Ezra 7:27

7:27 ¹ Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who so moved in the heart of the king to so honor the temple of the Lord which is in Jerusalem!

Proverbs 16:7

16:7 When a person’s ²  ways are pleasing to the Lord, ³ 

he ⁴  even reconciles his enemies to himself. ⁵ 

Proverbs 21:1

21:1 The king’s heart ⁶  is in the hand ⁷  of the Lord like channels of water; ⁸ 

he turns it wherever he wants.

Matthew 6:33

6:33 But above all pursue his kingdom ⁹  and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

¹ sn At this point the language of the book reverts from Aramaic (7:12-26) back to Hebrew.

² tn Heb “ways of a man.”

³ tn The first line uses an infinitive in a temporal clause, followed by its subject in the genitive case: “in the taking pleasure of the Lord” = “when the Lord is pleased with.” So the condition set down for the second colon is a lifestyle that is pleasing to God.

⁴ tn The referent of the verb in the second colon is unclear. The straightforward answer is that it refers to the person whose ways please the Lord – it is his lifestyle that disarms his enemies. W. McKane comments that the righteous have the power to mend relationships (Proverbs [OTL], 491); see, e.g., 10:13; 14:9; 15:1; 25:21-22). The life that is pleasing to God will be above reproach and find favor with others. Some would interpret this to mean that God makes his enemies to be at peace with him (cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT). This is workable, but in this passage it would seem God would do this through the pleasing life of the believer (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV).

⁵ tn Heb “even his enemies he makes to be at peace with him.”

⁶ sn “Heart” is a metonymy of subject; it signifies the ability to make decisions, if not the decisions themselves.

⁷ sn “Hand” in this passage is a personification; the word is frequently used idiomatically for “power,” and that is the sense intended here.

⁸ tn “Channels of water” (פַּלְגֵי, palge) is an adverbial accusative, functioning as a figure of comparison – “like channels of water.” Cf. NAB “Like a stream”; NIV “watercourse”; NRSV, NLT “a stream of water.”

⁹ tc ‡ Most mss (L W Θ 0233 Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat sy mae) read τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ (thn basileian tou qeou kai thn dikaiosunhn aujtou, “the kingdom of God and his righteousness”) here, but the words “of God” are lacking in א B pc sa bo Eus. On the one hand, there is the possibility of accidental omission on the part of these Alexandrian witnesses, but it seems unlikely that the scribe’s eye would skip over both words (especially since τοῦ θεοῦ is bracketed by first declension nouns). Intrinsically, the author generally has a genitive modifier with βασιλεία – especially θεοῦ or οὐρανῶν (ouranwn) – but this argument cuts both ways: Although he might be expected to use such an adjunct here, scribes might also be familiar with his practice and would thus naturally insert it if it were missing in their copy of Matthew. Although a decision is difficult, the omission of τοῦ θεοῦ is considered most likely to be original. NA²⁷ includes the words in brackets, indicating doubt as to their authenticity.