In yesterday’s post, I recounted a study of Psalm 91 I did with my family last week. When we read verses 11 and 12, we realized they had been quoted in the devil’s temptation of Jesus, and we wanted to view that parallel passage. Because I happened to remember the reference, I simply used the Go To box to jump to Luke 4. But what if you don’t remember the reference for a parallel passage? How do you find it?
Some translations of the Bible will note parallel passages in the footnotes, so you might just hover over the footnote markers in your Bible and see what you find. My family and I were reading the HCSB, which has a footnote after verse 12. Hovering over that footnote marker shows a cross-reference to Matthew 4:6 and Luke 4:10-11. If you click the footnote marker, the HCSB Notes will be opened in a separate zone, and you can hover over or click the Scripture links to view those passages.
Another approach would be to select a portion of Psalm 91:11 or 12, then choose OT in NT from the Parallels menu of the Resource palette.
A parallel window will open showing those verses in parallel with the quotations in Matthew and Luke.
Finally, you could simply select a phrase from Psalm 91, such as “foot against a stone,” then choose Search from the Search menu of the Resource palette. You can also right click any of the selected words and choose Word from the Search For submenu of the contextual menu. Either approach will open a new tab showing everywhere that phrase is found, which in this case just happens to be in Psalm 91:12 and its parallels.
All of these methods let you access parallel passages in just one or two clicks, enabling you to examine them without hassle and quickly get back to your main passage of study.