99:3 Let them praise your great and awesome name!
He 1 is holy!
99:5 Praise 2 the Lord our God!
Worship 3 before his footstool!
He is holy!
99:1 The Lord reigns!
The nations tremble. 5
He sits enthroned above the winged angels; 6
the earth shakes. 7
2:2 The kings of the earth 8 form a united front; 9
the rulers collaborate 10
against the Lord and his anointed king. 11
5:16 The Lord who commands armies will be exalted 12 when he punishes, 13
the sovereign God’s authority will be recognized when he judges. 14
57:15 For this is what the high and exalted one says,
the one who rules 17 forever, whose name is holy:
“I dwell in an exalted and holy place,
but also with the discouraged and humiliated, 18
in order to cheer up the humiliated
and to encourage the discouraged. 19
1:12 Lord, you have been active from ancient times; 20
my sovereign God, 21 you are immortal. 22
Lord, you have made them 23 your instrument of judgment. 24
Protector, 25 you have appointed them as your instrument of punishment. 26
1:49 because he who is mighty 27 has done great things for me, and holy is his name;
1:1 Now 28 many have undertaken to compile an account 29 of the things 30 that have been fulfilled 31 among us,
3:7 “To 38 the angel of the church in Philadelphia write the following: 39
“This is the solemn pronouncement of 40 the Holy One, the True One, who holds the key of David, who opens doors 41 no one can shut, and shuts doors 42 no one can open:
“Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God, the All-Powerful, 46
Who was and who is, and who is still to come!”
1 tn The pronoun refers to the
2 tn Or “exalt.”
3 tn Or “bow down.”
4 sn Psalm 99. The psalmist celebrates the Lord’s just rule and recalls how he revealed himself to Israel’s leaders.
5 tn The prefixed verbal forms in v. 1 are understood here as indicating the nations’ characteristic response to the reality of the
6 sn Winged angels (Heb “cherubs”). Cherubs, as depicted in the OT, possess both human and animal (lion, ox, and eagle) characteristics (see Ezek 1:10; 10:14, 21; 41:18). They are pictured as winged creatures (Exod 25:20; 37:9; 1 Kgs 6:24-27; Ezek 10:8, 19) and serve as the very throne of God when the ark of the covenant is in view (Ps 99:1; see Num 7:89; 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15). The picture of the Lord seated on the cherubs suggests they might be used by him as a vehicle, a function they carry out in Ezek 1:22-28 (the “living creatures” mentioned here are identified as cherubs in Ezek 10:20). In Ps 18:10 the image of a cherub serves to personify the wind.
7 tn The Hebrew verb נוּט (nut) occurs only here in the OT, but the meaning can be determined on the basis of the parallelism with רָגַז (ragaz, “tremble”) and evidence from the cognate languages (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 121).
8 sn The expression kings of the earth refers somewhat hyperbolically to the kings who had been conquered by and were subject to the Davidic king.
9 tn Or “take their stand.” The Hebrew imperfect verbal form describes their action as underway.
10 tn Or “conspire together.” The verbal form is a Niphal from יָסַד (yasad). BDB 413-14 s.v. יָסַד defines the verb as “establish, found,” but HALOT 417 s.v. II יסד proposes a homonym meaning “get together, conspire” (an alternate form of סוּד, sud).
11 tn Heb “and against his anointed one.” The Davidic king is the referent (see vv. 6-7).
12 tn Or “elevated”; TEV “the Lord Almighty shows his greatness.”
13 tn Heb “by judgment/justice.” When God justly punishes the evildoers denounced in the preceding verses, he will be recognized as a mighty warrior.
14 tn Heb “The holy God will be set apart by fairness.” In this context God’s holiness is his sovereign royal authority, which implies a commitment to justice (see the note on the phrase “the sovereign king of Israel” in 1:4). When God judges evildoers as they deserve, his sovereignty will be acknowledged.
15 tn Some have seen a reference to the Trinity in the seraphs’ threefold declaration, “holy, holy, holy.” This proposal has no linguistic or contextual basis and should be dismissed as allegorical. Hebrew sometimes uses repetition for emphasis. (See IBHS 233-34 §12.5a; and GKC 431-32 §133.k.) By repeating the word “holy,” the seraphs emphasize the degree of the Lord’s holiness. For another example of threefold repetition for emphasis, see Ezek 21:27 (Heb. v. 32). (Perhaps Jer 22:29 provides another example.)
16 tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.
17 tn Heb “the one who dwells forever.” שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) is sometimes translated “the one who lives forever,” and understood as a reference to God’s eternal existence. However, the immediately preceding and following descriptions (“high and exalted” and “holy”) emphasize his sovereign rule. In the next line, he declares, “I dwell in an exalted and holy [place],” which refers to the place from which he rules. Therefore it is more likely that שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) means “I dwell [in my lofty palace] forever” and refers to God’s eternal kingship.
18 tn Heb “and also with the crushed and lowly of spirit.” This may refer to the repentant who have humbled themselves (see 66:2) or more generally to the exiles who have experienced discouragement and humiliation.
19 tn Heb “to restore the lowly of spirit and to restore the heart of the crushed.”
20 tn Heb “Are you not from antiquity, O
21 tn Heb “My God, my holy one.” God’s “holiness” in this context is his sovereign transcendence as the righteous judge of the world (see vv. 12b-13a), thus the translation “My sovereign God.”
22 tc The MT reads, “we will not die,” but an ancient scribal tradition has “you [i.e., God] will not die.” This is preferred as a more difficult reading that can explain the rise of the other variant. Later scribes who copied the manuscripts did not want to associate the idea of death with God in any way, so they softened the statement to refer to humanity.
23 tn Heb “him,” a collective singular referring to the Babylonians. The plural pronoun “them” has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style.
24 tn Heb “for judgment.”
25 tn Heb “Rock” or “Cliff.” This divine epithet views God as a place where one can go to be safe from danger. The translation “Protector” conveys the force of the metaphor (cf. KJV, NEB “O mighty God”).
26 tn Heb “to correct, reprove.”
27 tn Traditionally, “the Mighty One.”
28 tn Grk “Since” or “Because.” This begins a long sentence that extends through v. 4. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences, the Greek sentence has been divided up into shorter English sentences in the translation.
29 tn This is sometimes translated “narrative,” but the term itself can refer to an oral or written account. It is the verb “undertaken” which suggests a written account, since it literally is “to set one’s hand” to something (BDAG 386 s.v. ἐπιχειρέω). “Narrative” is too specific, denoting a particular genre of work for the accounts that existed in the earlier tradition. Not all of that material would have been narrative.
30 tn Or “events.”
31 tn Or “have been accomplished.” Given Luke’s emphasis on divine design (e.g., Luke 24:43-47) a stronger sense (“fulfilled”) is better than a mere reference to something having taken place (“accomplished”).
32 tn Grk “before.”
33 tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.
34 tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.
35 tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
36 sn The word translated will turn is a good summary term for repentance and denotes John’s call to a change of direction (Luke 3:1-14).
37 tn Grk “sons”; but clearly this is a generic reference to people of both genders.
38 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated due to differences between Greek and English style.
39 tn The phrase “the following” after “write” is supplied to clarify that what follows is the content of what is to be written.
40 tn Grk “These things says [the One]…” See the note on the phrase “this is the solemn pronouncement of” in 2:1.
41 tn The word “door” is not in the Greek text but has been supplied in the translation. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context. Since the following verse does contain the word “door” (θύραν, quran), that word has been supplied as the direct object here.
42 tn See the note on the word “door” earlier in this verse.
43 tn Grk “six wings apiece,” but this is redundant with “each one” in English.
44 tn Some translations render ἔσωθεν (eswqen) as “under [its] wings,” but the description could also mean “filled all around on the outside and on the inside with eyes.” Since the referent is not available to the interpreter, the exact force is difficult to determine.
45 tn Or “They never stop saying day and night.”
46 tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…(ὁ) κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”