67:6 The earth yields its crops.
May God, our God, bless us!
72:16 May there be 1 an abundance 2 of grain in the earth;
on the tops 3 of the mountains may it 4 sway! 5
May its 6 fruit trees 7 flourish 8 like the forests of Lebanon! 9
May its crops 10 be as abundant 11 as the grass of the earth! 12
30:23 He will water the seed you plant in the ground,
and the ground will produce crops in abundance. 13
At that time 14 your cattle will graze in wide pastures.
30:24 The oxen and donkeys used in plowing 15
will eat seasoned feed winnowed with a shovel and pitchfork. 16
32:15 This desolation will continue until new life is poured out on us from heaven. 17
Then the desert will become an orchard
and the orchard will be considered a forest. 18
21:1 After 28 we 29 tore ourselves away 30 from them, we put out to sea, 31 and sailing a straight course, 32 we came to Cos, 33 on the next day to Rhodes, 34 and from there to Patara. 35
1 tn The prefixed verbal form is jussive, not imperfect. The translation assumes the subject is impersonal (rather than the king).
2 tn The Hebrew noun פִסַּה (pissah; which appears here in the construct form) occurs only here in the OT. Perhaps the noun is related to the verbal root פָּשָׂה (pasah, “to spread,” see BDB 832 s.v.; the root appears as פָּסָה [pasah] in postbiblical Hebrew), which is used in postbiblical Hebrew of the rising sun’s rays spreading over the horizon and a tree’s branches spreading out (see Jastrow 1194 s.v. פסי, פָּסָה, פָּשָׂה). In Ps 72:16 a “spreading of grain” would refer to grain fields extending out over the land. C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs (Psalms [ICC], 2:139) emend the form to סְפִיחַ (sÿfiakh, “second growth”).
3 tn Heb “top” (singular).
4 tn That is, the grain.
5 tn According to the traditional accentuation of the MT, this verb belongs with what follows. See the translator’s note at the end of the verse for a discussion of the poetic parallelism and interpretation of the verse.
6 tn The antecedent of the third masculine singular pronominal suffix is unclear. It is unlikely that the antecedent is אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) because this noun is normally grammatically feminine. Perhaps רֹאשׁ (ro’sh, “top [of the mountains]”) is the antecedent. Another option is to understand the pronoun as referring to the king, who would then be viewed as an instrument of divine agricultural blessing (see v. 6).
7 tn Heb “fruit.”
8 tc According to the traditional accentuation of the MT, this verb belongs with what follows. See the note on the word “earth” at the end of the verse for a discussion of the poetic parallelism and interpretation of the verse. The present translation takes it with the preceding words, “like Lebanon its fruit” and emends the verb form from וְיָצִיצוּ (vÿyatsitsu; Qal imperfect third masculine plural with prefixed vav, [ו]) to יָצִיץ (yatsits; Qal imperfect third masculine singular). The initial vav is eliminated as dittographic (note the vav on the ending of the preceding form פִּרְיוֹ, piryo, “its/his fruit”) and the vav at the end of the form is placed on the following emended form (see the note on the word “crops”), yielding וַעֲמִיר (va’amir, “and [its] crops”).
9 tn Heb “like Lebanon.”
10 tc The MT has “from the city.” The translation assumes an emendation to עֲמִיר (’amir, “crops”).
11 tn The translation assumes that the verb צוץ (“flourish”) goes with the preceding line. The words “be as abundant” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
12 tc The traditional accentuation and vocalization of the MT differ from the text assumed by the present translation. The MT reads as follows: “May there be an abundance of grain in the earth, / and on the tops of the mountains! / May its [or “his”?] fruit [trees?] rustle like [the trees of] Lebanon! / May they flourish from the city, like the grass of the earth!” If one follows the MT, then it would appear that the “fruit” of the third line is a metaphorical reference to the king’s people, who flow out from the cities to populate the land (see line 4). Elsewhere in the OT people are sometimes compared to grass that sprouts up from the land (see v. 7, as well as Isa 27:6; Pss 92:7; 103:15). The translation understands a different poetic structural arrangement and, assuming the emendations mentioned in earlier notes, interprets each line of the verse to be a prayer for agricultural abundance.
13 tn Heb “and he will give rain for your seed which you plant in the ground, and food [will be] the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and abundant.”
14 tn Or “in that day” (KJV).
15 tn Heb “the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground.”
16 sn Crops will be so abundant that even the work animals will eat well.
17 tn Heb “until a spirit is emptied out on us from on high.” The words “this desolation will continue” are supplied in the translation for clarification and stylistic purposes. The verb עָרָה (’arah), used here in the Niphal, normally means “lay bare, expose.” The term רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) is often understood here as a reference to the divine spirit (cf. 44:3 and NASB, NIV, CEV, NLT), but it appears here without an article (cf. NRSV “a spirit”), pronominal suffix, or a genitive (such as “of the Lord”). The translation assumes that it carries an impersonal nuance “vivacity, vigor” in this context.
18 sn The same statement appears in 29:17b, where, in conjunction with the preceding line, it appears to picture a reversal. Here it seems to depict supernatural growth. The desert will blossom into an orchard, and the trees of the orchard will multiply and grow tall, becoming a forest.
19 tn The Greek is difficult to translate because it switches from a generic “he” to three people within this generic class (thus, something like: “Who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one instance a hundred times, in another, sixty times, in another, thirty times”).
20 tn Or “who acknowledged the truth of.”
21 tn Grk “word.”
22 tn Grk “souls” (here an idiom for the whole person).
23 tn Or “were won over.”
24 tn Or “glorified.”
25 tn Grk “how many thousands there are among the Jews.”
26 tn Or “are all zealous for the law.” BDAG 427 s.v. ζηλωτής 1.a.β has “of thing…τοῦ νόμου an ardent observer of the law Ac 21:20.”
27 sn That is, the law of Moses. These Jewish Christians had remained close to their Jewish practices after becoming believers (1 Cor 7:18-19; Acts 16:3).
28 tn Grk “It happened that when.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Since the action described by the participle ἀποσπασθέντας (apospasqenta", “tearing ourselves away”) is prior to the departure of the ship, it has been translated as antecedent action (“after”).
29 sn This marks the beginning of another “we” section in Acts. These have been traditionally understood to mean that Luke was in the company of Paul for this part of the journey.
30 tn BDAG 120 s.v. ἀποσπάω 2.b has “pass. in mid. sense ἀ. ἀπό τινος tear oneself away Ac 21:1”; LSJ 218 gives several illustrations of this verb meaning “to tear or drag away from.”
31 tn BDAG 62 s.v. ἀνάγω 4, “as a nautical t.t. (ἀ. τὴν ναῦν put a ship to sea), mid. or pass. ἀνάγεσθαι to begin to go by boat, put out to sea.”
32 tn BDAG 406 s.v. εὐθυδρομέω has “of a ship run a straight course”; L&N 54.3 has “to sail a straight course, sail straight to.”
33 sn Cos was an island in the Aegean Sea.
34 sn Rhodes was an island off the southwestern coast of Asia Minor.
35 sn Patara was a city in Lycia on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. The entire journey was about 185 mi (295 km).
36 tc The words ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας (epi tou" Juiou" th" apeiqeia", “on the sons of disobedience”) are lacking in Ì46 B b sa, but are found in א A C D F G H I Ψ 075 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy bo. The words are omitted by several English translations (NASB, NIV, ESV, TNIV). This textual problem is quite difficult to resolve. On the one hand, the parallel account in Eph 5:6 has these words, thus providing scribes a motive for adding them here. On the other hand, the reading without the words may be too hard: The ἐν οἷς (en |oi") of v. 7 seems to have no antecedent without υἱούς already in the text, although it could possibly be construed as neuter referring to the vice list in v. 5. Further, although the witness of B is especially important, there are other places in which B and Ì46 share errant readings of omission. Nevertheless, the strength of the internal evidence against the longer reading is at least sufficient to cause doubt here. The decision to retain the words in the text is less than certain.
37 tn Grk “you also walked.” The verb περιπατέω (peripatew) is commonly used in the NT to refer to behavior or conduct of one’s life (L&N 41.11).
38 tn The Greek article with τὰ πάντα (ta panta) is anaphoric, referring to the previous list of vices, and has been translated here as “all such things.”