24:21 Fear the Lord, my child, 1 as well as the king,
and do not associate 2 with rebels, 3
13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God’s appointment, 11 and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God.
2:17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law 23 and boast of your relationship to God 24
1 tn Heb “my son,” but there is no indication in the immediate context that this should be limited only to male children.
2 tn Heb “do not get mixed up with”; cf. TEV “Have nothing to do with”; NIV “do not join with.” The verb עָרַב (’arav) is used elsewhere meaning “to exchange; to take on pledge.” In the Hitpael stem it means “to have fellowship; to share; to associate with.” Some English versions (e.g., KJV) interpret as “to meddle” in this context, because “to have fellowship” is certainly not what is meant.
3 tn The form rendered “rebellious” is difficult; it appears to be the Qal active participle, plural, from שָׁנָה (shanah), “to change” – “those who change.” The RV might have thought of the idea of “change” when they rendered it “political agitators.” The Syriac and Tg. Prov 24:21 have “fools,” the Latin has “detractors,” and the LXX reads, “do not disobey either of them,” referring to God and the king in the first line. Accordingly the ruin predicted in the next line would be the ruin that God and the king can inflict. If the idea of “changers” is retained, it would have to mean people who at one time feared God and the king but no longer do.
4 sn The four drachma coin was a stater (στατήρ, stathr), a silver coin worth four drachmas. One drachma was equivalent to one denarius, the standard pay for a day’s labor (L&N 6.80).
5 tn Grk “they said to him.”
6 tn Grk “then he said to them.” τότε (tote) has not been translated to avoid redundancy.
7 sn Jesus’ answer to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s was a both/and, not the questioners’ either/or. So he slipped out of their trap.
8 sn Jesus’ answer to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s was a both/and, not the questioners’ either/or. So he slipped out of their trap.
9 tn Grk “they”; the referent (the governing authorities) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
10 tn Grk “devoted to this very thing.”
11 tn Grk “by God.”
12 tn The Greek sentence expresses this contrast more succinctly than is possible in English. Grk “For not the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be declared righteous.”
13 sn Gentile is a NT term for a non-Jew.
14 tn Some (e.g. C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:135-37) take the phrase φύσει (fusei, “by nature”) to go with the preceding “do not have the law,” thus: “the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature,” that is, by virtue of not being born Jewish.
15 tn Grk “do by nature the things of the law.”
16 tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
17 tn Grk “show the work of the law [to be] written,” with the words in brackets implied by the Greek construction.
18 tn Or “excuse.”
19 tn Grk “their conscience bearing witness and between the thoughts accusing or also defending one another.”
20 tn The form of the Greek word is either present or future, but it is best to translate in future because of the context of future judgment.
21 tn Grk “of people.”
22 sn On my gospel cf. Rom 16:25; 2 Tim 2:8.
23 sn The law refers to the Mosaic law, described mainly in the OT books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
24 tn Grk “boast in God.” This may be an allusion to Jer 9:24.