10:16 “The one who listens 1 to you listens to me, 2 and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects 3 the one who sent me.” 4
10:1 After this 5 the Lord appointed seventy-two 6 others and sent them on ahead of him two by two into every town 7 and place where he himself was about to go.
1 tn Grk “hears you”; but as the context of vv. 8-9 makes clear, it is response that is the point. In contemporary English, “listen to” is one way to express this function (L&N 31.56).
2 sn Jesus linked himself to the disciples’ message: Responding to the disciples (listens to you) counts as responding to him.
3 tn The double mention of rejection in this clause – ἀθετῶν ἀθετεῖ (aqetwn aqetei) in the Greek text – keeps up the emphasis of the section.
4 sn The one who sent me refers to God.
5 tn Grk “And after these things.” Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
6 tc There is a difficult textual problem here and in v. 17, where the number is either “seventy” (א A C L W Θ Ξ Ψ Ë1,13 Ï and several church fathers and early versions) or “seventy-two” (Ì75 B D 0181 pc lat as well as other versions and fathers). The more difficult reading is “seventy-two,” since scribes would be prone to assimilate this passage to several OT passages that refer to groups of seventy people (Num 11:13-17; Deut 10:22; Judg 8:30; 2 Kgs 10:1 et al.); this reading also has slightly better ms support. “Seventy” could be the preferred reading if scribes drew from the tradition of the number of translators of the LXX, which the Letter of Aristeas puts at seventy-two (TCGNT 127), although this is far less likely. All things considered, “seventy-two” is a much more difficult reading and accounts for the rise of the other. Only Luke notes a second larger mission like the one in 9:1-6.
7 tn Or “city.”
8 tn Grk “And Jesus.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
9 tc Most
10 tn Or “You will prostrate yourself in worship before…” The verb προσκυνέω (proskunew) can allude not only to the act of worship but the position of the worshiper. See L&N 53.56.
11 tc Most later
12 sn A quotation from Deut 6:13. The word “only” is an interpretive expansion not found in either the Hebrew or Greek (LXX) text of the OT.