2 Samuel 19:32

19:32 But Barzillai was very old – eighty years old, in fact – and he had taken care of the king when he stayed in Mahanaim, for he was a very rich man.

Job 1:3

1:3 His possessions included 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys; in addition he had a very great household. Thus he was the greatest of all the people in the east.

Job 32:9

32:9 It is not the aged who are wise,

nor old men who understand what is right.

Luke 1:15

1:15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. 10 

tn Heb “great.”

tn The word means “cattle, livestock, possessions” (see also Gen 26:14). Here it includes the livestock, but also the entire substance of his household.

tn Or “amounted to,” “totaled.” The preterite of הָיָה (hayah, “to be”) is sometimes employed to introduce a total amount or an inventory (see Exod 1:5; Num 3:43).

tn The word עֲבֻדָּה (’avuddah, “service of household servants”) indicates that he had a very large body of servants, meaning a very large household.

tn Heb “and that man.”

tn The expression is literally “sons of the east.” The use of the genitive after “sons” in this construction may emphasize their nature (like “sons of belial”); it would refer to them as easterners (like “sons of the south” in contemporary American English). BDB 869 s.v. קֶדֶם says “dwellers in the east.”

tn The MT has “the great” or “the many,” meaning great in years according to the parallelism.

tn Grk “before.”

tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.

10 tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.