Psalms 68:16-18

68:16 Why do you look with envy, ¹  O mountains ²  with many peaks,

at the mountain where God has decided to live? ³ 

Indeed ⁴  the Lord will live there ⁵  permanently!

68:17 God has countless chariots;

they number in the thousands. ⁶ 

The Lord comes from Sinai in holy splendor. ⁷ 

68:18 You ascend on high, ⁸ 

you have taken many captives. ⁹ 

You receive tribute ¹⁰  from ¹¹  men,

including even sinful rebels.

Indeed the Lord God lives there! ¹² 

Psalms 132:8

132:8 Ascend, O Lord, to your resting place,

you and the ark of your strength!

Numbers 10:35-36

10:35 And when the ark traveled, Moses would say, “Rise up, O Lord! May your enemies be scattered, and may those who hate you flee before you!” 10:36 And when it came to rest he would say, “Return, O Lord, to the many thousands of Israel!” ¹³ 

Numbers 10:2

10:2 “Make ¹⁴  two trumpets of silver; you are to make ¹⁵  them from a single hammered piece. ¹⁶  You will use them ¹⁷  for assembling the community and for directing the traveling of the camps.

Numbers 6:17

6:17 Then he must offer the ram as a peace offering ¹⁸  to the Lord, with the basket of bread made without yeast; the priest must also offer his grain offering and his drink offering.

Numbers 6:1

The Nazirite Vow

6:1 ¹⁹ Then the Lord spoke to Moses:

Numbers 8:6

8:6 “Take the Levites from among the Israelites and purify ²⁰  them.

Numbers 8:11

8:11 and Aaron is to offer ²¹  the Levites before the Lord as a wave offering from the Israelites, that they may do the work ²²  of the Lord.

Mark 16:19

16:19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

Ephesians 4:8-10

4:8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured ²³  captives; he gave gifts to men.” ²⁴  4:9 Now what is the meaning of “he ascended,” except that he also descended ²⁵  to the lower regions, ²⁶  namely, the earth? ²⁷  4:10 He, the very one ²⁸  who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.

Ephesians 4:1

Live in Unity

4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, ²⁹  urge you to live ³⁰  worthily of the calling with which you have been called, ³¹ 

Ephesians 3:1

Paul's Relationship to the Divine Mystery

3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus ³²  for the sake of you Gentiles –

[68:16]  ¹ tn The meaning of the Hebrew verb רָצַד (ratsad), translated here “look with envy,” is uncertain; it occurs only here in the OT. See BDB 952-53. A cognate verb occurs in later Aramaic with the meaning “to lie in wait; to watch” (Jastrow 1492 s.v. רְצַד).

[68:16]  ² tn Perhaps the apparent plural form should be read as a singular with enclitic mem (ם; later misinterpreted as a plural ending). The preceding verse has the singular form.

[68:16]  ³ tn Heb “[at] the mountain God desires for his dwelling place.” The reference is to Mount Zion/Jerusalem.

[68:16]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew particle אַף (’af) has an emphasizing function here.

[68:16]  ⁵ tn The word “there” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[68:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “thousands of [?].” The meaning of the word שִׁנְאָן (shin’an), which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain. Perhaps the form should be emended to שַׁאֲנָן (sha’anan, “at ease”) and be translated here “held in reserve.”

[68:17]  ⁷ tc The MT reads, “the Lord [is] among them, Sinai, in holiness,” which is syntactically difficult. The present translation assumes an emendation to אֲדֹנָי בָּא מִסִּינַי (’adonay ba’ missinay; see BHS note b-b and Deut 33:2).

[68:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the elevated place”; or “on high.” This probably refers to the Lord’s throne on Mount Zion.

[68:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “you have taken captives captive.”

[68:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “gifts.”

[68:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “among.”

[68:18]  ¹² tn Heb “so that the Lord God might live [there].” Many take the infinitive construct with -לְ (lamed) as indicating purpose here, but it is unclear how the offering of tribute enables the Lord to live in Zion. This may be an occurrence of the relatively rare emphatic lamed (see HALOT 510-11 s.v. II לְ, though this text is not listed as an example there). If so, the statement corresponds nicely to the final line of v. 16, which also affirms emphatically that the Lord lives in Zion.

[10:36]  ¹³ sn These two formulaic prayers were offered by Moses at the beginning and at the end of the journeys. They prayed for the Lord to fight ahead of the nation when it was on the move, and to protect them when they camped. The theme of the first is found in Ps 68:1. The prayers reflect the true mentality of holy war, that it was the Lord who fought for Israel and defended her. The prayers have been included in the prayer book for synagogue services.

[10:2]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text uses what is called the “ethical dative” – “make [for] you two trumpets.” It need not be translated, but can simply be taken to underscore the direct imperative.

[10:2]  ¹⁵ tn The imperfect tense is again instruction or legislation.

[10:2]  ¹⁶ sn The instructions are not clearly spelled out here. But the trumpets were to be made of silver ingots beaten out into a sheet of silver and then bent to form a trumpet. There is archaeological evidence of silver smelting as early as 3000 b.c. Making silver trumpets would have been a fairly easy thing for the Israelites to do. The trumpet would have been straight, with a tapered form, very unlike the “ram’s horn” (שׁוֹפָר, shofar). The trumpets were used by the priests in Israel from the outset, but later were used more widely. The sound would be sharp and piercing, but limited in scope to a few notes. See further C. Sachs, The History of Musical Instruments.

[10:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and they shall be for you for assembling,” which is the way of expressing possession. Here the intent concerns how Moses was to use them.

[6:17]  ¹⁸ tn The “peace offering” is usually written as “a sacrifice of peace” (זֶבַח שְׁלָמִים, zevakh shÿlamim). The word “sacrifice” is related to the word “to slaughter,” and so indicates that this is a bloody offering in celebration of peace with God.

[6:1]  ¹⁹ sn This chapter can be divided into five sections: The vow is described in vv. 1-8, then the contingencies for defilement are enumerated in vv. 9-12, then there is a discussion of discharging the vows in vv. 13-20, and then a summary in v. 21; after this is the high priestly blessing (vv. 22-27). For information on the vow, see G. B. Gray, “The Nazirite,” JTS 1 (1899-1900): 201-11; Z. Weisman, “The Biblical Nazirite, Its Types and Roots,” Tarbiz 36 (1967): 207-20; and W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (OTL), 1:303-6.

[8:6]  ²⁰ tn The verb טָהַר (tahar) means that Moses was “to purify” or “to make ceremonially clean” the Levites so that they could enter the sanctuary and do the work prescribed for them. Whatever is “unclean” is not permitted in the sanctuary at all.

[8:11]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew text actually has “wave the Levites as a wave offering.” The wave offering was part of the ritual of the peace offering and indicated the priest’s portion being presented to God in a lifted, waving motion for all to see. The Levites were going to be in the sanctuary to serve the Lord and assist the priests. It is unclear how Moses would have presented them as wave offerings, but the intent is that they would be living sacrifices, as Paul would later say in Rom 12:1 for all Christians.

[8:11]  ²² tn The construction emphasizes the spiritual service of the Levites, using the infinitive construct of עָבַד (’avad) followed by its cognate accusative.

[4:8]  ²³ tn Grk “he led captive captivity.”

[4:8]  ²⁴ sn A quotation which is perhaps ultimately derived from Ps 68:18. However, the wording here differs from that of Ps 68 in both the Hebrew text and the LXX in a few places, the most significant of which is reading “gave gifts to” in place of “received gifts from” as in HT and LXX. It has sometimes been suggested that the author of Ephesians modified the text he was citing in order to better support what he wanted to say here. Such modifications are sometimes found in rabbinic exegesis from this and later periods, but it is also possible that the author was simply citing a variant of Ps 68 known to him but which has not survived outside its quotation here (W. H. Harris, The Descent of Christ [AGJU 32], 104). Another possibility is that the words here, which strongly resemble Ps 68:19 HT and LXX (68:18 ET), are actually part of an early Christian hymn quoted by the author.

[4:9]  ²⁵ tc The majority of mss (א² B C³ Ψ Ï) read πρῶτον (prwton, “first”) here in conjunction with this verb: “he first descended.” The shorter reading, which lacks πρῶτον, should be considered original on the basis of both external and internal evidence: It has strong external support from the Alexandrian and Western texttypes (Ì⁴⁶ א* A C* D F G I^vid 082 6 33 81 1739 1881 pc); internally, the inclusion of πρῶτον is most likely an addition to clarify the sense of the passage.

[4:9]  ²⁶ tc The Western texttype (D* F G it) lacks the plural noun μέρη (merh, “regions”); the shorter reading cannot be dismissed out of hand since it is also supported by Ì⁴⁶ (which often has strong affinities, however, with the Western text). The inclusion of the word has strong external support from important, early mss as well as the majority of Byzantine cursives (א A B C D² I Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï). Certain scribes may have deleted the word, thinking it superfluous; in addition, if the shorter reading were original one would expect to see at least a little variation in clarifying additions to the text. For these reasons the inclusion of μέρη should be regarded as original.

[4:9]  ²⁷ tn Grk “to the lower parts of the earth.” This phrase has been variously interpreted: (1) The traditional view understands it as a reference to the underworld (hell), where Jesus is thought to have descended in the three days between his death and resurrection. In this case, “of the earth” would be a partitive genitive. (2) A second option is to translate the phrase “of the earth” as a genitive of apposition: “to the lower parts, namely, the earth” (as in the present translation). Many recent scholars hold this view and argue that it is a reference to the incarnation. (3) A third option, which also sees the phrase “of the earth” as a genitive of apposition, is that the descent in the passage occurs after the ascent rather than before it, and refers to the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost (cf. Acts 4:11-16). Support for this latter view is found in the intertestamental and rabbinic use of Ps 68:18 (quoted in v. 8), which is consistently and solely interpreted as a reference to Moses’ ascent of Mt. Sinai to “capture” the words of the law. The probability, therefore, is that the comments here in v. 9 reflect a polemic against the interpretation of Ps 68:18 in certain circles as a reference to Moses. See W. H. Harris, The Descent of Christ (AGJU 32), 46-54; 171-204.

[4:10]  ²⁸ tn The Greek text lays specific emphasis on “He” through the use of the intensive pronoun, αὐτός (autos). This is reflected in the English translation through the use of “the very one.”

[4:1]  ²⁹ tn Grk “prisoner in the Lord.”

[4:1]  ³⁰ tn Grk “walk.” The verb “walk” in the NT letters refers to the conduct of one’s life, not to physical walking.

[4:1]  ³¹ sn With which you have been called. The calling refers to the Holy Spirit’s prompting that caused them to believe. The author is thus urging his readers to live a life that conforms to their saved status before God.

[3:1]  ³² tc Several early and important witnesses, chiefly of the Western text (א* D* F G [365]), lack ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou, “Jesus”) here, while most Alexandrian and Byzantine mss (Ì⁴⁶ א¹ A B [C] D¹ Ψ 33 1739 [1881] Ï lat sy bo) have the word. However, because of the Western text’s proclivities to add or delete to the text, seemingly at whim, serious doubts should be attached to the shorter reading. It is strengthened, however, by א’s support. Nevertheless, since both א and D were corrected with the addition of ᾿Ιησοῦ, their testimony might be questioned. Further, in uncial script the nomina sacra here could have led to missing a word by way of homoioteleuton (cMuiMu). At the same time, in light of the rarity of scribal omission of nomina sacra (see TCGNT 582, n. 1), a decision for inclusion of the word here must be tentative. NA²⁷ rightly places ᾿Ιησοῦ in brackets.