged because Paul's vocabulary of revelation belongs to the Danielic apocalyptic stream that was available in the Second-Temple period.

I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.


Paul says the man was 'caught up into Paradise' (paradeisos), the LXX word for the garden 'God planted in Eden.' The localization of Paradise in the highest heaven is a Second-Temple development from the Eden narrative; volume is moderate because the loaded term Paradise is a direct lexical link to the Genesis garden as rendered by the LXX.

Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.


Ezekiel's oracle places a figure 'in Eden, the garden of God,' fusing Eden with a glorious cosmic-mountain sanctuary, a trajectory that feeds the heavenly-Paradise of Paul's account. Coherence is strong because Ezekiel already relocates Eden into visionary, throne-adjacent space, the very move Paul presupposes when he equates the third heaven with Paradise.

You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and beryl. Gold work of tambourines and of pipes was in you. In the day that you were created they were prepared.


Paul's repeated uncertainty 'whether in the body or out of the body' and the verb 'caught up' recall prophetic rapture, as when the spirit 'lifted me up between earth and heaven' and brought Ezekiel in visions to Jerusalem. Faint but coherent: the motif of bodily-or-spiritual transport in vision is a prophetic precedent Paul reflexively invokes.

He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.


The 'unspeakable words which it is not lawful to utter' loosely participates in the OT topos of an ineffable divine encounter, as at Horeb where the LORD passes by in a silence beyond the wind, earthquake, and fire. Very faint and contested; offered only because the apophatic restraint around theophany has OT roots, though Paul's secrecy is closer to apocalyptic sealing conventions.

He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before Yahweh.” Behold, Yahweh passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake.


The notion that what was heard 'is not lawful for a man to utter' resonates with the Sinai principle that direct apprehension of God's glory exceeds human bearing ('no man shall see me and live'). Faint; flagged because the unspeakable/unbearable quality of the highest revelation traces to the Mosaic theophany tradition Paul elsewhere engages closely (2 Cor 3).

He said, “You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.”


The 'thorn in the flesh' draws on the LXX idiom for a persistent God-permitted affliction, where unexpelled inhabitants become 'thorns in your sides.' Volume and coherence are good: the metaphor of a thorn/goad lodged in the body as an ongoing scourge is precisely the OT figure Paul reworks into a personal torment.

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be as pricks in your eyes and as thorns in your sides, and they will harass you in the land in which you dwell.


Ezekiel promises Israel relief from 'a pricking brier and a grieving thorn' from hostile neighbors, the same skolops/thorn imagery for a chronic harassment. The recurrence of this exact figure (Num, Josh, Ezek) for a divinely-tolerated irritant strengthens the case that Paul's 'thorn' is biblical metaphor, not merely medical.

There shall be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor a hurting thorn of any that are around them, that scorned them; and they shall know that I am the Lord Yahweh.


Joshua warns that the remaining nations will be 'scourges in your sides and thorns in your eyes,' pairing thorn with scourge exactly as Paul pairs his thorn with a tormenting 'messenger of Satan.' The combined thorn-and-scourge motif, recurring across the conquest texts, gives strong intertextual coherence to Paul's affliction language.

know for a certainty that Yahweh your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you.


Paul's 'messenger of Satan to torment me' closely mirrors the prologue of Job, where the LORD permits the Satan to strike Job's flesh with sore boils. The structural parallel is strong: a faithful servant afflicted in the body by Satan under divine permission for a higher purpose, which frames Paul's theodicy of the thorn.

Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.


Paul's resolve to 'take pleasure in weaknesses... for Christ's sake' and to receive affliction without rebellion echoes Job's acceptance, 'shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' Coherence is high because both texts make Satanic bodily affliction the arena of tested faithfulness rather than divine abandonment.

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips.


The divine word 'my power is made perfect in weakness' and 'when I am weak, then am I strong' enact Isaiah's promise that God 'gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.' Volume is moderate but thematic coherence is strong: strength supplied precisely at the point of human exhaustion is Isaiah's consolation reapplied to apostolic suffering.

He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might.


Paul's paradox that weakness is the condition of renewed power restates Isaiah's 'they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength.' Recurrence within the same Isaianic passage (40:29-31) and Paul's documented dependence on Isaiah in 2 Corinthians strengthen the link beyond a generic strength-theme.

But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.


The principle that God's work advances through human weakness rather than human force recalls Zechariah's oracle, 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.' Coherence is strong: both deny that strength is the basis of God's accomplishment, locating efficacy in divine power, though Paul's wording is his own.

Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, “This is Yahweh’s word to Zerubbabel, saying, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says Yahweh of Armies.


Paul's confession that grace suffices when his own flesh fails echoes the psalmist's 'My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart.' The shared move from bodily failure to God as one's sustaining strength gives good thematic coherence to the grace-in-weakness motif.

My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.


The promise that grace is sufficient and Christ's power rests on the weak loosely reflects the psalmic conviction that 'the LORD is near to those of a broken heart.' Faint and generic; included because Paul's grace-to-the-afflicted theology participates in the psalter's nearness-to-the-lowly tradition.

Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.


The phrase that 'the power of Christ may rest on me' (lit. 'tabernacle/dwell upon me,' episkenoo) faintly evokes the glory that 'filled the tabernacle' and overshadowed it at its consecration. Faint but offered because Paul's verb is cognate to tabernacle/skene, suggesting the indwelling Shekinah-glory now resting on the apostle's weak body.

Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and Yahweh’s glory filled the tabernacle.


The 'power of Christ' resting upon the apostle distantly echoes the Spirit of the LORD that 'shall rest upon' the messianic shoot. Faint; flagged because the resting of divine power/Spirit upon a chosen agent is an Isaianic figure, here transferred from Messiah to the one who bears Christ's power in weakness.

The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh.


Paul appeals to 'signs and wonders and mighty works' as the credentials of an apostle, using the fixed OT formula for God's authenticating acts, as when the LORD multiplied 'my signs and my wonders' in Egypt. Faint but coherent: the sign-and-wonder pairing is the Deuteronomistic vocabulary of divine accreditation that Paul transfers to apostolic ministry.

I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.


The triad 'signs and wonders and mighty works' echoes Deuteronomy's recital of how God took Israel 'by signs, and by wonders... and by a mighty hand.' Recurrence of this credal formula across Deuteronomy strengthens the case that Paul deliberately borrows the language of God's saving demonstrations to mark genuine apostleship.

Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?


Paul's maxim 'the parents should save up for the children, not the children for the parents' inverts and applies the proverbial principle that 'a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.' Coherence is good because Paul reasons from the accepted wisdom convention of parental provision to justify his refusal to burden his spiritual children.

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored for the righteous.


The assumption that fathers lay up substance for their offspring also reflects 'house and riches are an inheritance from fathers.' Faint and overlapping with Prov 13:22; included to register the broader wisdom topos of inherited parental provision that undergirds Paul's analogy.

House and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from Yahweh.


Paul's feared catalog of communal sins (strife, jealousy, anger, slander, whisperings) echoes the prophetic indictments of Israel's social corruption, as in Jeremiah's complaint that the tongue 'speaks deceit... one speaks peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he lays his wait.' Faint and diffuse, but coherent with the prophetic tradition of cataloguing the sins that fracture the covenant community.

Their tongue is a deadly arrow; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he lays wait for him.


Paul's vice-list culminating in one who 'sows discord' parallels the wisdom catalog of things the LORD hates, which ends with 'one who sows discord among brothers' and includes a lying tongue and a false witness. The shared form of an enumerated list of community-destroying sins gives modest coherence, though Paul's specific terms are his own.

There are six things which Yahweh hates; yes, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood; a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are swift in running to mischief, a false witness who utters lies, and he who sows discord among brothers.


Paul's fear that God 'would humble me before you' and that he must mourn over the unrepentant draws on the covenantal pattern wherein the people's 'uncircumcised heart' is humbled until they repent. Faint; flagged because the humbling-then-mourning-over-sin sequence reflects the Levitical/Deuteronomic logic of covenant discipline.

I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity;


Paul's lament over 'the uncleanness and sexual immorality and lustfulness' of the unrepentant echoes Ezekiel's prophetic language of Israel's lewdness and uncleanness for which the people must be judged and turned. Faint and thematic; included because Paul's grief over sexual impurity in the congregation belongs to the prophetic idiom of denouncing covenantal 'uncleanness.'

Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.


Paul cites the two-or-three-witnesses rule verbatim ('At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established'), a direct LXX-form quotation governing judicial proof. Volume is maximal: explicit citation formula and near-verbatim wording. Coherence is strong since Paul frames his three visits as the requisite testimony before disciplinary action.

One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established.


The same Deuteronomic two-or-three-witnesses principle appears here in a capital-case context, part of the legal tradition Paul invokes. The wording overlaps with Deut 19:15, the primary source, so this is a parallel attestation of the rule rather than the citation's lemma. Recurrence within the Torah strengthens the availability of the witness-tradition.

At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death. At the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.


Numbers also codifies that a person shall be put to death only on the testimony of witnesses, reinforcing the multi-witness legal tradition Paul deploys. It is a secondary attestation alongside Deut 17:6 rather than the quoted text. The cluster shows the rule's standing as established Torah jurisprudence.

“‘Whoever kills any person, the murderer shall be slain at the mouth of witnesses; but one witness shall not testify against any person that he die.


Christ 'crucified through weakness, yet he lives through the power of God' echoes the Servant who is afflicted and humbled yet exalted and vindicated by God. Volume is faint and no verbal citation occurs, so the link rests on the conceptual coherence of suffering-then-power. Contested because the weakness/power dialectic is broadly Pauline and not demonstrably keyed to Isaiah here.

Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him. Surely he has borne our sickness, and […]


Paul's 'Test your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves' resonates with the psalmist's 'Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; test my heart and my mind.' Volume is moderate through shared testing/proving vocabulary in the self-scrutiny tradition. Coherence is high since both concern verifying genuine standing before God.

Examine me, Yahweh, and prove me. Try my heart and my mind.


The summons to be searched and tested to see whether any wicked way is present parallels Paul's call to self-examination 'whether you are in the faith.' The introspective testing tradition supplies the conceptual frame for Paul's appeal. No verbal quotation, so this is an allusion within a recurrent biblical motif.

Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.


'Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD' supplies a corporate self-examination motif close to Paul's command to test oneself. Volume is faint with no shared diction in Greek, so the echo is thematic. Coherence is supported by the repentance/restoration aim of the surrounding verses (perfecting, doing no evil).

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.


'The refining pot is for silver... but the LORD tests the hearts' belongs to the wisdom tradition of divine testing that informs Paul's language of approval and being 'reprobate/disqualified' (adokimos). The link is conceptual rather than verbal and competes with the Psalms as a closer source. Marked contested for its faintness.

The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but Yahweh tests the hearts.


'Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you' echoes the Aaronic benediction's 'the LORD... give you peace,' the foundational peace-blessing of Israel. Volume is moderate via the shared peace-and-presence formula closing the letter. Coherence is strong since Paul is pronouncing a farewell blessing, the benediction's native function.

Yahweh lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.’


The full priestly blessing (grace/favor, the LORD's face, peace) stands behind Paul's closing of peace and divine presence and anticipates the triune benediction in v.14. The threefold structure of grace, love, and fellowship loosely mirrors the threefold Aaronic form. Marked allusion rather than quotation given the absence of verbatim wording.

‘Yahweh bless you, and keep you. Yahweh make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you. Yahweh lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.’


The divine title 'the God of love and peace' faintly recalls covenantal peace-name traditions such as Gideon's altar 'The LORD is Peace' (YHWH-shalom). The connection is purely thematic with no verbal overlap, so it is a faint echo. Contested and secondary to the Aaronic blessing as the operative source.

Then Gideon built an altar there to Yahweh, and called it “Yahweh is Peace.” To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.


The closing triune benediction ('the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit') functions as Paul's Christianized Aaronic blessing, its threefold grace/presence/peace structure refracted into a threefold divine formula. Volume rests on the shared benedictory genre and triadic shape rather than diction. Coherence is high: a letter-closing priestly-style blessing invoking grace and the divine presence 'with you all.'


'The love of God' draws on the covenant self-revelation of the LORD as abounding in steadfast love (hesed), the wellspring of Israel's confidence in divine favor. The echo is conceptual, supplying the OT substrate for 'love of God,' with no verbal citation. Contested because 'love of God' is a generic Pauline phrase not demonstrably keyed to this text.

Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,


'who gave himself for our sins' renders the Servant who bears iniquity; LXX Isa 53:6 'the Lord gave him up for our sins' (paredoken auto tais hamartiais hemon) is verbally close to Paul's 'gave himself for our sins.' Volume is moderate, thematic coherence high (vicarious death), and the Servant is firmly available in Second-Temple use.

All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.


The self-giving sin-offering ('when you make his soul an offering for sin') undergirds 'gave himself for our sins.' Coheres with Isa 53:6 as a Servant matrix Paul presupposes; counted distinctly because the offering-language adds the cultic note. Contested only as to which Servant verse is primary.

Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Yahweh shall prosper in his hand.


'that he might deliver us out of this present evil age' draws on the Exodus deliverance vocabulary (rescue from bondage by God's act). The age-from-which-rescued substitutes for Egypt; faint and figural, but the deliverance verb-frame is a deep OT staple. Marked low/contested as a generic redemption motif.

Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments:


'Grace to you and peace' may stylize the Aaronic blessing's pairing of favor ('be gracious') and peace (shalom). The epistolary greeting is Paul's formula, so volume is low, but the grace-and-peace dyad has a plausible priestly-blessing background. Contested as a possible coincidence of common cultic terms.

Yahweh make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you.


'to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen' reproduces the closing-doxology pattern of the Psalter's book-seams ('Blessed be the LORD... forever and ever. Amen and Amen'). Recurrence across Pss 41, 72, 89, 106 makes the liturgical formula securely available; Paul Christianizes it.

Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting and to everlasting! Amen and amen.


David's ascription 'Yours is the glory... forever' is a candidate liturgical source for the doxology in v.5. Overlaps with the Psalter doxologies; listed for recurrence of the 'the glory belongs to God forever' template. Low because the Psalter forms are the likelier proximate model.

Yours, Yahweh, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty! For all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all.


'I marvel that you are so quickly deserting' echoes 'they have turned aside quickly out of the way' at the golden calf; LXX uses tachu ('quickly') as Paul does (tacheos). Apostasy-after-deliverance is thematically apt for Galatians, and the speed-of-defection lexeme strengthens the link.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”


The hypothetical preacher of a counterfeit message who must be cursed mirrors the prophet/dreamer who urges other gods and is to be purged; even 'an angel from heaven' fits the 'though he gives a sign' test. The death-sentence on the seducer coheres with Paul's anathema.

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises in your midst you, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, “Let us go after other gods” (which you have not known) “and let us serve them”; you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you, to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul. […]


'let him be cursed' (anathema/epikataratos) draws the covenant-curse formulary of the Ebal liturgy where the people ratify 'Cursed be' on covenant-breakers. The repeated curse-pronouncement (vv.8-9) mimics the antiphonal recurrence of Deut 27, anchoring availability of the curse-genre.

‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’


The anathema may carry the cherem ('devoted to destruction') sense from Jericho, where what is accursed is set apart for God's judgment and contaminates the camp. Coheres with treating the false gospel as defiling, but the curse-formulary of Deuteronomy is the nearer source, so low/contested.

The city shall be devoted, even it and all that is in it, to Yahweh. Only Rahab the prostitute shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.


'am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God?' rests on the contrast that man judges by outward appearance while the LORD looks on the heart. The man-versus-God antithesis of approval is thematically coherent with Paul's defense of divine commissioning over human applause.

But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Don’t look on his face, or on the height of his stature; because I have rejected him: for I see not as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”


'striving to please men' may invert the psalm's scorn that God 'put to shame him who pleased men' (LXX 'God scattered the bones of the man-pleasers'). A faint lexical tie via the rare 'please men' idiom; contested because the wording overlap is slight and the thought is proverbial.

There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them.


Paul's insistence that his gospel is 'not according to man' but by revelation contrasts the true prophetic word with prophets who 'speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the LORD.' Coheres with the prophetic claim to mediated, not self-generated, message; low because no shared wording.

Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh.


'it came to me through revelation' fits the prophetic axiom that the Lord reveals his secret (sod) to his servants the prophets. Supports Paul casting his call as prophetic disclosure rather than tradition; faint and thematic only, hence low/contested.

Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets.


'being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers' while persecuting evokes Phinehas, the paradigm of zeal who slays the covenant-breaker and is rewarded with a covenant. Second-Temple Judaism made Phinehas the model of violent zeal Paul once embodied; thematic coherence high.

“Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn’t consume the children of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace. It shall be to him, and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of […]


Paul's self-description 'exceedingly zealous' resonates with Elijah's 'I have been very jealous/zealous for the LORD of hosts.' The shared zeal-vocabulary and the persecuting-versus-persecuted reversal make this apt; counted low because Phinehas is the stronger zealot template.

He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and slain your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”


Mattathias 'acted zealously for the law, as Phinehas did' supplies the deuterocanonical bridge for the zeal-by-violence ideal Paul once held in 'the Jews' religion' (Ioudaismos, a term coined in 2 Macc). Marks availability of the militant-zeal tradition; low as a background, not a quotation.

And he was zealous for the law, even as Phinehas did to Zimri the son of Salu.


'who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me' closely tracks 'before I formed you in the womb I knew you... I appointed you a prophet to the nations.' Volume is high (pre-natal setting-apart plus call plus mission to the nations), and Paul deliberately casts his commission in prophetic-call form.

“Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you. Before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”


'set me apart from my mother's womb... called me' matches the Servant's 'the LORD called me from the womb; from the body of my mother he named my name.' The womb-call combination plus the Servant's commission to the nations makes this a primary, high-volume source alongside Jeremiah.

Listen, islands, to me; and listen, you peoples, from far: Yahweh has called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother has he made mention of my name:


'that I might preach him among the Gentiles' enacts the Servant given 'as a light to the nations' to reach 'the end of the earth.' The Gentile-mission clause is the interpretive payoff of the womb-call allusion and coheres tightly with Paul's apostleship to the nations.

yes, he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give you for a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”


'formed me from the womb to be his servant' reinforces the prenatal commissioning behind v.15 and supplies the servant-role Paul assumes. Distinct from 49:1 in stressing the forming-for-service purpose; medium because it overlaps the same Servant Song.

Now says Yahweh who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, and that Israel be gathered to him (for I am honorable in the eyes of Yahweh, and my God has become my strength);


Paul's retreat 'into Arabia' (which he later equates with Sinai/Horeb, Gal 4:25) before returning may shadow Elijah's flight to Horeb after his zeal, where the prophet is re-commissioned. A figural prophet-in-the-wilderness resonance; faint and contested, given the geographic note is mainly itinerary.

He arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the Mount of God.


'before God, I'm not lying' is an oath/truth-asseveration appealing to God as witness, the practice grounded in swearing 'by his name.' The solemn God-as-witness formula has deep OT roots; low because it is a conventional oath idiom, not a specific citation.

You shall fear Yahweh your God; and you shall serve him, and shall swear by his name.


'they glorified God in me' echoes the Servant Song's 'you are my servant... in whom I will be glorified,' closing the chapter's sustained engagement with Isaiah 49 begun at v.15. The recurrence of Isa 49 within one pericope strengthens this otherwise faint verbal tie (glorify + 'in me').

and he said to me, “You are my servant; Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”


The motif of the once-lowly/opposed servant who comes to be exalted and 'glorified' may color the reversal whereby the persecutor is now cause of glory to God. Coheres with the Servant-glorification theme; low and contested because Isa 49:3 is the nearer match.

Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.


Titus 'was not compelled to be circumcised' presupposes the Abrahamic covenant of circumcision as the entry sign for the people of God. Volume is high (circumcision is the named issue) and availability is secure: Genesis 17 is the foundational text the agitators would invoke. Paul refuses to extend its obligation to Gentile believers.

God said to Abraham, “As for you, you will keep my covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It will be a token of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he […]


'God doesn't show partiality to man' (v.6) closely echoes the Deuteronomic formula that God 'is not partial and takes no bribe.' Recurrence is strong across the OT (2 Chronicles 19:7; Job 34:19), and the coherence with Paul's leveling of Jew and Gentile standing is exact.

For Yahweh your God, he is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the awesome, who doesn’t respect persons, nor takes reward.


'They only asked us to remember the poor' draws on the Torah's central charge to open the hand to the poor brother and that 'the poor will never cease out of the land.' Volume and coherence are high: care for the poor is a covenant obligation Paul gladly affirms as binding on the Gentile mission.

If a poor man, one of your brothers, is with you within any of your gates in your land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need, which he lacks. Beware that there not be a base thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand”; and your eye be evil against your […]


'Remember the poor' resonates with the wisdom maxim that one who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD. Recurrence within Proverbs (14:21, 14:31, 28:27) strengthens the theme, though the verbal link is thematic rather than lexical.

He who has pity on the poor lends to Yahweh; he will reward him.


The blessing on 'the one who considers the poor' offers a Psalter parallel to the Jerusalem charge to remember the poor. The link is thematic, supported by the wide OT recurrence of poverty-care language, but no distinctive wording is shared.

Blessed is he who considers the poor. Yahweh will deliver him in the day of evil.


Paul's fear that he 'might be running, or had run, in vain' (v.2) echoes the Servant's lament, 'I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing.' Coherence with Paul's self-understanding as a Servant-shaped apostle to the nations (Isaiah 49:6) raises this above a stock idiom.

But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely the justice due to me is with Yahweh, and my reward with my God.”


Calling James, Cephas, and John 'pillars' may evoke the temple pillars Jachin and Boaz, casting the apostles as load-bearing supports of a new temple-people. The figure is suggestive but the term was also a common honorific, so volume is low.

He set up the pillars at the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called its name Jachin; and he set up the left pillar, and called its name Boaz.


The 'false brothers... who stole in to spy out our liberty' uses reconnaissance imagery that may faintly recall the spying-out of the land. The verbal touch is the espionage motif; coherence is weak since Paul's spies are hostile infiltrators rather than scouts, so this remains a contested, faint echo.

Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince among them.”


The Antioch dispute over Peter eating with the Gentiles and then drawing back turns on the clean/unclean food and table-purity system. Volume and coherence are high: the dietary code is precisely the barrier that the withdrawal from common meals re-erects between Jew and Gentile.

Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the living things which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof, and is cloven-footed, and chews the cud among the animals, that you may eat. “‘Nevertheless these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those who part the hoof: the camel, because he chews the cud but doesn’t have a parted hoof, he is […]


Peter 'drew back and separated himself' from Gentile table fellowship echoes the post-exilic policy of separation from the peoples of the land to preserve covenant purity. Coherence is strong; Paul reads such separation as a betrayal of the gospel's truth rather than fidelity.

Now when these things were done, the princes drew near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, and the priests and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed have […]


The separatist withdrawal at Antioch resonates with Nehemiah's enforcement of separation from intermarriage and foreign association. The link is thematic (covenant boundary-keeping) and reinforces the Ezra parallel, though it shares no distinctive vocabulary with Paul.

In those days also saw I the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: and their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons, or for […]


'No flesh will be justified by the works of the law' (v.16) reworks the psalm's plea, 'do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.' The shared 'no one living / no flesh... righteous/justified before God' is verbally close to the LXX and used by Paul as a scriptural axiom (cf. Romans 3:20).

Don’t enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no man living is righteous.


'The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith' (v.20) anticipates and draws on 'the righteous shall live by faith,' the verse Paul quotes explicitly at 3:11. Coherence with the letter's core thesis is high and recurrence within Galatians strengthens the case, though here the allusion is woven rather than cited.

Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith.


'If I build up again those things which I destroyed' (v.18) employs the prophetic pairing of tearing down and building up (Jeremiah's commission 'to break down... and to build'). The imagery is suggestive but the building/destroying word-pair is widespread, so the echo is faint and contested.

Behold, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”


'The Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me' (v.20) configures Christ's self-surrender along the lines of the Servant 'handed over' for the sins of the people. Coherence with early Christian Servant Christology supports it, but the link is interpretive rather than lexical here.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.


Paul's charge that someone has 'bewitched' the Galatians faintly recalls the covenant-curse language of bewilderment and madness in Deut 28:28-29, part of the curses for disobedience that frame this whole chapter. The connection is thematic rather than verbal and rests on the evil-eye/curse motif. Contested and faint.

Yahweh will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.


The reception of the Spirit by hearing of faith evokes the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit promised in Joel 2:28-29, which undergirds Paul's argument that the Spirit is the mark of the new age. Verbal volume is low; the link is conceptual via the promised-Spirit theme that culminates in v.14. Contested.

“It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.


Verbatim LXX citation: 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.' This is the foundational proof-text of Paul's whole justification-by-faith argument, repeated at Romans 4:3 and James 2:23, satisfying recurrence and high volume. Availability and coherence are maximal.

He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.


The promise 'In you all the nations will be blessed' is drawn from the Abrahamic blessing first given in Gen 12:3. Paul fuses the wording with Gen 18:18 and 22:18; the universal-blessing-of-the-nations formula is the engine of his Gentile-inclusion argument. High volume and coherence.

I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.”


Gen 18:18 LXX reads 'all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him,' supplying the 'all the nations' (panta ta ethne) wording Paul's citation in v.8 matches more closely than Gen 12:3. The conflated citation strengthens recurrence of the blessing-promise.

since Abraham has surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him?


Gen 22:18 ('in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed') links the nations-blessing to Abraham's 'seed,' which Paul exploits in v.16. The verbal overlap with v.8's citation is strong and the seed-blessing connection is structurally central. High coherence.

All the nations of the earth will be blessed by your seed, because you have obeyed my voice.”


Verbatim LXX citation: 'Cursed is everyone who doesn't continue in all things written in the book of the law, to do them.' Paul adds 'all' (pasin) emphasizing total obedience. This is a formal proof-text from the Shechem curse-liturgy, high in volume and coherence.

‘Cursed is he who doesn’t uphold the words of this law by doing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”


'The righteous will live by faith' cites Hab 2:4, a programmatic text Paul also uses at Romans 1:17 (and Hebrews 10:38), giving strong recurrence. Paul follows a form close to the LXX but drops the possessive pronoun. The faith/life antithesis is the hinge of his argument.


'The man who does them will live by them' cites Lev 18:5 (LXX), set in deliberate antithesis to Hab 2:4. Paul reuses the same text at Romans 10:5, establishing recurrence; it embodies the law's do-and-live principle he contrasts with faith. High volume.

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances; which if a man does, he shall live in them. I am Yahweh.


'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree' adapts Deut 21:23 ('cursed by God is everyone hanged on a tree'). Paul abbreviates, omitting 'by God,' to apply the law's own curse to the crucified Christ. The hanged-on-a-tree language is load-bearing for his redemption argument. High coherence.

his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him the same day; for he who is hanged is accursed of God; that you don’t defile your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.


'That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles' (v.14) restates the Abrahamic promise of Gen 12:3/18:18/22:18, now realized in Christ. This is the resolution of the citation chain begun in v.8, so the recurrence within the chapter is strong. Allusive recapitulation rather than fresh quotation.


'The promise of the Spirit' (v.14) may echo the prophetic promise of the poured-out Spirit (Joel 2:28-29; cf. Isaiah 44:3; Ezekiel 36:27). Paul does not cite a text, but the eschatological-Spirit-promise tradition stands behind the phrase. Contested and diffuse.


'To your seed' (v.16) cites the recurring promise to Abraham 'and to your seed' in Gen 13:15 (cf. 17:8; 24:7). Paul's argument turns on the singular collective noun 'seed' (sperma) read messianically as Christ. The verbal anchor is exact and central to the pericope.

for all the land which you see, I will give to you, and to your offspring forever.


Gen 17:8 ('to you and to your seed after you') is another occurrence of the singular-seed promise Paul exploits, tied to the everlasting covenant. The recurrence of 'and to your seed' across Genesis is exactly what Paul leverages grammatically. High volume.

I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land where you are traveling, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. I will be their God.”


Gen 24:7 ('to your seed I will give this land') is a further instance of the singular-seed land-promise underlying v.16. Listing these reinforces that Paul's 'not seeds but seed' rests on a real and recurrent Genesis formula. High coherence.

Yahweh, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying, ‘I will give this land to your seed.’ He will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.


The '430 years' (v.17) between promise and law derives from Exod 12:40 LXX, which dates Israel's sojourn at 430 years. Paul uses the figure to prove the law came later and cannot annul the prior covenant. The specific number makes the allusion strong despite no quoted clause.

Now the time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.


Paul's framing of the Abrahamic 'covenant' (diatheke) confirmed by God draws on the covenant-cutting of Gen 15:18 (cf. Gen 17). The covenant concept rather than wording is in view, undergirding the legal analogy of v.15. Faint and conceptual.

In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:


'Ordained through angels' (v.19) reflects the Second-Temple tradition that the law was mediated by angels at Sinai, grounded in Deut 33:2 LXX ('at his right hand angels with him') and reflected in Acts 7:53 and Hebrews 2:2. The angelic-mediation reading is available in the LXX and intertestamental sources. Medium volume.

He said, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose from Seir to them. He shone from Mount Paran. He came from the ten thousands of holy ones. At his right hand was a fiery law for them.


Ps 68:17 (LXX 67:18), 'the chariots of God are myriads... the Lord among them at Sinai,' contributed to the tradition of angelic hosts at the Sinai law-giving behind v.19. The link is part of a cluster of texts, not a single source; verbal contact is slight. Contested.

The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord is among them, from Sinai, into the sanctuary.


'If there had been a law given which could make alive' (v.21) replays the do-and-live principle of Lev 18:5 cited in v.12, now denied as a means of life. The intra-chapter recurrence of the life-by-law motif makes the allusion coherent though not re-quoted.


'The Scripture imprisoned all things under sin' (v.22) summarizes the universal-sinfulness verdict Paul elsewhere proves with a catena including Ps 14:1-3 (cf. Rom 3:9-19). No clause is quoted here, but the scriptural confinement-under-sin theme draws on that tradition. Contested and diffuse.

They have all gone aside. They have together become corrupt. There is no one who does good, no, not one.


Ps 143:2 ('no one living is righteous before you'), which Paul cites at Gal 2:16 and Rom 3:20, stands behind the 'all under sin' verdict of v.22. The echo continues the justification argument from the previous chapter. Faint; offered as an alternative scriptural ground.

Don’t enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no man living is righteous.


'There is neither... male nor female' (v.28) verbally echoes Gen 1:27 LXX 'male and female he created them' (arsen kai thely), the only place this exact pairing occurs. Paul's shift from 'nor/nor' to 'and' marks the deliberate citation; the new creation in Christ relativizes the created distinction. Medium-high volume on the specific phrase.

God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.


'You are Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise' (v.29) recapitulates the singular-seed promise of Gen 13:15/17:8 expounded in v.16, now extended to all who are Christ's. This closes the chapter's inclusio on seed/promise/inheritance with strong intra-chapter recurrence.


The heirs-of-promise climax (v.29) realizes the seed-and-nations blessing of Gen 22:18, gathering Gentile believers into Abraham's offspring. It reprises the citation chain (vv.8, 16) and so coheres with the chapter's argument, though without fresh wording. Medium.


'Put on Christ' (v.27) may echo the clothing-with-salvation imagery of Isa 61:10 ('he has clothed me with garments of salvation') and the robing motif of Zechariah 3:4. The metaphor of investiture is available in the prophets but the contact is thematic, not verbal. Contested and faint.

I will greatly rejoice in Yahweh, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.


"God sent out his Son, born to a woman" (v.4) faintly evokes the protoevangelium's promise of the woman's seed who undoes the serpent. Coherence with Paul's redemption-of-the-enslaved theme is real but the verbal volume is thin; the phrase 'born of woman' is a common idiom (cf. Job). Marked low and contested.

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”


The cluster of sonship/adoption/firstborn language (vv.5-7, 'receive the adoption,' 'no longer a bondservant but a son,' 'heir') recalls God's claim 'Israel is my son, my firstborn.' Coherence is high in a redemption-from-bondage argument that runs on Exodus categories; Recurrence of son/heir terms supports it. Verbal volume is moderate, hence allusion not quotation.

You shall tell Pharaoh, ‘Thus says Yahweh, Israel is my son, my firstborn,


'Out of Egypt I called my son' supplies the same divine sonship motif undergirding 'God sent out his Son' and the adoption of children. The link is conceptual rather than verbal in Galatians; availability and coherence hold but volume is low. Contested as a deliberate echo.

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.


'That he might redeem those who were under the law' (v.5) draws on the Exodus vocabulary of God redeeming a people from slavery (cf. Exod 6:6, 15:13). The redemption-from-bondage frame coheres tightly with Paul's slave/son contrast, but no single Exodus verse is quoted, so this is a diffuse echo.

Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments:


'You observe days, months, seasons, and years' (v.10) maps onto the creation luminaries appointed 'for signs and for seasons and for days and years,' the calendrical basis of Israel's festal observance Paul deprecates. The four-term sequence is a strong verbal/structural match; coherence with the 'elemental principles' (stoicheia, vv.3,9) reinforces it.

God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years;


The 'days, months, seasons' Paul names are the appointed feasts, sabbaths, and new moons codified in the festal calendar of Lev 23. Coherence is high since the agitators urge Torah calendar observance; the allusion is to the institution as a whole rather than to a single quoted clause.

“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The set feasts of Yahweh, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my set feasts.


Paul's wariness of 'new moons and sabbaths' calendar piety echoes Isaiah's prophetic critique of 'new moon and sabbath' observance that God comes to loathe. The polemical stance coheres, but Galatians supplies no shared wording, so this is a faint echo at best.

Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me; new moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can’t bear with evil assemblies.


'You received me as an angel/messenger of God' (v.14) may glance at the messenger-of-the-Lord motif (Mal 2:7; cf. Zech) where a human envoy is welcomed as God's representative. The wording is generic and the link is weak; marked low and contested.

For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Yahweh of Armies.


'Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid' (v.22) directly recounts Hagar bearing Ishmael to Abraham. This is the foundational narrative Paul allegorizes; the citation is explicit ('it is written') and figurally load-bearing for the whole pericope.

Hagar bore a son for Abram. Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.


'One by the free woman' born 'through promise' (vv.22-23) recounts Sarah bearing Isaac at the appointed time God had promised. Volume and coherence are maximal; Paul builds the free-woman/promise half of the allegory directly on this Genesis event.

Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.


'The son by the free woman was born through promise' (v.23) rests on God's explicit promise that Sarah would bear a son and become 'mother of nations.' Coherence with Paul's promise/flesh antithesis is exact; the promise to Sarah is the textual hinge of the contrast.

I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples will come from her.”


The 'born through promise' language (v.23) echoes the annunciation 'I will surely return to you, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.' This is the verbal source of the divine promise of Isaac that Paul treats as paradigmatic; recurrence with 17:16 strengthens it.

He said, “I will certainly return to you when the season comes round. Behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.” Sarah heard in the tent door, which was behind him.


'The son by the handmaid was born according to the flesh' (v.23) recalls the merely human stratagem of Gen 16, where Sarai gives Hagar to Abram to bear a child by ordinary means. Coherence with Paul's flesh/Spirit antithesis is strong; supplies the 'according to the flesh' pole.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.


V.27 quotes Isaiah 54:1 almost verbatim (LXX): 'Rejoice, you barren who don't bear... more are the children of the desolate than of her who has a husband.' Highest volume; the barren-now-fruitful Zion is mapped onto the free Jerusalem above and Sarah. Explicit 'it is written.'

“Sing, barren, you who didn’t bear; break out into singing, and cry aloud, you who did not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife,” says Yahweh.


'One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar' (v.24-25) keys the whole covenant typology to the Hagar narrative. The figural identification of Hagar with Sinai/present Jerusalem in slavery is the interpretive core of the pericope.


'One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage' (v.24) presupposes the Sinai covenant/law-giving (Exod 19-20) which Paul recategorizes as enslaving. Coherence with the two-covenants argument is high; the allusion is to the Sinai event as institution.

In the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that same day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.


'The Jerusalem that is above is free, the mother of us all' (v.26) draws on the prophetic exaltation of Zion as the mother-city to which nations stream. Conceptual availability is strong (heavenly/eschatological Zion) but Galatians supplies no shared wording, so low/contested.

Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go out, and Yahweh’s word from Jerusalem.


The 'Jerusalem above... mother of us all' (v.26) coheres with Zion as the mother of whom it is said 'this one and that one were born in her.' The maternal-Zion motif is apt but verbally faint in Galatians; marked low and contested.

Yes, of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one was born in her”; the Most High himself will establish her.


'We, brothers, as Isaac was, are children of promise' (v.28) identifies believers with Isaac, the son born by promise (Gen 21:1-2). Coherence with the promise/flesh allegory is exact; Isaac is the explicit figural type.


'He who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit' (v.29) draws on Ishmael 'mocking/playing with' Isaac (Gen 21:9), read in Jewish tradition as persecution. Strong coherence; supplies the persecution motif Paul applies to the agitators.

Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.


V.30 quotes Gen 21:10 (Sarah's words): 'Throw out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid will not inherit with the son of the free woman.' High verbal volume; the inheritance/exclusion ruling is Paul's clinching scriptural warrant, marked 'what does the Scripture say.'

Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this handmaid and her son! For the son of this handmaid will not be heir with my son, Isaac.”


'We are not children of a handmaid, but of the free woman' (v.31) closes the allegory by reasserting the Hagar/Sarah identification. The figural reading of the slave-woman narrative governs the concluding antithesis.


Paul's 'yoke of bondage/slavery' inverts the exodus formula where God 'broke the bars of your yoke' and made Israel walk upright after Egyptian slavery. Volume is fair (the yoke-of-slavery image is distinctively exodus/covenant) and coheres with Paul's whole exodus-from-law typology in Galatians. The redemptive-liberation logic matches closely.

I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright.


The Jubilee proclamation of 'liberty (deror) throughout the land' may underlie Paul's stress on the freedom for which Christ liberated. Coherence is real (release from debt-servitude) but volume is faint; the verbal link runs through the LXX language of eleutheria rather than direct citation.

You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.


The Servant's anointing 'to proclaim liberty to the captives' is a Second-Temple touchstone for eschatological release that Paul's freedom language may draw upon. Faint volume and no verbal quotation, but the messianic-liberty theme coheres with Christ as the agent who 'made us free.'

The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me; because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to those who are bound;

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind;


Jeremiah's sign-act of the broken/iron yoke (chs. 27-28) gives the prophetic vocabulary of a yoke as imposed servitude that is broken or re-imposed. Coherence is moderate but recurrence is weak; the image is generic enough that direct dependence is uncertain.

Thus speaks Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.


Paul's whole argument about receiving circumcision presupposes the Abrahamic covenant of circumcision as the sign binding one to the law. Availability and volume are strong as the institutional backdrop, even though Paul does not cite the words. The figural reversal (circumcision now profits nothing) depends on the reader knowing this text.

This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.


Being 'a debtor to do the whole law' restates the Deuteronomic curse on everyone who does not confirm all the words of the law to do them, which Paul quotes explicitly at 3:10. Recurrence within Galatians is high, making the echo here coherent and deliberate.

‘Cursed is he who doesn’t uphold the words of this law by doing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”


The demand to 'do the whole law' resonates with the Levitical maxim that the one who does these statutes shall live by them, which Paul cites at 3:12. Volume is moderate but the verbal contact here is thematic rather than lexical.

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my ordinances; which if a man does, he shall live in them. I am Yahweh.


'Through the Spirit, by faith we wait for the hope of righteousness' recalls the prophetic axiom that the righteous shall live by faith, which Paul cites at 3:11. The faith-righteousness pairing coheres strongly, though here it is allusive rather than quoted.

Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith.


'A little yeast leavens the whole lump' draws on the Passover/Unleavened Bread command to purge all leaven from the house, where leaven functions as a spreading defilement. Volume and availability are high; the agricultural proverb is freighted with the cultic logic of total removal that fits Paul's warning about the agitators.

“‘Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.


The reinforcing command that no leaven be seen in all your borders during the feast undergirds the same purity image. Recurrence across the Exodus leaven texts strengthens the figural force of contamination spreading through the community.

Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and no leavened bread shall be seen with you, neither shall yeast be seen with you, in all your borders.


Paul's wish that the circumcisers would 'cut themselves off' (mutilate/emasculate) trades on the law excluding the emasculated from the assembly of the LORD, a bitterly ironic inversion: those zealous for circumcision are told to go further and be excluded. Coherence and wordplay are strong though the dependence is contested versus a generic castration gibe.

He who is emasculated by crushing or cutting shall not enter into Yahweh’s assembly.


'The stumbling block of the cross' echoes the prophetic stone of stumbling and rock of offense, a Second-Temple testimony Paul uses elsewhere. Volume is faint here and the link is thematic; the contact may run through shared early-Christian stone testimonia.

He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel, he will be a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.


Paul cites verbatim 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' declaring the whole law fulfilled in this one word. This is an explicit LXX quotation with the highest volume and availability; it is the interpretive center of the pericope.

“‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.


'If you bite and devour one another' echoes the psalmist's enemies who draw near 'to eat up my flesh,' supplying the predatory cannibal imagery for internal strife. Volume is modest and the metaphor is conventional, so dependence is plausible but uncertain.

When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell.


Micah's indictment of leaders who 'eat the flesh of my people' and tear their skin matches Paul's imagery of mutual consuming as social predation. The prophetic backdrop coheres with the moral charge, though the image is widespread enough to be only an echo.

who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron.


The wisdom portrait of a generation whose teeth are swords 'to devour the poor' reinforces the same devouring-one-another trope. Faint volume; offered as a maximal candidate within the predatory-mouth field.

There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, and their jaws like knives, to devour the poor from the earth, and the needy from among men.


'Walk by the Spirit' and being 'led by the Spirit' echo the new-covenant promise that God will put his Spirit within and cause his people to walk in his statutes. Coherence is strong with Paul's Spirit-versus-law contrast, and availability is high in Second-Temple Spirit-endowment hope.

I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my ordinances, and do them.


'Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground' supplies the rare motif of the divine Spirit as the agent of moral guidance behind Paul's 'led by the Spirit.' Volume is low but the verbal pairing of Spirit and leading is distinctive.

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.


The exodus retrospect where the Spirit of the LORD gave Israel rest and led the people gives a prophetic precedent for Spirit-leading. Faint and contested, but it coheres with Paul's exodus-shaped Spirit theology.

As the livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of Yahweh caused them to rest; so you led your people, to make yourself a glorious name.


The vice 'sorcery' (pharmakeia) names a practice condemned in the Deuteronomic catalog of diviners and sorcerers, signaling that Paul's list draws the flesh's works partly from Torah's prohibited paganisms. Coherence with idolatry (next item) strengthens the covenantal framing.

There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices sorcery, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer,


'Idolatry' as the head of the cultic vices echoes the Decalogue's first/second commandments against other gods and images. Availability and recurrence are high; idolatry is the paradigmatic covenant breach the prophets repeatedly indict.

“You shall have no other gods before me.


Hosea's catalog of swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and adultery breaking out is a prophetic vice-list precedent for Paul's enumerated 'works of the flesh.' The form-critical parallel coheres, though Paul's specific items are largely Hellenistic, so the dependence is a structural echo rather than citation.

There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.


The deuterocanonical vice-catalog spawned by idolatry (bloodshed, deceit, corruption, disorder, sexual confusion) is a close Second-Temple analogue to Paul's idolatry-rooted list. Availability is strong and the genre match is notable, supporting a Hellenistic-Jewish background for the form.

And all things confusedly are filled with blood and murder, theft and deceit, Corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury,


The 'fruit of the Spirit' yielding peace and righteousness recalls Isaiah's vision of the Spirit poured from on high making the wilderness fruitful so that the effect of righteousness is peace. The agricultural Spirit-fruit-peace cluster coheres closely with Paul's metaphor.

Until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.


The sevenfold endowment resting on the messianic shoot (wisdom, counsel, knowledge, fear of the LORD) is the OT prototype of Spirit-borne virtue catalogs that Paul's nine-fold list develops. Volume is faint and the items differ, so this is an underlying conceptual echo of Spirit-given character.

The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh.


'If we live by the Spirit' resonates with Ezekiel's promise 'I will put my Spirit in you and you shall live,' the new-covenant linkage of Spirit and resurrection-life. Coherence is good with Paul's Spirit-life theme, though here it is a faint thematic echo without verbal citation.

I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land: and you shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken it and performed it, says Yahweh.


The pairing of Spirit/breath and life behind 'live by the Spirit' may distantly invoke the creation account where God's breath makes the human a living being, now read pneumatologically. Very faint volume; offered as a maximal figural candidate.

Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.


"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (v.2) recapitulates Paul's reading of Lev 19:18 as the whole law's summation, already explicit in Gal 5:14. Volume and recurrence within Galatians are high; the burden-bearing of v.2 specifies the neighbor-love command in concrete mutual care. The clearest OT substrate for "fulfill the law" here.


Restoring the one "caught in some fault" and mutual responsibility may faintly evoke Cain's "Am I my brother's keeper?" as the negative foil. Volume is thin and there is no verbal contact; offered as a contested figural counterpoint to communal accountability.

Yahweh said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”


"Restore such a one" and the duty not to ignore the stumbling brother resonates with the sapiential charge to rescue those being led to ruin. Coherence with Paul's communal ethic is moderate but verbal availability is weak; marked contested.

Rescue those who are being led away to death! Indeed, hold back those who are staggering to the slaughter! If you say, “Behold, we didn’t know this”; doesn’t he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn’t he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?


"Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (v.7) draws on the wisdom maxim of moral retribution stated in Job 4:8, "those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same." The sowing/reaping figure is a stock OT idiom; volume is high and coherence with Paul's flesh-vs-Spirit harvest (v.8) is strong.

According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.


Hosea's "they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind" is the prophetic locus for inexorable sowing-reaping judgment, closely matching Gal 6:7-8's certainty that the harvest answers the seed. Recurrence of the agricultural-judgment topos across the prophets supports availability; coherence with reaping corruption is high.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.


Hosea 10:12-13 opposes sowing righteousness/steadfast love and reaping accordingly versus plowing iniquity and reaping injustice, the same antithetical structure as Paul's sowing to the flesh vs. to the Spirit (v.8). The two-way harvest imagery makes this among the strongest prophetic substrates for the pericope.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you. You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.


"Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity" supplies the sapiential form of the maxim Paul cites in v.7. Volume is moderate and the proverb belongs to the same cluster as Job 4:8; coherence is high though no single source is quoted verbatim.

He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.

He that sows wickedness shall reap troubles; and shall fully receive the punishment of his deeds. God loves a cheerful and liberal man; but a man shall fully prove the folly of his works.


"Whoever sows righteousness gets a sure reward" matches the positive pole of Paul's harvest ("sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life," v.8) and the promise of v.9 that doing good will reap in due season. Part of the wisdom sowing-cluster; offered as a corroborating echo rather than a single source.

Wicked people earn deceitful wages, but one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.


"Do not sow in the furrows of injustice, lest you reap them sevenfold" is the Second-Temple form of the maxim, demonstrating its currency in Paul's milieu (availability). Volume is moderate; it strengthens the case that v.7 cites a proverbial commonplace rather than one prophet.

My son, sow not upon the furrows of unrighteousness, And you shall not reap them sevenfold.


"We will reap in due season" (v.9) may faintly recall the covenant promise of rain and harvest "in its season" for obedience. Coherence with eschatological reaping is partial and the verbal link is thin; marked contested.

that I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.


"Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy" parallels v.9's encouragement not to grow weary because reaping comes in due season if one does not give up. The consolatory sowing-reaping reversal coheres with Paul's exhortation, though there is no verbal citation; contested.

Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed for sowing, will certainly come again with joy, carrying his sheaves.


"God is not mocked" (v.7) resonates with the Song of Moses' rebuke of the people who treat the LORD with contempt and with the broader OT motif that God will not be derided. Volume is low and no single text is in view; offered as a faint contested backdrop.

Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.


"Neither circumcision... but a new creation" (v.15) draws on Isaiah's "new heavens and a new earth," the prophetic announcement of God's eschatological re-creation. Recurrence of the new-creation theme across Isaiah and coherence with Paul's crucified-world (v.14) make this the primary OT source for kaine ktisis.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.


Isaiah 66:22's "new heavens and new earth" that shall remain reinforces 65:17 as the scriptural matrix for the abiding "new creation" of v.15. The pairing supplies recurrence within Isaiah; coherence with Paul's contrast between old marks-in-the-flesh and new creation is strong.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,” says Yahweh, “so your seed and your name shall remain.


"Do not remember the former things... I am doing a new thing" frames the new creation as the displacement of what is old, paralleling Paul's relegation of circumcision/uncircumcision to nothing (v.15). Volume is moderate and the theme is part of Isaiah's new-exodus cluster.

“Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.