22:29 “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. 1 You must give me the firstborn of your sons.
23:16 “You are also to observe 2 the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors that you have sown in the field, and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year 3 when you have gathered in 4 your harvest 5 out of the field.
18:12 “All the best of the olive oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat, the first fruits of these things that they give to the Lord, I have given to you. 6
6:1 Woe 7 to those who live in ease in Zion, 8
to those who feel secure on Mount Samaria.
They think of themselves as 9 the elite class of the best nation.
The family 10 of Israel looks to them for leadership. 11
14:4 These are the ones who have not defiled themselves 18 with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from humanity as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb,
1 tn The expressions are unusual. U. Cassuto renders them: “from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses” (Exodus, 294). He adds the Hittite parallel material to show that the people were to bring the offerings on time and not let them overlap, because the firstfruits had to be eaten first by the priest.
2 tn The words “you are also to observe” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
3 tn An infinitive construct with a preposition and a pronominal suffix is used to make a temporal clause: “in the going in of the year.” The word “year” is the subjective genitive, the subject of the clause.
4 tn An infinitive construct with a preposition and a pronominal suffix is used to make a temporal clause: “in the ingathering of you.”
5 tn Heb “gathered in your labors.” This is a metonymy of cause put for the effect. “Labors” are not gathered in, but what the labors produced – the harvest.
6 tn This form may be classified as a perfect of resolve – he has decided to give them to them, even though this is a listing of what they will receive.
7 tn On the Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy; “ah, woe”) as a term of mourning, see the notes in 5:16, 18.
8 sn Zion is a reference to Jerusalem.
9 tn The words “They think of themselves as” are supplied in the translation for clarification. In the Hebrew text the term נְקֻבֵי (nÿquvey; “distinguished ones, elite”) is in apposition to the substantival participles in the first line.
10 tn Heb “house.”
11 tn Heb “comes to them.”
12 tn Grk “firstfruits,” a term for the first part of something that has been set aside and offered to God before the remainder can be used.
13 sn Most interpreters see Paul as making use of a long-standing metaphor of the olive tree (the root…the branches) as a symbol for Israel. See, in this regard, Jer 11:16, 19. A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology, 121-24, cites rabbinic use of the figure of the olive tree, and goes so far as to argue that Rom 11:17-24 is a midrash on Jer 11:16-19.
14 sn The spelling Epenetus is also used by NIV, NLT; the name is alternately spelled Epaenetus (NASB, NKJV, NRSV).
15 tn Grk “first fruit.” This is a figurative use referring to Epenetus as the first Christian convert in the region.
16 tn Grk “Asia”; in the NT this always refers to the Roman province of Asia, made up of about one-third of the west and southwest end of modern Asia Minor. Asia lay to the west of the region of Phrygia and Galatia. The words “the province of” are supplied to indicate to the modern reader that this does not refer to the continent of Asia.
17 tn Grk “Having willed, he gave us birth.”
18 tn The aorist passive verb is rendered as a reflexive (“defiled themselves”) by BDAG 657 s.v. μολύνω 2.