22:15 The roof of my mouth 1 is as dry as a piece of pottery;
my tongue sticks to my gums. 2
You 3 set me in the dust of death. 4
26:19 5 Your dead will come back to life;
your corpses will rise up.
Wake up and shout joyfully, you who live in the ground! 6
For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, 7
and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits. 8
12:2 Many of those who sleep
in the dusty ground will awake –
some to everlasting life,
and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence. 9
12:3 But the wise will shine
like the brightness of the heavenly expanse.
And those bringing many to righteousness
will be like the stars forever and ever.
1:1 From Paul, 27 an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], 28 the faithful 29 in Christ Jesus.
3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus 30 for the sake of you Gentiles –
1 tc Heb “my strength” (כֹּחִי, kokhiy), but many prefer to emend the text to חִכִּי (khikiy, “my palate”; cf. NEB, NRSV “my mouth”) assuming that an error of transposition has occurred in the traditional Hebrew text.
2 tn Cf. NEB “my jaw”; NASB, NRSV “my jaws”; NIV “the roof of my mouth.”
3 sn Here the psalmist addresses God and suggests that God is ultimately responsible for what is happening because of his failure to intervene (see vv. 1-2, 11).
4 sn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to the progressive nature of the action. The psalmist is in the process of dying.
5 sn At this point the Lord (or prophet) gives the people an encouraging oracle.
6 tn Heb “dust” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
7 tn Heb “for the dew of lights [is] your dew.” The pronominal suffix on “dew” is masculine singular, like the suffixes on “your dead” and “your corpses” in the first half of the verse. The statement, then, is addressed to collective Israel, the speaker in verse 18. The plural form אוֹרֹת (’orot) is probably a plural of respect or magnitude, meaning “bright light” (i.e., morning’s light). Dew is a symbol of fertility and life. Here Israel’s “dew,” as it were, will soak the dust of the ground and cause the corpses of the dead to spring up to new life, like plants sprouting up from well-watered soil.
8 sn It is not certain whether the resurrection envisioned here is intended to be literal or figurative. A comparison with 25:8 and Dan 12:2 suggests a literal interpretation, but Ezek 37:1-14 uses resurrection as a metaphor for deliverance from exile and the restoration of the nation (see Isa 27:12-13).
9 sn This verse is the only undisputed reference to a literal resurrection found in the Hebrew Bible.
10 tn Grk “David foreseeing spoke.” The participle προϊδών (proidwn) is taken as indicating means. It could also be translated as a participle of attendant circumstance: “David foresaw [this] and spoke.” The word “this” is supplied in either case as an understood direct object (direct objects in Greek were often omitted, but must be supplied for the modern English reader).
11 tn Or “the Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”
12 tn Or “abandoned in the world of the dead.” The translation “world of the dead” for Hades is suggested by L&N 1.19. The phrase is an allusion to Ps 16:10.
13 tn Grk “flesh.” See vv. 26b-27. The reference to “body” in this verse picks up the reference to “body” in v. 26. The Greek term σάρξ (sarx) in both verses literally means “flesh”; however, the translation “body” stresses the lack of decay of his physical body. The point of the verse is not merely the lack of decay of his flesh alone, but the resurrection of his entire person, as indicated by the previous parallel line “he was not abandoned to Hades.”
14 tn Grk “see,” but the literal translation of the phrase “see decay” could be misunderstood to mean simply “look at decay,” while here “see decay” is really figurative for “experience decay.”
15 sn An allusion to Ps 16:10.
16 tn Or “of him”; Grk “of which [or whom] we are all witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
17 tn The aorist participle ὑψωθείς (Juywqei") could be taken temporally: “So then, after he was exalted…” In the translation the more neutral “exalted” (a shorter form of “having been exalted”) was used to preserve the ambiguity of the original Greek.
18 sn The expression the right hand of God represents supreme power and authority. Its use here sets up the quotation of Ps 110:1 in v. 34.
19 tn The aorist participle λαβών (labwn) could be taken temporally: “So then, after he was exalted…and received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit.” In the translation the more neutral “having received” was used to preserve the ambiguity of the original Greek.
20 tn Here the genitive τοῦ πνεύματος (tou pneumato") is a genitive of apposition; the promise consists of the Holy Spirit.
21 sn The use of the verb poured out looks back to 2:17-18, where the same verb occurs twice.
22 tn Grk “which” (v. 20 is a subordinate clause to v. 19).
23 tn The verb “exercised” (the aorist of ἐνεργέω, energew) has its nominal cognate in “exercise” in v. 19 (ἐνέργεια, energeia).
24 tn Or “This power he exercised in Christ by raising him”; Grk “raising him.” The adverbial participle ἐγείρας (egeiras) could be understood as temporal (“when he raised [him]”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “he exercised” earlier in the verse, or as means (“by raising [him]”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.
25 tc The majority of
26 sn Eph 1:19-20. The point made in these verses is that the power required to live a life pleasing to God is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. For a similar thought, cf. John 15:1-11.
27 tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.
28 tc The earliest and most important
29 tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style [and even if this letter is not by Paul it follows the general style of Paul’s letters, with some modifications]) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated. See M. Barth, Ephesians (AB 34), 1:68 and ExSyn 282.
30 tc Several early and important witnesses, chiefly of the Western text (א* D* F G [365]), lack ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou, “Jesus”) here, while most Alexandrian and Byzantine