26:19 The descendants of Judah were Er and Onan, but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.
1:8 Now 19 while Zechariah 20 was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 21 1:9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, 22 to enter 23 the holy place 24 of the Lord and burn incense. 1:10 Now 25 the whole crowd 26 of people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering. 27 1:11 An 28 angel of the Lord, 29 standing on the right side of the altar of incense, appeared 30 to him.
1 tn The LXX has mistakenly rendered this name “the tent of the testimony.”
2 sn The lamps were to be removed in the morning so that the wicks could be trimmed and the oil replenished (30:7) and then lit every evening to burn through the night.
3 sn This is the first of several sections of priestly duties. The point is a simple one here: those who lead the worship use the offerings of the people to ensure that access to God is illumined regularly. The NT will make much of the symbolism of light.
4 tn The text uses a cognate accusative (“incense”) with the verb “to burn” or “to make into incense/sweet smoke.” Then, the noun “sweet spices” is added in apposition to clarify the incense as sweet.
5 tn The Hebrew is בְּהֵיטִיבוֹ (bÿhetivo), a Hiphil infinitive construct serving in a temporal clause. The Hebrew verb means “to make good” and so in this context “to fix” or “to dress.” This refers to cleansing and trimming the lamps.
6 sn The point of the little golden altar of incense is normally for intercessory prayer, and then at the Day of Atonement for blood applied atonement. The instructions for making it show that God wanted his people to make a place for prayer. The instructions for its use show that God expects that the requests of his people will be pleasing to him.
7 sn The sacrifice was to be kept burning, but each morning the priests would have to clean the grill and put a new offering on the altar. So the idea of a continual burnt offering is more that of a regular offering.
8 tn Heb “and say to them.” These words have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
9 tn Th sentence begins with the accusative “my offering.” It is suspended at the beginning as an independent accusative to itemize the subject matter. The second accusative is the formal object of the verb. It could also be taken in apposition to the first accusative.
10 tn The construction uses the imperfect tense expressing instruction, followed by the infinitive construct used to express the complement of direct object.
11 sn See L. R. Fisher, “New Ritual Calendar from Ugarit,” HTR 63 (1970): 485-501.
12 tc The MT of Gen 46:16 reads this as “Ezbon.”
13 tc The Greek version and Smr have “Ad[d]i,” probably by confusion of letters.
14 tc Gen 46:16 and the LXX here read “Arodi.”
15 sn The Gadites decreased from 45,650 to 40,500.
16 sn The prince of the army may refer to God (cf. “whose sanctuary” later in the verse) or to the angel Michael (cf. 12:1).
17 tn Or perhaps “and by him,” referring to Antiochus rather than to God.
18 sn Here the sanctuary is a reference to the temple of God in Jerusalem.
19 tn Grk “Now it happened that.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.
20 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Zechariah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
21 tn Grk “serving as priest in the order of his division before God.”
22 tn Grk “according to the custom of the priesthood it fell to him by lot.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation to make it clear that the prepositional phrase κατὰ τὸ ἔθος τῆς ἱερατείας (kata to eqo" th" Jierateia", “according to the custom of the priesthood”) modifies the phrase “it fell to him by lot” rather than the preceding clause.
23 tn This is an aorist participle and is temporally related to the offering of incense, not to when the lot fell.
24 tn Or “temple.” Such sacrifices, which included the burning of incense, would have occurred in the holy place according to the Mishnah (m. Tamid 1.2; 3.1; 5-7). A priest would have given this sacrifice, which was offered for the nation, once in one’s career. It would be offered either at 9 a.m. or 3 p.m., since it was made twice a day.
25 tn Grk “And,” but “now” better represents the somewhat parenthetical nature of this statement in the flow of the narrative.
26 tn Grk “all the multitude.” While “assembly” is sometimes used here to translate πλῆθος (plhqo"), that term usually implies in English a specific or particular group of people. However, this was simply a large group gathered outside, which was not unusual, especially for the afternoon offering.
27 tn The “hour of the incense offering” is another way to refer to the time of sacrifice.
28 tn Grk “And an angel.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, δέ (de) has not been translated here.
29 tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” Linguistically, “angel of the Lord” is the same in both testaments (and thus, he is either “an angel of the Lord” or “the angel of the Lord” in both testaments). For arguments and implications, see ExSyn 252; M. J. Davidson, “Angels,” DJG, 9; W. G. MacDonald argues for “an angel” in both testaments: “Christology and ‘The Angel of the Lord’,” Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpretation, 324-35.
30 sn This term is often used to describe a supernatural appearance (24:34; Acts 2:3; 7:2, 30, 35; 9:17; 13:31; 16:9; 26:16).