2 Samuel 19:13

19:13 Say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my flesh and blood? ¹  God will punish me severely, ²  if from this time on you are not the commander of my army in place of Joab!’”

Genesis 29:14

29:14 Then Laban said to him, “You are indeed my own flesh and blood.” ³  So Jacob ⁴  stayed with him for a month. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 17:15

17:15 you must select without fail ⁶  a king whom the Lord your God chooses. From among your fellow citizens ⁷  you must appoint a king – you may not designate a foreigner who is not one of your fellow Israelites. ⁸ 

Jude 1:2

1:2 May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! ⁹ 

Ephesians 5:30

5:30 for we are members of his body. ¹⁰ 

Hebrews 2:14

2:14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in ¹¹  their humanity, ¹²  so that through death he could destroy ¹³  the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil),

¹ tn Heb “my bone and my flesh.”

² tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”

³ tn Heb “indeed, my bone and my flesh are you.” The expression sounds warm enough, but the presence of “indeed” may suggest that Laban had to be convinced of Jacob’s identity before permitting him to stay. To be one’s “bone and flesh” is to be someone’s blood relative. For example, the phrase describes the relationship between Abimelech and the Shechemites (Judg 9:2; his mother was a Shechemite); David and the Israelites (2 Sam 5:1); David and the elders of Judah (2 Sam 19:12,); and David and his nephew Amasa (2 Sam 19:13, see 2 Sam 17:2; 1 Chr 2:16-17).

⁴ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “a month of days.”

⁶ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, indicated in the translation by the words “without fail.”

⁷ tn Heb “your brothers,” but not referring to siblings (cf. NIV “your brother Israelites”; NLT “a fellow Israelite”). The same phrase also occurs in v. 20.

⁸ tn Heb “your brothers.” See the preceding note on “fellow citizens.”

⁹ tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”

¹⁰ tc Most Western witnesses, as well as the majority of Byzantine mss and a few others (א² D F G Ψ 0278 0285^vid Ï lat), add the following words to the end of the verse: ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (ek th" sarko" autou kai ek twn ostewn autou, “of his body and of his bones”). This is a (slightly modified) quotation from Gen 2:23a (LXX). The Alexandrian text is solidly behind the shorter reading (Ì⁴⁶ א* A B 048 33 81 1739* 1881 pc). Although it is possible that an early scribe’s eye skipped over the final αὐτοῦ, there is a much greater likelihood that a scribe added the Genesis quotation in order to fill out and make explicit the author’s incomplete reference to Gen 2:23. Further, on intrinsic grounds, it seems unlikely that the author would refer to the physical nature of creation when speaking of the “body of Christ” which is spiritual or mystical. Hence, as is often the case with OT quotations, the scribal clarification missed the point the author was making; the shorter reading stands as original.

¹¹ tn Or “partook of” (this is a different word than the one in v. 14a).

¹² tn Grk “the same.”

¹³ tn Or “break the power of,” “reduce to nothing.”