'All the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron' supplies the murmuring motif that ends in wilderness death. Plausible alongside Num 16 as the referent for 'as some of them also grumbled.'

All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “We wish that we had died in the land of Egypt, or that we had died in this wilderness!


'The LORD will not allow the destroyer to enter' names ha-mashchit, 'the destroyer,' the agent Paul invokes in v.10. The Passover destroyer is reapplied to the wilderness-grumbling judgment, supplying Paul's exact figure.

For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel, and on the two door posts, Yahweh will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to strike you.


The death of the faithless spies 'by a plague before the LORD' caps the wilderness judgments Paul says 'happened to them by way of example' (v.11). Faint summary tie reinforcing the typological frame, not a specific verbal echo.

even those men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before Yahweh.


'Remember the whole way the LORD led you... to test you' frames the wilderness as instructive testing, coherent with 'written for our admonition' and the temptation theme of v.13. Low volume; offered for the didactic-wilderness coherence.

You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not.


'Know that the LORD your God is the faithful God' underlies 'God is faithful' (v.13). The covenant-faithfulness predicate is a Deuteronomic commonplace Paul likely draws on for assurance amid testing.

Know therefore that Yahweh your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with them who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations,


The peace/fellowship offering whose flesh the offerer eats grounds 'those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar' (v.18). The shared-meal logic of the well-being offering is Paul's analogy for koinonia at the altar.

The flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it until the morning.


'Every male among the priests may eat of it... it is most holy' establishes that eating the sacrifice joins one to the altar's holiness, the premise of v.18. Coherence with Paul's participation argument.

Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy.


Eating the tithe and sacrifices 'before the LORD' as a covenant meal supports Paul's table-of-the-Lord/participation theme (vv.18,21). Faint; offered for the sacrificial-meal coherence rather than verbal contact.

You shall eat before Yahweh your God, in the place which he chooses, to cause his name to dwell there, the tithe of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock; that you may learn to fear Yahweh your God always. If the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry it, because the place is too far from you, which Yahweh your God shall choose, to set his name there, when Yahweh your God shall […]


'They sacrificed to demons, not God' (Song of Moses) is the source of 'the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God' (v.20), near-verbatim. High volume; the Song's demon-sacrifice charge is the scriptural warrant for Paul's whole idol-meat verdict.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.


'They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons' parallels Deut 32:17 and reinforces 'sacrifice to demons' (v.20). The psalm's wilderness-and-conquest demon-sacrifice motif coheres with Paul's reading; a likely secondary source.

Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.


'They have made me jealous with what is no god' is the direct backdrop to 'do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?' (v.22). Recurrence within the Song of Moses (with v.17) and verbal contact on jealousy/provocation make this a strong, deliberate echo.

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.


'The LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God' grounds the jealousy logic of v.22 and ties the idolatry warning to the covenant's first commandment. Coheres with the jealous-God theology Paul presses against idol feasts.

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


'There is no god beside me' / unmatched divine power may color 'Are we stronger than he?' (v.22). Faint, but consistent with Paul's sustained use of the Song of Moses in this section.

“See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.


'The table of the LORD' as the altar offers the only OT 'table of the Lord' phrase behind v.21's 'table of the Lord.' Low volume and uncertain, but the unique idiom warrants noting.

You offer polluted bread on my altar. You say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ In that you say, ‘Yahweh’s table is contemptible.’


'The earth is the LORD's, and its fullness' is quoted verbatim (v.26) and repeated at v.28 as the warrant that all food is clean for the believer. Highest volume; the creation-belongs-to-God claim is Paul's decisive ground for eating market meat.

The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell therein.


'The world is mine, and its fullness' restates the same creation-ownership claim as Ps 24:1 and could stand behind v.26's wording. Lower probability given the near-exact match to Ps 24:1, but noted for the shared 'fullness' idiom.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.


'Everyone... whom I created for my glory' may inform 'do all to the glory of God' (v.31). Faint and thematic; offered for the creation-for-God's-glory coherence behind Paul's doxological maxim.

everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.’”


Paul's claim that man 'is the image and glory of God' (v.7) draws directly on the creation of humanity in God's image and likeness. The Greek eikon echoes LXX Gen 1:26-27. High volume and coherence; Paul reasons from the creation account to gender relations in worship.

God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.


Verses 8-9 ('man is not from woman, but woman from man... neither was man created for the woman, but woman for the man') paraphrase the formation of woman from Adam's rib and as a helper fit for him. Explicit appeal to the order of creation; very high volume and coherence.

Yahweh God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature became its name. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper […]


The framing of man as formed first and woman 'from man' (v.8) presupposes the prior molding of Adam from the dust in Gen 2:7, the immediate context of the woman's formation. Faint and dependent on the larger Gen 2 narrative already in view.

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.


The enigmatic 'because of the angels' (v.10) has long been read against the sons of God who took human women, implying that uncovered women in worship could provoke angelic lust. A major interpretive option but contested; volume is low since Paul gives no quotation, only the cryptic phrase.

When men began to multiply on the surface of the ground, and daughters were born to them, God’s sons saw that men’s daughters were beautiful, and they took any that they wanted for themselves as wives. Yahweh said, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God’s sons came in to men’s daughters and had children […]


An alternative reading of 'because of the angels' (v.10) is that angels are present at communal worship (cf. praising God 'before the gods/angels'), so propriety must be maintained in their sight. Faint, contested, and one of several competing explanations.

I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you.


Second-Temple Watcher tradition (1 Enoch 6-7) elaborates Gen 6's angelic descent and lust for women, the most likely backdrop if 'the angels' (v.10) refers to fallen watchers. Availability is secure; recurrence in early Christian reception (Tertullian) supports it, but it remains contested.

[source text not in the World English Bible]


Paul's rebuke that the rich shame 'those who have nothing' at the common meal (v.22) coheres with the Torah's repeated insistence that festal eating include the poor, the stranger, the widow. Faint thematic echo rather than a specific citation; no verbal overlap.

You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God: you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are in your midst, in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. You shall observe and do these statutes. You shall keep the feast of tents seven days, after you have […]


The picture of some drunken while others go hungry at the assembly (vv.21-22) recalls prophetic woes against feasting and drunkenness that ignore covenant obligation. Low volume; a moral-prophetic resonance, not a quotation.

Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them! The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.


'This cup is the new covenant in my blood' (v.25) fuses Moses' words at Sinai, 'the blood of the covenant,' with covenant-inauguration sacrifice. High volume via the covenant+blood pairing and strong coherence; the Supper is presented as a covenant-ratifying meal.

Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words.”


The phrase 'the new covenant' (v.25) is verbatim from Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant (LXX Jer 38:31). Highest volume of any echo here; Jesus' cup-word interprets the Supper as the inauguration of Jeremiah's promised covenant.

Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:


The institution 'on the night in which he was betrayed' (v.23) over bread and cup is set within the Passover frame; the memorial meal ('in memory of me') echoes the Passover's perpetual remembrance. Coherence is strong, though the verbal overlap is thematic rather than quoted.

Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household is too little for a lamb, then he and his neighbor next to his house shall take one […]


'Do this in memory of me' (vv.24-25) mirrors the Passover ordinance that the day be a 'memorial' (zikkaron / LXX mnemosynon) kept perpetually. The memorial-meal logic transfers from Exodus to the Lord's Supper.

This day shall be to you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to Yahweh: throughout your generations you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever.


'By the blood of your covenant I have set your prisoners free' is one possible background for 'the new covenant in my blood' (v.25), linking covenant blood to liberation. Faint and secondary to Exodus 24/Jeremiah 31; low volume.

As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I have set free your prisoners from the pit in which is no water.


The body 'which is for you' and proclaiming the Lord's death (vv.24, 26) may echo the Servant who 'poured out his soul to death' and bore others' sin. Low volume, contested; resonance is conceptual rather than verbal in this passage.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the plunder with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.


'Let a man examine himself' (v.28) echoes the psalmist's plea, 'Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; test my heart and my mind.' Self-scrutiny before approaching God is the shared logic; medium volume given the verbal field of testing/proving.

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


The call to self-examination before the cup (v.28) coheres with 'Search me, O God, and know my heart... see if there is any wicked way in me.' Recurrence of the examine-the-heart motif in the Psalter supports the echo.

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' parallels Paul's 'if we discerned ourselves, we wouldn't be judged' (v.31). The self-examination-averts-judgment logic is closely coherent with Lamentations' penitential exhortation.

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


'When we are judged, we are punished by the Lord' (v.32) draws on the covenant principle that the Lord disciplines his people 'as a man disciplines his son.' The corrective (not condemnatory) character of the chastening matches Paul's point.

You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.


Being 'punished by the Lord' so as not to be condemned (v.32) echoes 'do not despise the Lord's discipline... for the Lord reproves him whom he loves.' Strong coherence with the fatherly-discipline theme; medium volume.

My son, don’t despise Yahweh’s discipline, neither be weary of his reproof: for whom Yahweh loves, he reproves; even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.

My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loves, he rebukes, and scourges every son whom he receives.


The instruction to 'wait for one another' and eat at home if hungry (vv.33-34) may faintly echo the ordered, communal eating of the Passover within households. Low volume and contested; primarily a practical instruction.

They shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. Don’t eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts. You shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire. This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your shoes on your feet, and your […]


The idea that God's people are tested/disciplined as a father admonishes while the wicked are condemned (vv.31-32) parallels Wisdom's contrast of the Lord chastening Israel in mercy versus judging the ungodly in wrath. Deuterocanonical resonance; low volume, contested.

For when they were tried, albeit but in mercy chastened, They learned how the ungodly were tormented, being judged with wrath: For these, as a father, admonishing them, you did prove; But those, as a stern king, condemning them, you did search out.


Paul recalls the Corinthians being led to 'mute idols' (eidola aphona), echoing the psalm's taunt that the nations' idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands, with mouths that cannot speak. The motif of the idol's speechlessness contrasted with the living God is a fixed OT polemic, and the verbal link (mouths/speech) gives this strong volume.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. They have hands, but they don’t feel. They have feet, but they don’t walk, neither do they speak through their throat.


The dumb idol that cannot teach, the woe to one who says to a mute stone 'Awake,' undergirds Paul's phrase 'mute idols.' Habakkuk stresses that there is no breath/spirit in the idol, which sharpens Paul's contrast with the speaking, Spirit-empowered confession 'Jesus is Lord' that follows.

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in its midst.


Isaiah mocks the idol that is carried, set in place, and cannot move or answer when cried to; it does not save. Paul's image of being 'led away to mute idols, however you might be led' coheres with this picture of a powerless, voiceless god, reinforcing the speech/no-speech antithesis.

They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands, from its place it shall not move: yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.


A close parallel to Psalm 115, again ridiculing idols with mouths that do not speak and no breath in their mouths. Its recurrence in the same idol-polemic tradition raises the volume of the 'mute idols' echo, though the verbal contact is generic.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they can’t speak. They have eyes, but they can’t see. They have ears, but they can’t hear; neither is there any breath in their mouths.


Paul's claim that only by the Holy Spirit can one confess 'Jesus is Lord' anticipates the chapter's pneumatology, faintly resting on the promise that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh so that they prophesy. The connection is thematic (Spirit-enabled speech) rather than verbal here.

“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.


The 'varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit' poured out on the community reflects the eschatological outpouring of one Spirit producing diverse manifestations (sons, daughters, old, young prophesying and dreaming). The one-Spirit/many-recipients structure coheres tightly with Joel's vision, which Paul elsewhere cites for the Spirit's universal distribution.


God takes of the one Spirit on Moses and distributes it among the seventy elders, who then prophesy; Moses wishes all the Lord's people were prophets. This is the paradigmatic OT scene of one Spirit apportioned to many for varied ministry, mapping onto Paul's 'same Spirit... various kinds of service.'

Yahweh came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was on him, and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did so no more. But two men remained in the camp. The name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and the Spirit rested on them; and they were of those who were written, but had not gone out to the Tent; and they prophesied in the camp. A young man ran, and told […]


The Spirit of the Lord resting as a sevenfold endowment (wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear) on the messianic shoot offers a precedent for one Spirit yielding plural gifts. The catalog form is suggestive, though Paul's list differs in content.

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's enumeration of Spirit-gifts beginning with 'word of wisdom' and 'word of knowledge' echoes the messianic Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge. Both passages catalog distinct charisms flowing from a single divine Spirit, giving coherence to the allusion even where the lists do not match item-for-item.


The Spirit distributed by God among many recipients, each prophesying, anticipates Paul's 'distributing to each one separately as he desires.' The sovereign apportioning of one Spirit to diverse people for prophecy and service is the structural backbone shared with the Mosaic narrative.


Prophecy as the signature gift of the poured-out Spirit ('your sons and daughters shall prophesy') stands behind Paul's list, which prominently includes prophecy. The eschatological democratization of the Spirit coheres with Paul's 'to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit.'


Daniel praises God who gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding, and reveals deep and hidden things. The pairing of God-given 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' as revelatory gifts faintly parallels Paul's first two charisms, though no verbal citation is made.

He changes the times and the seasons; he removes kings, and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals the deep and secret things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. I thank you, and praise you, you God of my fathers, who have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we desired of you; for you have made known to us the king’s matter.


God fills Bezalel with the Spirit of God in wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all craftsmanship for the tabernacle. This is the OT prototype of the Spirit equipping individuals with specific skill-gifts for the building of God's dwelling, resonating with Paul's Spirit-distributed abilities for the body's upbuilding.

and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all kinds of workmanship,


Wisdom describes the spirit of wisdom as manifold (poikilos), intelligent, all-powerful, pervading all spirits, distributing benefits. The notion of one Spirit with manifold operations apportioned among many coheres with Paul's 'various kinds of gifts... the one and the same Spirit works all,' making a Second-Temple sapiential backdrop plausible.

For she that is the architect of all things taught me, even wisdom. For there is in her a spirit quick of understanding, holy, Alone in kind, manifold, Subtil, freely moving, Clear in utterance, unpolluted, Distinct, unharmed, Loving what is good, keen, unhindered, Beneficent, loving toward man, Stedfast, sure, free from care, All-powerful, all-surveying, And penetrating through all spirits That are quick of understanding, pure, most subtle:


Being 'all given to drink into one Spirit' and 'baptized in one Spirit' draws on the imagery of the Spirit poured out on all flesh regardless of status (sons, daughters, slaves). Joel's leveling of social distinctions in the Spirit's outpouring coheres with Paul's 'whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free.'


God promises to pour water on the thirsty and his Spirit upon the offspring, joining the images of drinking/water and Spirit-outpouring. Paul's distinctive phrase 'all given to drink into one Spirit' coheres strongly with this water-Spirit fusion in the prophetic promise of renewal.

For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your seed, and my blessing on your offspring:


God puts his one Spirit within the reconstituted people so that a scattered, divided house becomes one living body. The creation of a unified people animated by God's Spirit faintly underlies Paul's 'in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.'

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 one body formed and animated by the breath/Spirit of God offers a creational template for Paul's one Spirit constituting one living body. The link is figural rather than verbal, but Paul's body-and-Spirit pairing resonates with the animating-breath motif.

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.


The psalmist marvels that God formed and knit together his members in the womb, framing the body as God's deliberate composition. Paul's repeated 'God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired' coheres with this picture of divinely intended bodily arrangement, though the genre and vocabulary differ.

For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.


God's purposeful arrangement of each member 'just as he desired,' with each part necessary, faintly echoes the creation account in which God orders distinct parts and pronounces the whole very good. The connection is thematic (divine sovereign design) rather than lexical.

God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.


The wisdom of how the body's members are formed and held in mutual dependence echoes the psalm's wonder at the body's intricate making. Paul's claim that God 'composed the body together' so members care for one another coheres with the psalm's sense of a divinely integrated body.

I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.


The command to love one's neighbor as oneself, grounding Israel's mutual solidarity, faintly underlies Paul's vision that members 'have the same care for one another' and suffer and rejoice together. The body imagery dramatizes the covenant ethic of corporate mutual care.

“‘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.


God's appointment of designated, Spirit-endowed offices in the assembly ('first apostles, second prophets, third teachers') recalls Moses' divinely appointed seventy who share the Spirit for leadership. Both depict God ordering a structured ministry among his people through the one Spirit.


Prophets ranked among God's appointed in the assembly continues the chapter's reliance on Joel's outpoured-Spirit prophecy. The placement of prophecy as a settled, God-given office among the people coheres with the eschatological community of prophets Joel envisions.


God's sovereign appointing and ordering of those he commissions ('I appointed you a prophet to the nations') faintly resonates with Paul's 'God has set some in the assembly.' The divine setting/appointing of ministers links the two, though no verbal citation is present.

“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.”


The 'clanging cymbal' (kymbalon alalazon) draws on the temple cymbals of the psalm's call to praise God with 'loud clashing cymbals.' Paul ironically inverts liturgical worship: cymbals were sanctioned only as accompaniment to true praise, so love-less ecstatic speech is mere noise, the percussion without the worship. Verbal and conceptual links give this high volume.

Praise him with loud cymbals! Praise him with resounding cymbals!


David appoints Levites with instruments, including cymbals, to raise sounds of joy in temple worship. Paul's 'clanging cymbal' presupposes this fixed liturgical role of the cymbal in Israelite praise; without love the sound is emptied of its cultic meaning. Recurrence of the cymbal across the Chronicler strengthens availability.

David spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brothers the singers, with instruments of music, stringed instruments and harps and cymbals, sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy.


Heman, Asaph, and Ethan sound bronze cymbals; the noun chalkos/'bronze' resonates with Paul's 'sounding brass' (chalkos echon). The pairing of brass and cymbal in one verse-pair (sounding brass, clanging cymbal) mirrors the Chronicler's pairing of bronze cymbals in temple music, though the link is faint.

So the singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, were given cymbals of brass to sound aloud;


All Israel brings up the ark with the sound of cymbals amid shouting (the verb cognate to alalazo). Paul's alalazon ('clanging') echoes the loud cultic shout/cymbal-clash of Israel's processional worship, here drained of substance when love is absent.

Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of Yahweh with shouting, and with sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, sounding aloud with stringed instruments and harps.


'Tongues of angels' presupposes the OT picture of angels (here 'a little lower than the angels/elohim') as a class of glorious heavenly beings whose speech surpasses human. The motif of angelic language is developed in Second-Temple texts; the canonical seedbed is the angelic praise tradition.

For you have made him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory and honor.


Job's daughters receive cords enabling them to speak 'the dialect of angels' in hymnic praise. This pseudepigraphon attests the precise Second-Temple notion of distinct 'tongues of angels' that Paul invokes, supplying availability for his otherwise unparalleled phrase. Cited as cultural background, not a quoted source.

[source text not in the World English Bible]


'So as to remove mountains' echoes the oracle to Zerubbabel, 'Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain,' where the mountain of obstacle is leveled not by might but by God's Spirit. The mountain-as-impediment removed by divine power coheres with Paul's faith that 'removes mountains.' Volume is moderate; the saying also circulated in dominical tradition.

Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are a plain; and he will bring out the capstone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace, to it!’”


'Every mountain and hill shall be made low' supplies the eschatological image of mountains brought down before the coming of God. Paul's hyperbole of faith leveling mountains coheres with this prophetic flattening of obstacles, though the link is thematic rather than verbal.

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The uneven shall be made level, and the rough places a plain.


The stone cut without hands shatters the image and becomes a great mountain; the chapter's idiom of mysteries (raza) revealed undergirds Paul's 'know all mysteries.' The mountain motif here is faint, but Daniel's apocalyptic disclosure of 'mysteries' is the strongest OT seedbed for Paul's mysteria language.

You saw until a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them: and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.


'Know all mysteries and all knowledge' draws on Daniel's 'God in heaven who reveals mysteries,' the Aramaic raze that becomes the technical term for apocalyptic secrets. Paul's pairing of mysteries with prophetic gift coheres with Daniel's revealer-of-secrets, the principal OT source for the mystery-vocabulary.

but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has made known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head on your bed, are these:


'Give my body to be burned' evokes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego handing over their bodies to the fiery furnace rather than worship the image. The willing surrender of the body to flames as the supreme act of devotion supplies the model Paul deems worthless without love. Strong thematic coherence with martyr-by-fire piety.

Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his appearance was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He spoke, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other […]


The king praises the three who 'yielded up their bodies' rather than serve any god but their own; the LXX phrasing of surrendering the body parallels Paul's paradoso to soma mou. This sharpens the furnace allusion: bodily self-surrender is praiseworthy, yet Paul says even this profits nothing without love.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and delivered his servants who trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.


The seven brothers are tortured and burned in pans for refusing apostasy, the paradigmatic deuterocanonical martyrdom by fire. Paul's 'give my body to be burned' coheres with this celebrated martyr-narrative of bodily immolation, a readily available exemplum in his milieu. Volume moderate, recurrence high in martyr tradition.

And when he was utterly maimed, the king commanded to bring him to the fire, being yet alive, and to fry him in the pan. And as the vapor of the pan spread far, they and their mother also exhorted one another to die nobly, saying thus:


Eleazar likened to one consumed by fire yet conquering through reason and piety; the pseudepigraphal celebration of burning martyrdom as the height of virtue reinforces the cultural availability of Paul's burnt-body topos. Cited as background to the burning-as-supreme-sacrifice motif.

so, Eleazar, the descendant of Aaron, wasted away by the fire, did not give up his reasoning.


'Dole out all my goods to feed the poor' resonates with the OT praise of the one who shares bread with the poor and is blessed. Paul concedes the highest almsgiving, yet subordinates it to love; the link to the wisdom ideal of generosity to the poor is thematic and faint.

He who has a generous eye will be blessed; for he shares his food with the poor.


'Love is patient' (makrothymei) and 'kind' renders the LXX self-description of the LORD as 'slow to anger (makrothymos) and abounding in steadfast love.' Paul transposes the covenant attributes of God's character onto agape, so that the hymn portrays love with the very predicates of the divine name. High volume, strong coherence: the Exodus formula is the foundational OT portrait of patient, faithful love.

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


'The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and great in steadfast love' restates the Exodus formula and grounds Paul's 'love is patient and kind.' Its liturgical recurrence (Pss 86:15; 103:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2) gives the patient-and-kind pairing strong availability and volume as a fixed description of covenant love.

Yahweh is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and of great loving kindness.


'Love covers all offenses' (versus hatred that stirs strife) underwrites Paul's 'love takes no account of evil' and 'bears all things.' The proverb's antithesis of love that overlooks wrongs against hate that provokes maps directly onto Paul's list of what love is not (provoked, resentful). The covering/non-reckoning of evil is a strong conceptual parallel.

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all wrongs.


'Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another... for all these things I hate' coheres with 'love takes no account of evil' and 'does not rejoice in unrighteousness.' Zechariah pairs the rejection of inward malice with truth-telling (8:16), matching Paul's contrast of evil-plotting against rejoicing in the truth.

and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbor, and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate,” says Yahweh.


'Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends' parallels love that 'takes no account of evil' and 'bears all things.' The wisdom ideal of not rehearsing wrongs is a close conceptual match for Paul's non-reckoning love, reinforcing the Prov 10:12 covering-motif.

He who covers an offense promotes love; but he who repeats a matter separates best friends.


'Blessed is the one to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity' supplies the accounting idiom behind 'love takes no account of evil' (ou logizetai to kakon). Just as God's blessing rests on not-reckoning sin, Paul's love refuses to keep a ledger of wrongs; the logizomai/non-imputation link gives moderate verbal warrant.

Blessed is the man to whom Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.


'Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is hasty of spirit exalts folly' coheres with love that 'is not provoked' (ou paroxynetai). The wisdom valorization of slow anger against quick temper supports Paul's portrait, though without specific verbal contact.

He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a quick temper displays folly.


'Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall' undergirds love that 'doesn't brag, is not proud' (ou physioutai). The wisdom condemnation of arrogance is the broad OT seedbed for Paul's anti-boasting predicates, a thematic rather than verbal echo.

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.


The hymn to Wisdom enumerates her attributes (kindly, loving the good, beneficent, unhindered) in a rhetorical catalogue strikingly like Paul's catalogue of love's attributes. As a Second-Temple model of personified virtue praised by predicate-lists, it offers availability for the form and ethos of Paul's encomium to agape.

For she that is the architect of all things taught me, even wisdom. For there is in her a spirit quick of understanding, holy, Alone in kind, manifold, Subtil, freely moving, Clear in utterance, unpolluted, Distinct, unharmed, Loving what is good, keen, unhindered, Beneficent, loving toward man, Stedfast, sure, free from care, All-powerful, all-surveying, And penetrating through all spirits That are quick of understanding, pure, most subtle: For wisdom is […]


Ben Sira warns against bearing a grudge, against arrogance, and against the insolence (hyperephania) that God hates. The cluster of grudge-bearing, pride, and rude insolence parallels Paul's love that is 'not proud,' 'doesn't behave inappropriately,' and 'resentful,' giving deuterocanonical wisdom support for the vice-list love negates.

Be not angry with your neighbor for every wrong; And do nothing by works of violence. Pride is hateful before the Lord and before men; And in the judgement of both will unrighteousness err. Sovereignty is transferred from nation to nation, Because of iniquities, and deeds of violence, and greed of money.


'Do not rejoice when your enemy falls' parallels love that 'doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness.' The wisdom prohibition of malicious joy at another's wrong/downfall is a close conceptual match for Paul's chairei... ou epi te adikia, supporting the contrast with rejoicing in the truth.

Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls. Don’t let your heart be glad when he is overthrown;


'You delight in truth in the inward being' resonates with love that 'rejoices with the truth' (synchairei te aletheia). The OT pairing of God's delight in truth over against iniquity supports Paul's antithesis of unrighteousness and truth, though the verbal contact is loose.

Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place.


'Bears all things' (panta stegei) reprises the love-covers-all-offenses motif: stego ('cover/bear in silence') overlaps with the proverb's love that covers transgressions. The recurrence of the covering-language across 13:5 and 13:7 strengthens the link to the Proverbs source for love's forbearance.


'It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD' coheres with love that 'hopes all things, endures all things' (panta hypomenei). The OT ideal of patient, hopeful endurance under affliction supplies the disposition Paul ascribes to love, a thematic echo of waiting-hope.

It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Yahweh.


'Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage' parallels love that 'hopes all things, endures all things.' The recurring OT summons to hopeful endurance and waiting on God undergirds Paul's panta elpizei, panta hypomenei as the posture of covenant trust.

Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.


'Then face to face' draws on the LORD speaking with Moses 'mouth to mouth, clearly and not in dark speech (di' ainigmaton)'; Paul's 'in a mirror, dimly (en ainigmati)' uses the very LXX word from Numbers. The contrast of riddling/indirect sight now versus direct, unmediated vision then is grounded precisely in the Mosaic prerogative. High volume by the shared ainigma term.

With him, I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see Yahweh’s form. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”


'The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face (prosopon kata prosopon), as one speaks to a friend' supplies Paul's exact phrase 'face to face' for the eschatological vision. The Mosaic privilege of direct divine encounter becomes the eschatological norm Paul anticipates, a strong verbal and conceptual link.

Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, didn’t depart from the Tent.


'No prophet has arisen since like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face' reinforces the face-to-face idiom as the unique mode of unmediated knowledge of God. Paul universalizes this Mosaic singularity to all believers 'then,' so the prophetic incompleteness of 13:9 yields to Mosaic immediacy.

Since then, there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face,


Jacob names Peniel, 'for I have seen God face to face (eidon... prosopon pros prosopon), and yet my life is preserved.' The patriarchal precedent of surviving a face-to-face vision of God feeds the OT 'face to face' tradition Paul invokes for final beatific sight. Recurrence of the idiom across Genesis-Deuteronomy strengthens availability.

Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for, he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”


'Then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known' echoes the psalmist's confession that the LORD has searched and known him completely, his sitting and rising, his thoughts and ways, a knowledge 'too wonderful' to attain. Paul's epignosomai kathos kai epegnosthen inverts the asymmetry: now God knows me fully; then I will know likewise. Strong coherence with the OT theme of being exhaustively known by God.

Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it.


'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you' contributes to the OT motif of God's prior, exhaustive knowledge of the person that underlies 'even as I was fully known' (epegnosthen). The divine foreknowing of the individual coheres with Paul's claim to be already fully known by God, a faint supporting echo.

“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.”


Wisdom is 'a spotless mirror (esoptron) of the working of God.' Paul's 'we see in a mirror' (di' esoptrou) shares the rare mirror-as-medium-of-divine-knowledge image; the deuterocanonical sapiential mirror supplies availability for Paul's epistemological metaphor of indirect present sight.

For she is an effulgence from everlasting light, And an unspotted mirror of the working of God, And an image of his goodness.


'Where shall wisdom be found?'—it is hidden, known fully only to God who sees the ends of the earth. The wisdom poem's contrast of human partial knowledge against God's complete knowing coheres with Paul's 'we know in part' giving way to full knowledge, a thematic echo of the limits of present human cognition.

“But where shall wisdom be found? Where is the place of understanding? Man doesn’t know its price; Neither is it found in the land of the living. The deep says, ‘It isn’t in me.’ The sea says, ‘It isn’t with me.’ It can’t be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for its price. It can’t be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. Gold and glass can’t equal it, neither shall it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. […]


'The righteous shall live by his faith(fulness)' supplies the OT root of Paul's enduring 'faith' (pistis) in the triad faith-hope-love that 'remains.' The prophetic grounding of life in abiding faith coheres with Paul's claim that faith abides into the eschaton, a thematic rather than verbal echo.

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


'To do justice, and to love kindness (chesed), and to walk humbly with your God' offers an OT triad of enduring religious requirements culminating in covenant love. The form of a compressed triad whose summit is love/chesed loosely anticipates Paul's faith-hope-love crowned by the greatest, love. Faint formal echo.

He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?


Paul's wish that 'you all' would prophesy (14:5) echoes Moses' cry, 'Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!' Both texts democratize prophecy against a restrictive view, and both tie prophecy to the bestowal of the Spirit. The coherence with Joel's poured-out-Spirit hope strengthens the link, though Paul does not cite Moses verbatim.

Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all Yahweh’s people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his Spirit on them!”


The whole chapter's premise that ordinary believers prophesy when the Spirit comes draws on Joel's promise that sons, daughters, and servants will prophesy in the last days. Availability is secure (a foundational restoration text) and the theme recurs across Acts 2 and Paul; the echo is thematic rather than verbal here.

“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. And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days, I will pour out my Spirit.


The trumpet that gives 'an uncertain sound' so that no one prepares for war (14:8) draws on the silver trumpets of Numbers 10, whose distinct blasts signal assembly, march, and battle. The whole rationale of Paul's analogy—that a sound must be intelligible to function—depends on the OT institution where a clear trumpet-call summons Israel to war and worship. Volume and coherence are strong.

Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Make two trumpets of silver. You shall make them of beaten work. You shall use them for the calling of the congregation, and for the journeying of the camps. When they blow them, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the door of the Tent of Meeting. If they blow just one, then the princes, the heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves to you. When you blow an alarm, the camps that lie on the […]


The trumpet 'for war' and alarm imagery (14:8) coheres with Joel's command to 'Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm,' the paradigmatic intelligible warning-blast. The link reinforces the Numbers trumpet motif but is secondary; Paul's point about distinct sounds matches the prophetic alarm-trumpet's purpose of rousing the people.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of Yahweh comes, for it is close at hand:


The lifeless instruments giving voice—pipe and harp (14:7)—recall the catalog of worship instruments in Psalm 150, where trumpet, harp, and pipe sound praise. The connection is faint and topical (musical instruments) rather than argumentative, and Paul's point is the opposite (sound without distinction is useless), so this is a contested, low-volume echo.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet! Praise him with harp and lyre! Praise him with tambourine and dancing! Praise him with stringed instruments and flute! Praise him with loud cymbals! Praise him with resounding cymbals!


Paul's resolve to 'sing with the spirit and sing with the understanding also' (14:15) faintly echoes the Psalmist's 'sing praises with understanding' (maskil), the OT ideal of intelligent, comprehending praise. Volume is low and the verbal overlap rests on the Greek of the LXX, but the coherence with Paul's whole emphasis on the mind in worship makes it plausible.

For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding.


The congregational 'Amen' at the giving of thanks (14:16) reflects the liturgical practice exemplified when Ezra blessed the LORD and 'all the people answered, Amen, Amen,' lifting their hands. The motif of the assembly's responsive Amen is an OT/Second-Temple liturgical convention Paul assumes; the echo is institutional rather than a citation.

and Ezra blessed Yahweh, the great God. All the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” with the lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads, and worshiped Yahweh with their faces to the ground.


The corporate 'Amen' sealing thanksgiving (14:16) also parallels 'all the people said, Amen, and praised the LORD' at David's psalm of thanks. Together with Nehemiah 8 and the Psalter's doxological Amens this establishes the availability of the responsive-Amen practice; a faint, contested echo.

Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting even to everlasting. All the people said, “Amen,” and praised Yahweh.


Paul formally cites this as 'in the law it is written': 'By men of strange languages and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, and even so they will not hear me, says the Lord' (14:21). Isaiah threatens that God will address mocking Judah through the unintelligible speech of Assyrian conquerors—a judgment of incomprehension—which Paul applies to tongues as a sign for unbelievers. The volume is maximal and the citation explicit, though Paul's wording diverges from both MT and LXX.

But he will speak to this nation with stammering lips and in another language; to whom he said, “This is the resting place. Give rest to weary”; and “This is the refreshing”; yet they would not hear.


The motif of a foreign people 'of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend, stammering in a tongue you cannot understand' undergirds Paul's theology of unintelligible foreign tongues as a sign of judgment (14:21-22). It coheres with the Isaiah 28 citation as part of the prophet's strange-tongues-as-judgment complex, supplying the conceptual frame even if Paul quotes 28:11-12 directly.

You will no longer see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that you can’t comprehend, with a strange language that you can’t understand.


The outsider's confession that 'God is among you indeed' (14:25) echoes Isaiah's prophecy that the nations will bow down and confess of Israel, 'God is in you only, and there is no other God.' Both involve Gentiles falling down and acknowledging the true God's presence among his people; the eschatological-pilgrimage frame matches Paul's scene of conviction precisely.

Thus says Yahweh: “The labor of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you, and they shall be yours. They will go after you. They shall come over in chains; and they will bow down to you. They will make supplication to you: ‘Surely God is in you; and there is no one else. There is no other god.


The unbeliever convicted and declaring God's presence (14:25) draws on Zechariah's vision that ten men from the nations will grasp a Jew's garment, saying, 'We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.' The shared element—an outsider's confession 'God is with/among you'—aligns with Paul's portrait of prophecy drawing in the unbeliever to worship.

Thus says Yahweh of Armies: “In those days, ten men will take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”


Nebuchadnezzar's falling and confession to Daniel—'Truly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, a revealer of mysteries'—parallels the unbeliever falling on his face when 'the secrets of his heart are revealed' (14:25). Both pair the disclosure of hidden things with a pagan ruler's prostration and confession of the true God; the revelation-of-secrets motif strengthens the coherence.

The king answered to Daniel, and said, Of a truth your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you have been able to reveal this secret.


That prophecy lays bare 'the secrets of his heart' (14:25) reflects the conviction that the LORD looks not on outward appearance but 'on the heart.' The OT premise that God alone discerns the hidden heart underwrites Paul's claim that prophetic speech exposes inner secrets; a thematic echo rather than a citation.

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.”


'God knows the secrets of the heart' supplies the same conviction behind 14:25—the disclosure of hidden things by divine knowledge. Volume is low and the link general, but it reinforces the OT availability of the searched-heart theme alongside 1 Samuel 16:7 and Psalm 139.

won’t God search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart.


The unbeliever 'will fall down on his face and worship God' (14:25) coheres with Isaiah's oracle that 'to me every knee shall bow,' the prophetic vision of universal prostration before the LORD. Faint and contested, but part of the same Isaiah 45 confession-of-the-nations complex Paul is drawing on.

I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and will not return, that to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath.


That 'God is not a God of confusion but of peace' (14:33) coheres with the creation account, where God orders the formless and void into structured cosmos. The theology that God's nature opposes chaos draws on the Genesis ordering of creation, though Paul makes no verbal citation; a thematic, contested echo.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. God […]


God 'did not create the earth a chaos (tohu)' but formed it to be inhabited and 'did not speak in secret'—a striking pairing of order against chaos with the call to intelligible divine speech that matches both Paul's anti-confusion principle and his demand for understandable worship (14:33, cf. 14:9). The conjunction of these two motifs in the same Isaiah 45 chapter Paul is already mining strengthens the coherence.

For thus says Yahweh who created the heavens, the God who formed the earth and made it, who established it and didn’t create it a waste, who formed it to be inhabited: “I am Yahweh; and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness. I didn’t say to the seed of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, Yahweh, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right.


The command that wives 'be in subjection, as the law also says' (14:34) is widely understood to invoke Genesis 3:16, 'your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you,' the only Torah text grounding wifely subordination. Since Paul cites no chapter, this is the most plausible referent of 'the law,' and it coheres with his appeal to Genesis order elsewhere; volume rests on the allusion to the rule-over-her clause.

To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bear children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”


'The law' grounding women's submission (14:34) may alternatively reach back to the creation-order of woman from man, which Paul invokes for headship elsewhere. The echo is faint and the referent disputed, but the Genesis 2 sequence is a candidate for the Torah basis Paul assumes.

Yahweh God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Yahweh God made a woman from the rib which had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be […]


The Torah's regulation of a wife's vows under her husband's authority offers a possible legal basis for 'as the law also says' regarding wifely subjection (14:34). It is a faint, contested candidate; most read 'the law' as Genesis 3:16, but the vow-law shows the OT availability of wifely submission to the husband's authority.

“Also when a woman vows a vow to Yahweh, and binds herself by a bond, being in her father’s house, in her youth, and her father hears her vow, and her bond with which she has bound her soul, and her father holds his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond with which she has bound her soul shall stand. But if her father forbids her in the day that he hears, none of her vows, or of her bonds with which she has bound her soul, shall […]


Paul's rebuke, 'Was it from you that the word of God went out?' (14:36) faintly plays on the prophetic conviction that 'out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem'—the word originates from God's chosen center, not from the Corinthians. The link is allusive and contested, but it underlies Paul's claim that the divine word is not theirs to originate.

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.


Paul's creedal 'Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures' (v.3) draws on the Servant who is 'wounded for our transgressions' and on whom the LORD lays 'the iniquity of us all.' Volume is moderate (no verbatim quotation) but coherence is high: the vicarious sin-bearing death is the only OT text supplying the formula, and Isaiah 53 was a primary resurrection-era proof-text. Availability is secure.

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.


The Servant 'cut off out of the land of the living,' 'numbered with the transgressors,' who 'bore the sin of many,' and is afterward vindicated ('he shall see... he shall prolong his days') undergirds the death-burial-vindication shape of the kerygma in vv.3-5. Recurrence: Paul appeals to Isaiah 53 elsewhere (Rom 4:25; 10:16). The 'according to the Scriptures' refrain points here for the death.

He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people? They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. 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 […]


'After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up' is the strongest single OT candidate for 'raised on the third day according to the Scriptures' (v.4), since no other text gives a third-day resurrection. Targumic/rabbinic tradition read Hosea 6:2 of resurrection, supporting availability. Contested because Paul never cites it explicitly and the LXX wording differs.

After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him.


'You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor let your holy one see corruption' was the apostolic resurrection proof-text (Acts 2:27; 13:35) and plausibly stands behind 'raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.' Coherence with the burial-then-raising sequence (vv.4) is good; volume is low here since Paul does not quote it. Marked echo, not quotation.

For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption.


'Three days and three nights in the belly of the fish' is a possible scriptural warrant for the third-day timing, read figurally of death and deliverance (cf. Matt 12:40). Volume and recurrence in Paul are nil, so this is a faint, contested figural reading offered only because the 'according to the Scriptures' for the third day demands OT grounding.

Yahweh prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.


The argument turns on whether 'the dead are raised'; the language of those 'fallen asleep' (v.18) who would 'perish' if there is no resurrection echoes Daniel's 'many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.' Volume is faint and the verse is more clearly invoked later (v.52), so this is a low echo flagging the second-temple resurrection hope animating the whole section.

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.


'Since death came by man... as in Adam all die' (vv.21-22) presupposes the Eden narrative where the LORD warns 'in the day you eat of it you shall surely die,' the origin of death through the first man. Coherence is very high: the Adam-Christ antithesis is the structural spine of the chapter and recurs at Rom 5:12-21.

but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”


'You are dust, and to dust you shall return' supplies the mortality that 'in Adam all die' (v.22) names and that the resurrection reverses. The dust motif resurfaces explicitly at vv.47-49, giving recurrence within the chapter and securing coherence.

By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”


'He put all things in subjection under his feet' is quoted verbatim in v.27 (LXX Ps 8:7) and expounded as proof that death too must be subjected. Volume is maximal (explicit citation with formula 'for'), and Paul's exegetical attention to 'all things' confirms intentional use. The psalm's 'son of man' enthroned over creation is read christologically.

You make him ruler over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet:


'He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet' (v.25) fuses Ps 8:6 with 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' The 'enemies under feet' and 'reign until' wording is distinctively Ps 110, the NT's most-cited verse; coherence and recurrence are strong, making this a deliberate conflated allusion.

Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.”


'Christ the first fruits' (vv.20,23) draws on the sheaf of firstfruits waved before the LORD as the pledge of the full harvest. The cultic firstfruits image (cf. Exod 23:19; Deut 26:1-11) coheres with Paul's logic that Christ's rising guarantees the believers' harvest; volume is conceptual rather than verbal, hence echo.

“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘When you have come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap its harvest, then you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest: and he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh, to be accepted for you. On the next day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.


'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die' is quoted verbatim in v.32 from Isaiah's oracle against Jerusalem's fatalistic revelers. Volume is maximal; Paul deploys it as the logical conclusion of a world without resurrection, matching Isaiah's context of those who ignore the coming judgment. Secure quotation.

and behold, joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die.”


'Some have no knowledge of God' (v.34) echoes Hosea's indictment 'there is no... knowledge of God in the land' (cf. Hos 4:6, 'my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge'). The prophetic charge of ignorance of God as moral failure coheres with Paul's shaming rebuke; verbal overlap on 'knowledge of God' supports a medium-confidence allusion.

Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.


'I fought with beasts at Ephesus' (v.32) may be read figurally against Daniel cast among the lions and delivered, the paradigm of the righteous sufferer rescued from beasts. Volume is low and Paul's phrase is likely metaphorical for human adversaries, so this is a faint figural echo of the deliverance-from-beasts tradition.

Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. The king spoke and said to Daniel, Your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you. A stone was brought, and laid on the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting; neither were instruments of music […]


'Save me from the mouth of the lion' belongs to the righteous-sufferer's plea to be rescued from beasts, a possible backdrop to 'I fought with beasts at Ephesus' (v.32). The echo is faint and contested, offered alongside Daniel 6 as the Septuagintal language of beastly threat surrounding the persecuted faithful.

Save me from the lion’s mouth! Yes, from the horns of the wild oxen, you have answered me.


The maxim 'Evil companionships corrupt good morals' (v.33) is a Greek proverb (Menander, Thais), but its sense mirrors 'the companion of fools will suffer harm.' Availability as Scripture is the issue: the wording is Hellenistic, so this is a low, contested echo of the wisdom theme rather than a citation of Proverbs.

One who walks with wise men grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.


'The first man, Adam, became a living soul' (v.45) quotes Gen 2:7 LXX ('the man became a living soul') verbatim, adding 'first' and 'Adam' to set up the antithesis with the 'last Adam' as life-giving spirit. Volume is maximal with citation formula 'it is written'; this is the chapter's anchoring OT text for the two-Adam anthropology.

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.


'The first man is of the earth, made of dust' (v.47) re-reads Gen 2:7, where God forms the man 'of the dust of the ground.' The dust/earth motif distinguishes the earthly Adam from 'the Lord from heaven'; recurrence within vv.45-49 confirms deliberate exegetical use beyond the v.45 citation.


'Those who are made of dust' bearing 'the image of the man of dust' (vv.48-49) recalls 'dust you are, and to dust you shall return,' the mortality stamped on Adam's line. It reinforces the Gen 2:7 dust language with the death-sentence of Eden, giving the contrast its weight of perishability.


'As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let us also bear the image of the heavenly' (v.49) invokes the creation of humanity 'in the image of God,' now patterned after the heavenly Man. The image (eikon) language is distinctively Gen 1:26-27 (cf. 5:3); coherence with Paul's Adam Christology supports a medium allusion.

God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.


The graded 'glory' of sun, moon, and differing stars applied to the resurrection body (vv.40-42) echoes 'those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars.' Daniel's astral imagery of the risen righteous gives the star-glory analogy its resurrection coherence; verbal overlap on stars/glory grounds the allusion.

Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse; and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.


'To each seed a body of its own' and the distinct kinds of flesh (vv.38-39) faintly echo the creation account where plants bear seed 'each according to its kind' and creatures are made by kinds. The echo is conceptual, supporting Paul's argument that God assigns distinct bodies; volume is low, hence a faint echo.

God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth”; and it was so. The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.


'Death is swallowed up in victory' (v.54) quotes Isaiah's eschatological banquet oracle, 'he will swallow up death forever.' Paul follows a reading (cf. Theodotion/Aquila) giving 'in victory'; the citation formula 'then shall come to pass the word that is written' marks maximal volume. The text is the OT charter for death's defeat.

He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.


'Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?' (v.55) quotes Hosea's taunt, 'O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction?' (LXX). Volume is high (verbatim apostrophe to Death), and Paul fuses it with Isaiah 25:8 to climax the resurrection argument. Secure quotation.

I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction? “Compassion will be hidden from my eyes.


'The dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed' (v.52) draws on 'many who sleep in the dust shall awake, some to everlasting life.' The sleep-then-awake resurrection schema and the transformation of the raised cohere with Daniel's two-outcome resurrection; recurrence of the 'sleep' motif (vv.6,18,51) supports the allusion.

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.


'At the last trumpet... the trumpet will sound' (v.52) echoes the eschatological 'great trumpet' that gathers the scattered to worship. The trumpet as signal of the end-time ingathering of God's people coheres with the resurrection summons; among trumpet texts this is the most eschatologically specific, hence medium.

It will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.


'Blow the trumpet in Zion... for the day of the LORD is coming' is part of the prophetic Day-of-the-LORD trumpet tradition behind 'the last trumpet' (v.52). Volume is low and the motif is diffuse across several prophets, so this is a faint echo alongside Isaiah 27:13 and Zechariah 9:14.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of Yahweh comes, for it is close at hand:


'The Lord GOD will sound the trumpet' in the theophanic deliverance oracle contributes to the eschatological-trumpet background of v.52. The echo is faint and one of several trumpet texts; included to map the cluster of OT trumpet imagery Paul compresses into 'the last trumpet.'

Yahweh will be seen over them; and his arrow will go flash like lightning; and the Lord Yahweh will blow the trumpet, and will go with whirlwinds of the south.


The Sinai theophany 'trumpet blast' that summons Israel before God may stand at the headwaters of the eschatological trumpet of v.52. Volume is low and the link is typological rather than verbal, so this is a faint echo of the trumpet-of-divine-presence tradition.

On the third day, when it was morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of an exceedingly loud trumpet; and all the people who were in the camp trembled.


'This mortal must put on immortality' (vv.53-54) resonates with the deuterocanonical hope that 'the souls of the righteous... their hope is full of immortality.' Availability as second-temple text is secure; the verbal link on immortality (athanasia) is real but the conceptual frame differs (Paul stresses bodily transformation), so a low, contested echo.

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, And no torment will touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died; And their departure was accounted to be their hurt, And their journeying away from us to be their ruin: But they are in peace. For even if in the sight of men they be punished, Their hope is full of immortality;


Paul directs each one to save 'as he may prosper'—an almost verbatim conceptual match to Deuteronomy's pilgrim-feast rule that each give 'as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which he has given you.' The volume is high at the level of the proportional-giving principle, and the festal-collection setting (cf. Pentecost in v.8) increases coherence.

Every man shall give as he is able, according to Yahweh your God’s blessing which he has given you.


The weekly setting-aside of gifts on the first day evokes the agricultural firstfruits/ingathering offerings of the festal calendar. The link is thematic (sanctified periodic giving) rather than verbal, so volume is low and it is partly carried by Paul's later 'firstfruits' language in v.15.

And the feast of harvest, the first fruits of your labors, which you sow in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labors out of the field.


'Honor the LORD with your substance and with the firstfruits of all your produce' undergirds Paul's appeal to set aside wealth for sacred use. Verbal contact is faint and the proverb is one of several wisdom sources for proportional generosity, so confidence stays low.

Honor Yahweh with your substance, with the first fruits of all your increase:


Paul's 'a great and effective door has opened to me' may draw on the prophetic 'door of hope' that the LORD opens for renewed mission. The metaphor of a divinely-opened door for fruitful action has OT antecedents, but the contact is conceptual not verbal and the open-door image is broadly diffuse, so it is contested.

I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.


'Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD' is the closest verbal and structural parallel to Paul's paired imperatives 'be courageous, be strong.' Volume is high (LXX andrizesthe/krataiousthe vocabulary matches), and the exhortation-to-the-faithful setting gives strong coherence.

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in Yahweh.


The repeated divine charge 'be strong and courageous' to Joshua is the canonical fountainhead of the formula Paul echoes. The LXX renders it with the same andrizou/ischye verbs Paul uses, giving high volume and strong recurrence across the courage-tradition.

“Be strong and courageous; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, to observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may […]


Moses' twofold 'be strong and courageous' to Israel and to Joshua belongs to the same exhortation cluster, sharing LXX vocabulary with Paul's imperatives. It is one of several courage-formula texts, so it ranks just below the Joshua/Psalm 31 parallels in distinctiveness.

Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or scared of them; for Yahweh your God himself is who goes with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you.” Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land which Yahweh has sworn to their fathers to give them; and you shall cause them to inherit it.


Joab's battle exhortation 'Be strong, and let us be courageous for our people' supplies the martial coloring of 'act like men' (andrizesthe). The military-valor sense reinforces coherence with Paul's call to firm faith, though it is one node in a recurring formula.

Be courageous, and let us be strong for our people, and for the cities of our God; and Yahweh do that which seems good to him.”


'Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage' is a near-twin of Psalm 31:24 and feeds the same exhortation tradition Paul reuses. High recurrence within the Psalter strengthens the case, though it overlaps heavily with the Psalm 31 parallel.

Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.


Calling the household of Stephanas 'the firstfruits of Achaia' applies the Deuteronomic firstfruits rite—the first of the produce consecrated to God—figurally to the first converts of a region. Volume rests on the loaded term 'firstfruits' (aparche), and the consecration-of-the-first logic gives genuine coherence.

that you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you shall bring in from your land that Yahweh your God gives you. You shall put it in a basket, and shall go to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there.


The firstfruits-to-God motif of Proverbs reinforces Paul's honorific use of 'firstfruits' for the Stephanas household and their dedicated service. The link is thematic and secondary to the Deuteronomic rite, so confidence is low.


Paul's 'let him be accursed' (anathema) on whoever does not love the Lord reflects the Deuteronomic covenant-curse liturgy, where the assembly pronounces 'cursed' on covenant-breakers. The setting—a closing covenantal sanction against the disloyal—gives coherence, though the conceptual rather than verbal contact keeps it medium.

‘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.’ ‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who removes his neighbor’s landmark.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ ‘Cursed is he who leads the blind astray on the road.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ […]


'Maranatha / Come, Lord!' invokes the eschatological coming of the Lord, of which Malachi's 'the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple' is a prime OT expectation. The contact is thematic (the awaited advent that judges the disloyal), pairing naturally with the preceding curse, so it is offered low and contested.

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, behold, he comes!” says Yahweh of Armies.


'He comes to judge the earth' frames the Lord's advent that Paul's Maranatha petitions, joining curse and coming in a judgment horizon. Diffuse OT advent-language and absence of verbal markers keep this faint and contested.

before Yahweh; for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, the peoples with his truth.


The epistolary salutation 'Grace to you and peace' conjoins gift and shalom in a way that echoes the Aaronic blessing, where YHWH's gracious face and the gift of peace are invoked over Israel. The pairing of favor and peace as a divine bestowal is the priestly benediction's structure, and Paul speaks as one mediating God's blessing to the assembly. Volume is low and the wording is Paul's own formula, so this is a faint liturgical echo rather than a citation.

‘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.’


Paul's wish of 'peace from God' to the gathered saints resonates with the psalm's close, where YHWH gives strength and blesses his people with peace. The thematic coherence is the divine grant of peace to the covenant assembly. The echo is faint and competes with the broader Greco-Roman/Jewish letter convention, hence contested.

Yahweh will give strength to his people. Yahweh will bless his people with peace.


The titulature 'God of all comfort' who 'comforts us in all our affliction' draws directly on the programmatic 'Comfort, comfort my people' that opens Second Isaiah. The verbal density of comfort-language (parakaleo/paraklēsis) matches Isaiah's nacham/LXX parakaleite, and the consolation of an afflicted people awaiting redemption is the precise thematic field Paul occupies. High volume and recurrence across Isaiah make this the controlling text.

“Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God.


Isaiah declares that YHWH 'has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted,' coupling consolation with mercy toward the afflicted exactly as Paul's 'Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction.' The mercy/comfort/affliction triad is distinctive of the Servant-era consolation oracles, satisfying volume and thematic coherence.

Sing, heavens; and be joyful, earth; and break out into singing, mountains: for Yahweh has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his afflicted.


Isaiah promises that YHWH 'will comfort Zion, will comfort all her waste places,' a refrain of repeated comfort that Paul's piled-up paraklēsis vocabulary mirrors. The pattern of God comforting the desolate so they overflow with gladness coheres with Paul's logic that comfort received is comfort passed on. Recurrence of the comfort motif across Isaiah 51 strengthens availability.

For Yahweh has comforted Zion; he has comforted all her waste places, and has made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Yahweh; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.


'I, even I, am he who comforts you' identifies God himself as the comforter of the afflicted and fearful, which is exactly Paul's confession that we 'are comforted by God.' The emphatic self-identification of God as comforter undergirds the title 'God of all comfort.' Strong thematic coherence and verbal overlap.

“I, even I, am he who comforts you: who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made as grass;


'As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem' supplies the maternal-divine consolation image that Paul universalizes as the 'God of all comfort.' The promise that the comforted will themselves be settled and consoled coheres with Paul's chain of comfort flowing through sufferers to others. High volume of the comfort motif.

As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted in Jerusalem.”


'Break forth into joy... for YHWH has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem' ties comfort to redemption and corporate joy, paralleling Paul's link between shared suffering and shared comfort/salvation. The recurrence of the comfort-redemption pairing in Second Isaiah supports availability, though the verbal contact is lighter than 49:13 or 51:12.

Break out into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for Yahweh has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.


The shepherd-God who gathers and gently carries the flock extends the consolation oracle's pastoral tenderness that 'Father of mercies' evokes. The echo is thematic rather than verbal and is subsidiary to the louder 40:1 contact.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead those who have their young.


'When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul' offers the closest psalmic parallel to comfort multiplying amid affliction, matching Paul's claim that as sufferings abound so comfort abounds. The psalm's vocabulary of divine consolation (LXX paraklēseis) gives verbal as well as thematic contact.

In the multitude of my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul.


'YHWH is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit' coheres with Paul's God who draws near to comfort the afflicted. The psalm belongs to the deliverance-of-the-righteous-sufferer tradition Paul inhabits across the pericope, satisfying thematic coherence though the wording is comfort-adjacent rather than identical.

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


'This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life' fuses comfort, affliction, and life-giving promise in one verse, the same cluster Paul develops here and into 1:9-10. The shared comfort-in-affliction formula gives reasonable volume; the psalm's consolation idiom was readily available in Greek.

This is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has revived me.


'Your rod and your staff, they comfort me' provides the archetypal image of divine comfort in the midst of mortal danger, resonating with Paul's comfort amid sufferings. Volume is low and the contact is conceptual, so it is a faint supporting echo.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.


Zion's lament 'there is none to comfort her' frames the absence Paul's 'God of all comfort' answers; the consolation oracles of Isaiah respond to exactly this Lamentations cry. The echo works intertextually with Isaiah rather than directly, hence low confidence and contested.

Her filthiness was in her skirts; she didn’t remember her latter end; therefore is she come down wonderfully; she has no comforter: see, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.


Ben Sira's counsel that the one who would serve God should prepare for testing and endure affliction, trusting that God will help, parallels Paul's pairing of sufferings with steadfast hope and patient endurance. As a Second-Temple wisdom text it meets availability and offers thematic coherence on suffering-then-comfort, though no verbal quotation.

My son, if you come to serve the Lord, Prepare your soul for temptation. Set your heart aright, and constantly endure, And make not haste in time of calamity. Cleave to him, and depart not, That you may be increased at your latter end. Accept whatever is brought upon you, And be longsuffering when you passest into humiliation. For gold is tried in the fire, And acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Put your trust in him, and he will help you: […]


Paul's confession of trust in 'God who raises the dead' draws on the canonical resurrection hope, of which Isaiah 26:19 ('your dead shall live, the dwellers in the dust shall awake') is a foundational text. Having received 'the sentence of death,' Paul grounds rescue in the God whose signature act is raising the dead, a distinctively Jewish-apocalyptic confession. Strong thematic coherence with the resurrection tradition.

Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.


The hope in the God 'who raises the dead' rests on the explicit resurrection promise that 'many who sleep in the dust shall awake.' Daniel is the clearest OT articulation of bodily resurrection and was central to Second-Temple resurrection faith, making it readily available as the conceptual source for Paul's title. High availability and thematic coherence.

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.


'To deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine' matches Paul's 'delivered us out of so great a death, and does deliver,' the same verb-cluster of rescue from death. The psalm's confidence that God delivers from death rather than human strength parallels Paul's refusal to 'trust in ourselves.' Reasonable verbal and thematic contact.

to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine.


'You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling' is a thanksgiving for rescue from mortal peril that closely tracks Paul's deliverance 'out of so great a death.' Psalm 116 is a deliverance-thanksgiving in which the rescued one calls on God and pays vows publicly, paralleling Paul's expectation of corporate thanksgiving (v. 11). Good thematic coherence.

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.


'The cords of death encompassed me... in my distress I called upon YHWH... and he heard' supplies the deliverance-from-death-through-prayer pattern Paul reproduces: mortal peril, reliance on God, rescue, and the role of supplication (v. 11). Recurrence of this lament-to-rescue schema across the Psalter supports availability.

The cords of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death came on me. In my distress I called on Yahweh, and cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry before him came into his ears.


'O YHWH, you brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit' frames rescue from death as a near-resurrection, mirroring Paul's link between deliverance from 'so great a death' and the God who raises the dead. Thematic coherence with the rescue-as-resurrection motif is strong.

Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.


Hannah's confession that 'YHWH kills and makes alive; he brings down to Sheol and raises up' grounds Paul's title 'God who raises the dead' in Israel's earliest doxology of divine life-and-death sovereignty. The bringing-down-then-raising movement matches Paul's death-sentence-then-deliverance experience. Good thematic coherence.

“Yahweh kills, and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol, and brings up.


'I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand' is the Song of Moses' claim of exclusive power over death and rescue, underwriting Paul's confidence in God's deliverance against self-reliance. The kill/make-alive + deliver vocabulary aligns closely. Reasonable volume.

“See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.


'He will deliver you in six troubles... in famine he will redeem you from death' offers a wisdom statement of repeated divine rescue from death matching Paul's 'delivered... and does deliver... will still deliver.' The triple-tense reliance on future rescue gives thematic coherence, though verbal contact is modest.

He will deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven no evil shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death; in war, from the power of the sword.


The contrast between the cursed who 'trust in man' and the blessed who 'trust in YHWH' undergirds Paul's purpose 'that we should not trust in ourselves but in God.' The trust-not-in-self / trust-in-God antithesis is the conceptual spine here, though Paul does not cite Jeremiah's wording. Faint but coherent.

Thus says Yahweh: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose trust Yahweh is.


'I will not trust in my bow... but you have saved us from our foes' parallels Paul's renunciation of self-reliance in favor of the God who delivers. Thematic coherence with the not-in-self-but-in-God logic; low volume of verbal contact.

For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. But you have saved us from our adversaries, and have shamed those who hate us.


'You have power over life and death; you lead down to the gates of Hades and back again' is a Second-Temple statement of God's authority to rescue from death that closely parallels Paul's God who raises the dead and delivers. As deuterocanonical it meets availability and offers a near-resurrection idiom, though verbal contact with Paul is loose.

For you have authority over life and death, And you lead down to the gates of Hades, and lead up again.


The martyr's hope that 'the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life' is a Second-Temple confession of God raising the dead amid suffering unto death, the same resurrection faith Paul invokes when under a death sentence. Availability is strong in the martyrological milieu; the contact is conceptual, not verbal.

And when he was at the last gasp, he said, You, miscreant, do release us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise up us, who have died for his laws, to an eternal renewal of life.


Paul's 'boasting' grounded not in 'fleshly wisdom' but in God echoes Jeremiah's oracle that one should not boast in wisdom or might but boast in knowing YHWH. The wisdom-versus-true-boasting antithesis is precisely Jeremiah's, and Paul elsewhere cites this very passage, raising availability. Good thematic coherence despite no full quotation here.

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 wisdom counsel against self-boasting ('let another praise you, not your own mouth') informs Paul's careful, conscience-tested form of boasting. The contact is the moral evaluation of boasting rather than verbal, so it remains a faint wisdom echo.

Don’t boast about tomorrow; for you don’t know what a day may bring. Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.


'I hold fast my righteousness... my heart does not reproach me for any of my days' is the classic appeal to a clear conscience that matches Paul's boast in 'the testimony of our conscience' to integrity of conduct. Job's self-defense by an unaccusing heart provides the closest OT analogue to Paul's conscience-language. Reasonable thematic coherence.

I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.


'Judge me, O YHWH, according to my righteousness and the integrity that is in me' parallels Paul's confidence before God in his holiness and sincerity of conduct. The appeal to inward integrity as the basis for vindication is shared, though Paul does not quote the psalm. Faint echo.

Yahweh administers judgment to the peoples. Judge me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness, and to my integrity that is in me.