23:15 “Woe to you, experts in the law 10 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, 11 and when you get one, 12 you make him twice as much a child of hell 13 as yourselves!
23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
1:15 18 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn 19 over all creation, 20
6:12 Those who want to make a good showing in external matters 21 are trying to force you to be circumcised. They do so 22 only to avoid being persecuted 23 for the cross of Christ. 6:13 For those who are circumcised do not obey the law themselves, but they want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about your flesh. 24
1 tn Grk “For before these days.”
2 tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was replaced by the pronoun “he,” and a new sentence was begun in the translation at this point.
3 tn Grk “and they came to nothing.” Gamaliel’s argument is that these two insurrectionists were taken care of by natural events.
4 tn Or “registration.”
5 tn The verb ἀφίστημι (afisthmi) as a transitive means “cause to revolt” as used in Josephus, Ant. 8.7.5 (8.198), 20.5.2 (20.102); see BDAG 157 s.v. 1.
6 tn L&N 39.41 has “οὐκ ἄρα σὺ εἶ ὁ Αἰγύπτιος ὁ πρὸ τούτων τῶν ἡμερῶν ἀναστατώσας ‘then you are not that Egyptian who some time ago started a rebellion’ Ac 21:38.”
7 tn Grk “of the Sicarii.”
8 tn Or “desert.”
9 tn Grk “before these days.”
10 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
11 tn Or “one proselyte.”
12 tn Grk “when he becomes [one].”
13 tn Grk “a son of Gehenna.” Expressions constructed with υἱός (Juios) followed by a genitive of class or kind denote a person belonging to the class or kind specified by the following genitive (L&N 9.4). Thus the phrase here means “a person who belongs to hell.”
14 tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.
15 tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (twn Jagiwn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”
16 tn Here αὐτοῦ (autou) has been translated as a subjective genitive (“he loves”).
17 tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule
18 sn This passage has been typeset as poetry because many scholars regard this passage as poetic or hymnic. These terms are used broadly to refer to the genre of writing, not to the content. There are two broad criteria for determining if a passage is poetic or hymnic: “(a) stylistic: a certain rhythmical lilt when the passages are read aloud, the presence of parallelismus membrorum (i.e., an arrangement into couplets), the semblance of some metre, and the presence of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, chiasmus, and antithesis; and (b) linguistic: an unusual vocabulary, particularly the presence of theological terms, which is different from the surrounding context” (P. T. O’Brien, Philippians [NIGTC], 188-89). Classifying a passage as hymnic or poetic is important because understanding this genre can provide keys to interpretation. However, not all scholars agree that the above criteria are present in this passage, so the decision to typeset it as poetry should be viewed as a tentative decision about its genre.
19 tn The Greek term πρωτότοκος (prwtotokos) could refer either to first in order of time, such as a first born child, or it could refer to one who is preeminent in rank. M. J. Harris, Colossians and Philemon (EGGNT), 43, expresses the meaning of the word well: “The ‘firstborn’ was either the eldest child in a family or a person of preeminent rank. The use of this term to describe the Davidic king in Ps 88:28 LXX (=Ps 89:27 EVV), ‘I will also appoint him my firstborn (πρωτότοκον), the most exalted of the kings of the earth,’ indicates that it can denote supremacy in rank as well as priority in time. But whether the πρωτό- element in the word denotes time, rank, or both, the significance of the -τοκος element as indicating birth or origin (from τίκτω, give birth to) has been virtually lost except in ref. to lit. birth.” In Col 1:15 the emphasis is on the priority of Jesus’ rank as over and above creation (cf. 1:16 and the “for” clause referring to Jesus as Creator).
20 tn The genitive construction πάσης κτίσεως (pash" ktisew") is a genitive of subordination and is therefore translated as “over all creation.” See ExSyn 103-4.
21 tn Grk “in the flesh.” L&N 88.236 translates the phrase “those who force you to be circumcised are those who wish to make a good showing in external matters.”
22 tn Grk “to be circumcised, only.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started with the words “They do so,” which were supplied to make a complete English sentence.
23 tc ‡ Grk “so that they will not be persecuted.” The indicative after ἵνα μή (Jina mh) is unusual (though not unexampled elsewhere in the NT), making it the harder reading. The evidence is fairly evenly split between the indicative διώκονται (diwkontai; Ì46 A C F G K L P 0278 6 81 104 326 629 1175 1505 pm) and the subjunctive διώκωνται (diwkwntai; א B D Ψ 33 365 1739 pm), with a slight preference for the subjunctive. However, since scribes would tend to change the indicative to a subjunctive due to syntactical requirements, the internal evidence is decidedly on the side of the indicative, suggesting that it is original.
24 tn Or “boast about you in external matters,” “in the outward rite” (cf. v. 12).