44:14 He cuts down cedars
and acquires a cypress 3 or an oak.
He gets 4 trees from the forest;
he plants a cedar 5 and the rain makes it grow.
1 tn Heb “and look, Amariah the chief priest is over you with respect to every matter of the
2 tn Heb “Be strong and act!”
3 tn It is not certain what type of tree this otherwise unattested noun refers to. Cf. ASV “a holm-tree” (NRSV similar).
4 tn Heb “strengthens for himself,” i.e., “secures for himself” (see BDB 55 s.v. אָמֵץ Pi.2).
5 tn Some prefer to emend אֹרֶן (’oren) to אֶרֶז (’erez, “cedar”), but the otherwise unattested noun appears to have an Akkadian cognate, meaning “cedar.” See H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 44-45. HALOT 90 s.v. I אֹרֶן offers the meaning “laurel.”
6 sn Mention of Christian brothers from there (Rome) shows that God’s message had already spread as far as Italy and the capital of the empire.
7 sn The Forum of Appius was a small traveler’s stop on the Appian Way about 43 mi (71 km) south of Rome (BDAG 125 s.v. ᾿Αππίου φόρον). It was described by Horace as “crammed with boatmen and stingy tavernkeepers” (Satires 1.5.3).
8 sn Three Taverns was a stop on the Appian Way 33 mi (55 km) south of Rome.
9 tn Grk “whom, when he saw [them], Paul.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the relative pronoun (“whom”) was replaced by the personal pronoun (“them”) and a new sentence begun here in the translation.