1 Kings 5:9-11

5:9 My servants will bring the timber down from Lebanon to the sea. I will send it by sea in raft-like bundles to the place you designate. ¹  There I will separate the logs ²  and you can carry them away. In exchange you will supply the food I need for my royal court.” ³ 

5:10 So Hiram supplied the cedars and evergreens Solomon needed, ⁴  5:11 and Solomon supplied Hiram annually with 20,000 cors ⁵  of wheat as provision for his royal court, ⁶  as well as 20,000 baths ⁷  of pure ⁸  olive oil. ⁹ 

1 Kings 5:2

5:2 Solomon then sent this message to Hiram:

1 Kings 2:10

2:10 Then David passed away ¹⁰  and was buried in the city of David. ¹¹ 

1 Kings 2:15

2:15 He said, “You know that the kingdom ¹²  was mine and all Israel considered me king. ¹³  But then the kingdom was given to my brother, for the Lord decided it should be his. ¹⁴ 

Ezra 3:7

Preparations for Rebuilding the Temple

3:7 So they provided money ¹⁵  for the masons and carpenters, and food, beverages, and olive oil for the people of Sidon ¹⁶  and Tyre, ¹⁷  so that they would bring cedar timber from Lebanon to the seaport ¹⁸  at Joppa, in accord with the edict of King Cyrus of Persia.

Ezekiel 27:17

27:17 Judah and the land of Israel were your clients; they traded wheat from Minnith, ¹⁹  millet, honey, olive oil, and balm for your merchandise.

Hosea 2:8-9

Agricultural Fertility Withdrawn from Israel

2:8 Yet ²⁰  until now ²¹  she has refused to acknowledge ²²  that I ²³  was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil;

and that it was I who ²⁴  lavished on her the silver and gold –

which they ²⁵  used in worshiping Baal! ²⁶ 

2:9 Therefore, I will take back ²⁷  my grain during the harvest time ²⁸ 

and my new wine when it ripens; ²⁹ 

I will take away my wool and my flax

which I had provided ³⁰  in order to clothe her. ³¹ 

Amos 4:6-9

4:6 “But surely I gave ³²  you no food to eat in any of your cities;

you lacked food everywhere you live. ³³ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. ³⁴ 

I gave rain to one city, but not to another.

One field ³⁵  would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

4:8 People from ³⁶  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ³⁷  water,

but remained thirsty. ³⁸ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:9 “I destroyed your crops ³⁹  with blight and disease.

Locusts kept ⁴⁰  devouring your orchards, ⁴¹  vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Haggai 1:8-11

1:8 Go up to the hill country and bring back timber to build ⁴²  the temple. ⁴³  Then I will be pleased and honored,’ ⁴⁴  says the Lord. 1:9 ‘You expected a large harvest, but instead ⁴⁵  there was little, and when you brought it home it disappeared right away. ⁴⁶  Why?’ asks the Lord who rules over all. ‘Because my temple remains in ruins, thanks to each of you favoring his own house! ⁴⁷  1:10 This is why the sky ⁴⁸  has held back its dew and the earth its produce. ⁴⁹  1:11 Moreover, I have called for a drought that will affect the fields, the hill country, the grain, new wine, fresh olive oil, and everything that grows from the ground; it also will harm people, animals, and everything they produce.’” ⁵⁰ 

Haggai 2:16-17

2:16 From that time ⁵¹  when one came expecting a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures from it, there were only twenty. 2:17 I struck all the products of your labor ⁵²  with blight, disease, and hail, and yet you brought nothing to me,’ ⁵³  says the Lord.

Luke 16:8

16:8 The ⁵⁴  master commended the dishonest ⁵⁵  manager because he acted shrewdly. ⁵⁶  For the people ⁵⁷  of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries ⁵⁸  than the people ⁵⁹  of light.

[5:9]  ¹ tn Heb “I will place them [on? as?] rafts in the sea to the place where you designate to me.” This may mean he would send them by raft, or that he would tie them in raft-like bundles, and have ships tow them down to an Israelite port.

[5:9]  ² tn Heb “smash them,” i.e., untie the bundles.

[5:9]  ³ tn Heb “as for you, you will satisfy my desire by giving food for my house.”

[5:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and Hiram gave to Solomon cedar wood and the wood of evergreens, all his desire.”

[5:11]  ⁵ sn As a unit of dry measure a cor was roughly equivalent to six bushels.

[5:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “his house.”

[5:11]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text has “twenty cors,” but the ancient Greek version and the parallel text in 2 Chr 2:10 read “twenty thousand baths.”

[5:11]  ⁸ tn Or “pressed.”

[5:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “and Solomon supplied Hiram with twenty thousand cors of wheat…pure olive oil. So Solomon would give to Hiram year by year.”

[2:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and David lay down with his fathers.”

[2:10]  ¹¹ sn The phrase the city of David refers here to the fortress of Zion in Jerusalem, not to Bethlehem. See 2 Sam 5:7.

[2:15]  ¹² tn Or “kingship.”

[2:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “set their face to me to be king.”

[2:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the kingdom turned about and became my brother’s, for from the Lord it became his.”

[3:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “silver.”

[3:7]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[3:7]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[3:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to the sea”

[27:17]  ¹⁹ sn The location is mentioned in Judg 11:33.

[2:8]  ²⁰ tn Or “For” (so KJV, NASB); or “But” (so NCV).

[2:8]  ²¹ tn The phrase “until now” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[2:8]  ²² tn Heb “she does not know” (so NASB, NCV); or “she does not acknowledge.”

[2:8]  ²³ tn The 1st person common singular independent personal pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) is emphatic, since the subject of this verbal clause is already explicit in the verb נָתַתִּי (natatti, Qal perfect 1st person common singular: “I gave”).

[2:8]  ²⁴ tn The phrase “that it was I who” does not appear in the Hebrew text here, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[2:8]  ²⁵ sn The third person plural here is an obvious reference to the Israelites who had been unfaithful to the Lord in spite of all that he had done for them. To maintain the imagery of Israel as the prostitute, a third person feminine singular would be called for; in the interest of literary consistency this has been supplied in some English translations (e.g., NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[2:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “for Baal” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); cf. TEV “in the worship of Baal.”

[2:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “I will return and I will take.” The two verbs joined with vav conjunction form a verbal hendiadys in which the first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense (GKC 386-87 §120.d, h): אָשׁוּב וְלָקַחְתִּי (’ashuv vÿlaqakhti) means “I will take back.”

[2:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in its time” (so NAB, NRSV).

[2:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “in its season” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[2:9]  ³⁰ tn The words “which I had provided” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons; cf. NIV “intended to cover.”

[2:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “to cover her nakedness” (so KJV and many other English versions); TEV “for clothing.”

[4:6]  ³² tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic (pronoun + verb). It underscores the stark contrast between the judgments that the Lord had been sending with the God of blessing Israel was celebrating in its worship (4:4-5).

[4:6]  ³³ tn Heb “But I gave to you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of food in all your places.” The phrase “cleanness of teeth” is a vivid way of picturing the famine Israel experienced.

[4:7]  ³⁴ sn Rain…three months before the harvest refers to the rains of late March-early April.

[4:7]  ³⁵ tn Heb “portion”; KJV, ASV “piece”; NASB “part.” The same word occurs a second time later in this verse.

[4:8]  ³⁶ tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “to drink.”

[4:8]  ³⁸ tn Or “were not satisfied.”

[4:9]  ³⁹ tn Heb “you.” By metonymy the crops belonging to these people are meant. See the remainder of this verse, which describes the agricultural devastation caused by locusts.

[4:9]  ⁴⁰ tn The Hiphil infinitive construct is taken adverbially (“kept”) and connected to the activity of the locusts (NJPS). It also could be taken with the preceding sentence and related to the Lord’s interventions (“I kept destroying,” cf. NEB, NJB, NIV, NRSV), or it could be understood substantivally in construct with the following nouns (“Locusts devoured your many orchards,” cf. NASB; cf. also KJV, NKJV).

[4:9]  ⁴¹ tn Or “gardens.”

[1:8]  ⁴² tn Heb “and build the house” (so NIV, NRSV), with “house” referring specifically to the temple here.

[1:8]  ⁴³ sn The temple was built primarily of stone, so the timber here refers to interior paneling (see v. 4) and perhaps to scaffolding (see Ezra 5:8; 6:4).

[1:8]  ⁴⁴ tn The Hebrew verb אֶכָּבְדָ (’ekkavda) appears to be a defectively written cohortative (“that I may be glorified”). The cohortatives (note that the preceding אֶרְצֶה, ’ertseh, “I will be pleased,” may also be taken as cohortative) indicate purpose/result (cf. NIV, NRSV “so that”; CEV “so”) following the imperatives of v. 8a (“go up,” “bring back,” “build”).

[1:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “look!” (הִנֵּה, hinneh). The term, an interjection, draws attention to the point being made.

[1:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “I blew it away” (so NRSV, TEV, NLT). The imagery here suggests that human achievements are so fragile and temporal that a mere breath from God can destroy them (see Ezek 22:20, 21; and Isa 40:7 with נָשַׁב, nashav).

[1:9]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “and each of you runs to his own house”; NIV “is busy with”; TEV “is busy working on”; NCV “work hard for.”

[1:10]  ⁴⁸ tn The Hebrew text has “over you” (so KJV), but this is redundant in contemporary English and has been left untranslated.

[1:10]  ⁴⁹ sn This linkage of human sin to natural disaster is reminiscent of the curse brought upon the earth by Adam’s disobedience (Gen 3:17-19; see Rom 8:20-22).

[1:11]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “all the labor of hands” (similar KJV, NASB, NIV); cf. NAB “all that is produced by hand.”

[2:16]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “from their being,” idiomatic for “from the time they were then,” or “since the time.” Cf. KJV “Since those days were.”

[2:17]  ⁵² tn Heb “you, all the work of your hands”; NRSV “you and all the products of your toil”; NIV “all the work of your hands.”

[2:17]  ⁵³ tn Heb “and there was not with you.” The context favors the idea that the harvests were so poor that the people took care of only themselves, leaving no offering for the Lord. Cf. KJV and many English versions “yet ye turned not to me,” understanding the phrase to refer to the people’s repentance rather than their failure to bring offerings.

[16:8]  ⁵⁴ tn Grk “And the.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:8]  ⁵⁵ sn Is the manager dishonest because of what he just did? Or is it a reference to what he had done earlier, described in v. 1? This is a difficult question, but it seems unlikely that the master, having fired the man for prior dishonesty, would now commend those same actions. It would also be unusual for Jesus to make that point of the story the example. Thus it is more likely the reference to dishonesty goes back to the earliest events, while the commendation is for the cleverness of the former manager reflected in vv. 5-7.

[16:8]  ⁵⁶ sn Where this parable ends is debated: Does it conclude with v. 7, after v. 8a, after v. 8b, or after v. 9? Verse 8a looks as if it is still part of the story, with its clear reference to the manager, while 8b looks like Jesus’ application, since its remarks are more general. So it is most likely the parable stops after v. 8a.

[16:8]  ⁵⁷ tn Grk “sons” (an idiom).

[16:8]  ⁵⁸ tn Grk “with their own generation.”

[16:8]  ⁵⁹ tn Grk “sons.” Here the phrase “sons of light” is a reference to the righteous. The point is that those of the world often think ahead about consequences better than the righteous do.