Psalms 33:9

33:9 For he spoke, and it ¹  came into existence,

he issued the decree, ²  and it stood firm.

Psalms 107:20

107:20 He sent them an assuring word ³  and healed them;

he rescued them from the pits where they were trapped. ⁴ 

Matthew 8:8-9

8:8 But the centurion replied, ⁵  “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Instead, just say the word and my servant will be healed. 8:9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. ⁶  I say to this one, ‘Go’ and he goes, ⁷  and to another ‘Come’ and he comes, and to my slave ⁸  ‘Do this’ and he does it.” ⁹ 

Matthew 8:13

8:13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; just as you believed, it will be done for you.” And the servant ¹⁰  was healed at that hour.

¹ tn That is, “all the earth” in the first line of v. 8. The apparent antecedent of the masculine subject of the verbs in v. 9 (note וַיֶּהִי [vayyehiy] and וַיַּעֲמֹד [vayya’amod]) is “earth” or “world,” both of which are feminine nouns. However, כָּל (kol, “all”) may be the antecedent, or the apparent lack of agreement may be explained by the collective nature of the nouns involved here (see GKC 463 §145.e).

² tn Heb “he commanded.”

³ tn Heb “he sent his word.” This probably refers to an oracle of assurance which announced his intention to intervene (see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 [WBC], 59).

⁴ tn Heb “he rescued from their traps.” The Hebrew word שְׁחִית (shekhit, “trap”) occurs only here and in Lam 4:20, where it refers to a trap or pit in which one is captured. Because of the rarity of the term and the absence of an object with the verb “rescued,” some prefer to emend the text of Ps 107:20, reading מִשַׁחַת חַיָּתָם (mishakhat khayyatam, “[he rescued] their lives from the pit”). Note also NIV “from the grave,” which interprets the “pit” as Sheol or the grave.

⁵ tn Grk “But answering, the centurion replied.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant and has not been translated.

⁶ tn Grk “having soldiers under me.”

⁷ sn I say to this one ‘Go’ and he goes. The illustrations highlight the view of authority the soldier sees in the word of one who has authority. Since the centurion was a commander of a hundred soldiers, he understood what it was both to command others and to be obeyed.

⁸ tn Though δοῦλος (doulos) is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times… in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v. 1). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος) in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

⁹ tn The word “it” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

¹⁰ tc ‡ Most mss read αὐτοῦ (autou, “his”) after “servant.” It is unlikely that the pronoun was accidentally overlooked by such diverse witnesses as א B 0250 0281 ˹ 33 latt. More likely is the probability that Western, Byzantine, and some other scribes added the word for clarification (so C L W Θ 0233 ˹³ Ï sy sa). NA²⁷ has the pronoun in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.