13:41 ‘Look, you scoffers; be amazed and perish! 17
For I am doing a work in your days,
a work you would never believe, even if someone tells you.’” 18
20:18 When they arrived, he said to them, “You yourselves know how I lived 23 the whole time I was with you, from the first day I set foot 24 in the province of Asia, 25
1 tn Grk “to them”; the referent (the apostles) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 sn After his suffering is a reference to Jesus’ crucifixion and the abuse which preceded it.
3 tn Grk “during forty days.” The phrase “over a forty-day period” is used rather than “during forty days” because (as the other NT accounts of Jesus’ appearances make clear) Jesus was not continually visible to the apostles during the forty days, but appeared to them on various occasions.
4 tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 sn God gave…the covenant. Note how the covenant of promise came before Abraham’s entry into the land and before the building of the temple.
7 tn Grk “circumcised him on the eighth day,” but many modern readers will not understand that this procedure was done on the eighth day after birth. The temporal clause “when he was eight days old” conveys this idea more clearly. See Gen 17:11-12.
8 tn The words “became the father of” are not in the Greek text due to an ellipsis, but must be supplied for the English translation. The ellipsis picks up the verb from the previous clause describing how Abraham fathered Isaac.
9 sn The twelve patriarchs refers to the twelve sons of Jacob, the famous ancestors of the Jewish race (see Gen 35:23-26).
7 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Grk “saw them”; the context makes clear that two individuals were involved (v. 27).
9 tn Or “tried to reconcile” (BDAG 964-65 s.v. συναλλάσσω).
10 tn Grk “And Cornelius.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.
11 tn Grk “said.”
12 tn Grk “at the ninth hour.” Again, this is the hour of afternoon prayer.
13 tn Grk “and behold.” The interjection ἰδού (idou) is difficult at times to translate into English. Here it has been translated as “suddenly” to convey the force of Cornelius’ account of the angel’s appearance.
13 tn Or “and die!”
14 sn A quotation from Hab 1:5. The irony in the phrase even if someone tells you, of course, is that Paul has now told them. So the call in the warning is to believe or else face the peril of being scoffers whom God will judge. The parallel from Habakkuk is that the nation failed to see how Babylon’s rising to power meant perilous judgment for Israel.
16 tn Or “fixed.”
17 sn The world refers to the whole inhabited earth.
18 tn Or “appointed.” BDAG 723 s.v. ὁρίζω 2.b has “of persons appoint, designate, declare: God judges the world ἐν ἀνδρὶ ᾧ ὥρισεν through a man whom he has appointed Ac 17:31.”
19 tn The participle ἀναστήσας (anasthsa") indicates means here.
19 tn Grk “You yourselves know, from the first day I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time.” This could be understood to mean “how I stayed with you the whole time,” but the following verses make it clear that Paul’s lifestyle while with the Ephesians is in view here. Thus the translation “how I lived the whole time I was with you” makes this clear.
20 tn Or “I arrived.” BDAG 367 s.v. ἐπιβαίνω 2, “set foot in…εἰς τ. ᾿Ασίαν set foot in Asia Ac 20:18.” However, L&N 15.83 removes the idiom: “you know that since the first day that I came to Asia.”
21 tn Grk “Asia”; see the note on this word in v. 16.