16:32 Better to be slow to anger 1 than to be a mighty warrior,
and one who controls his temper 2 is better than 3 one who captures a city. 4
20:3 It is an honor for a person 5 to cease 6 from strife,
but every fool quarrels. 7
25:21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat,
and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,
50:15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge and wants to repay 8 us in full 9 for all the harm 10 we did to him?” 50:16 So they sent word 11 to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave these instructions before he died: 50:17 ‘Tell Joseph this: Please forgive the sin of your brothers and the wrong they did when they treated you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sin of the servants of the God of your father.” When this message was reported to him, Joseph wept. 12 50:18 Then his brothers also came and threw themselves down before him; they said, “Here we are; we are your slaves.” 50:19 But Joseph answered them, “Don’t be afraid. Am 13 I in the place of God? 50:20 As for you, you meant to harm me, 14 but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day. 15 50:21 So now, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your little children.” Then he consoled them and spoke kindly 16 to them.
18:21 Then Peter came to him and said, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother 19 who sins against me? As many as seven times?” 18:22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times! 20
5:1 Therefore, be 27 imitators of God as dearly loved children
1 tn One who is “slow to anger” is a patient person (cf. NAB, NIV, NLT). This is explained further in the parallel line by the description of “one who rules his spirit” (וּמֹשֵׁל בְּרוּחוֹ, umoshel bÿrukho), meaning “controls his temper.” This means the person has the emotions under control and will not “fly off the handle” quickly.
2 tn Heb “who rules his spirit” (so NASB).
3 tn The phrase “is better than” does not appear in this line in the Hebrew text, but is implied by the parallelism.
4 sn The saying would have had greater impact when military prowess was held in high regard. It is harder, and therefore better, to control one’s passions than to do some great exploit on the battlefield.
5 tn Heb “man.”
6 tn Heb “cessation” (שֶׁבֶת, shevet); NAB “to shun strife”; NRSV “refrain from strife.”
7 tn Heb “breaks out.” The Hitpael of the verb גָּלַע (gala’, “to expose; to lay bare”) means “to break out; to disclose oneself,” and so the idea of flaring up in a quarrel is clear. But there are also cognate connections to the idea of “showing the teeth; snarling” and so quarreling viciously.
8 tn The imperfect tense could be a simple future; it could also have a desiderative nuance.
9 tn The infinitive absolute makes the statement emphatic, “repay in full.”
10 tn Or “evil.”
11 tn The verb means “command,” but they would hardly be commanding him. It probably means they sent their father’s instructions to Joseph.
12 tn Heb “and Joseph wept when they spoke to him.”
13 tn Heb “For am I.”
14 tn Heb “you devised against me evil.”
15 tn Heb “God devised it for good in order to do, like this day, to preserve alive a great nation.”
16 tn Heb “spoke to their heart.”
17 tc Most
18 tn Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.
19 tn Here the term “brother” means “fellow believer” or “fellow Christian” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a), whether male or female. Concerning the familial connotations, see also the note on the first occurrence of this term in v. 15.
20 tn Or “seventy times seven,” i.e., an unlimited number of times. See L&N 60.74 and 60.77 for the two possible translations of the phrase.
21 tn Here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used as a generic and refers to both men and women.
22 tn Grk “the wrath,” referring to God’s wrath as the remainder of the verse shows.
23 sn A quotation from Deut 32:35.
24 sn A quotation from Prov 25:21-22.
25 tc ‡ Although most witnesses have either δέ (de; Ì49 א A D2 Ψ 33 1739mg Ï lat) or οὖν (oun; D* F G 1175) here, a few important
26 tn Or “forgiving.”
27 tn Or “become.”