51:15 O Lord, give me the words! 2
Then my mouth will praise you. 3
137:6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
and do not give Jerusalem priority
over whatever gives me the most joy. 4
1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, 5 get yourself ready! 6 Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. 7
1:21 Now 11 the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they began to wonder 12 why he was delayed in the holy place. 13 1:22 When 14 he came out, he was not able to speak to them. They 15 realized that he had seen a vision 16 in the holy place, 17 because 18 he was making signs to them and remained unable to speak. 19
1 tn Heb “your mouth will open.”
2 tn Heb “open my lips.” The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.
3 tn Heb “and my mouth will declare your praise.”
4 tn Heb “if I do not lift up Jerusalem over the top of my joy.”
5 tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the
6 tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.
7 tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.
8 tn Grk “behold.”
9 sn The predicted fulfillment in the expression my words, which will be fulfilled in their time takes place in Luke 1:63-66.
10 sn Silent, unable to speak. Actually Zechariah was deaf and mute as 1:61-63 indicates, since others had to use gestures to communicate with him.
11 tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.
12 tn The imperfect verb ἐθαύμαζον (eqaumazon) has been translated as an ingressive imperfect.
13 tn Or “temple.” See the note on the phrase “the holy place” in v. 9.
14 tn Grk “And when.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
15 tn Grk “and they.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
16 tn That is, “he had had a supernatural encounter in the holy place,” since the angel came to Zechariah by the altar. This was not just a “mental experience.”
17 tn Or “temple.” See the note on the phrase “the holy place” in v. 9.
18 tn Grk “and,” but the force is causal or explanatory in context.
19 tn Grk “dumb,” but this could be understood to mean “stupid” in contemporary English, whereas the point is that he was speechless.