1 Samuel 2:31-32

2:31 In fact, days are coming when I will remove your strength ¹  and the strength ²  of your father’s house. There will not be an old man in your house! 2:32 You will see trouble in my dwelling place! ³  Israel will experience blessings, ⁴  but there will not be an old man in your ⁵  house for all time. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 3:12-13

3:12 On that day I will carry out ⁷  against Eli everything that I spoke about his house – from start to finish! 3:13 You ⁸  should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of ⁹  the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, ¹⁰  and he did not rebuke them.

Leviticus 10:3

10:3 Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke: ‘Among the ones close to me I will show myself holy, ¹¹  and in the presence of all the people I will be honored.’” ¹²  So Aaron kept silent.

Leviticus 10:1

Nadab and Abihu

10:1 Then ¹³  Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his fire pan and put fire in it, set incense on it, and presented strange fire ¹⁴  before the Lord, which he had not commanded them to do.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹⁵  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹⁶  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 4:17-18

4:17 And tell Archippus, “See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord.”

4:18 I, Paul, write this greeting by my own hand. ¹⁷  Remember my chains. ¹⁸  Grace be with you. ¹⁹ 

[2:31]  ¹ tn Heb “chop off your arm.” The arm here symbolizes strength and activity.

[2:31]  ² tn Heb “arm.”

[2:32]  ³ tn Heb “you will see [the] trouble of [the] dwelling place.” Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun is supplied in the translation (see v. 29).

[2:32]  ⁴ tn Heb “in all which he does good with Israel.”

[2:32]  ⁵ tc The LXX and a Qumran manuscript have the first person pronoun “my” here.

[2:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “all the days.”

[3:12]  ⁷ tn Or “fulfill.”

[3:13]  ⁸ tc The MT has וְהִגַּדְתִּי לוֹ (vÿhiggadti lo). The verb is Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular, and apparently the conjunction should be understood as vav consecutive (“I will say to him”). But the future reference makes more sense if Samuel is the subject. This would require dropping the final י (yod) and reading the 2nd person masculine singular וְהִגַּדְתָּ (vÿhiggadta). Although there is no external evidence to support it, this reading has been adopted in the present translation. The alternative is to understand the MT to mean “I said to him,” but for this we would expect the preterite with vav consecutive.

[3:13]  ⁹ tn The translation understands the preposition to have a causal sense. However, the preposition could also be understood as the beth pretii, indicating in a broad sense the price attached to this action. So GKC 380 §119.p.

[3:13]  ¹⁰ tc The translation follows the LXX θεόν (qeon, “God”) rather than the MT לָהֶם (lahem, “to them”). The MT seems to mean “they were bringing a curse on themselves” (cf. ASV, NASB). But this meaning is problematic in part because the verb qll means “to curse,” not “to bring a curse on,” and in part because it takes an accusative object rather than the equivalent of a dative. This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” Why would the ancient copyists alter the original statement about Eli’s sons cursing God to the less objectionable statement that they brought a curse on themselves? Some argue that the scribes were concerned that such a direct and blasphemous affront against God could occur without an immediate response of judgment from God. Therefore they changed the text by deleting two letters א and י (alef and yod) from the word for “God,” with the result that the text then read “to them.” If this ancient scribal claim is accepted as accurate, it implies that the MT here is secondary. The present translation follows the LXX (κακολογοῦντες θεόν, kakologounte" qeon) and a few mss of the Old Latin in reading “God” rather than the MT “to them.” Cf. also NAB, NRSV, NLT.

[10:3]  ¹¹ tn The Niphal verb of the Hebrew root קָדַשׁ (qadash) can mean either “to be treated as holy” (so here, e.g., BDB 873 s.v. קָּדַשׁ, LXX, NASB, and NEB) or “to show oneself holy” (so here, e.g., HALOT 1073 s.v. קדשׁnif.1, NIV, NRSV, NLT; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:595, 601-3; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 133-34). The latter rendering seems more likely here since, in the immediate context, the Lord himself had indeed shown himself to be holy by the way he responded to the illegitimate incense offering of Nadab and Abihu. They had not treated the Lord as holy, so the Lord acted on his own behalf to show that he was indeed holy.

[10:3]  ¹² tn In this context the Niphal of the Hebrew root כָּבֵד (kaved) can mean “to be honored” (e.g., NASB and NIV here), “be glorified” (ASV, NRSV and NLT here), or “glorify oneself, show one’s glory” (cf. NAB; e.g., specifically in this verse HALOT 455 s.v. כבדnif.3; J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:595, 603-4; and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 126, 134). Comparing this clause with the previous one (see the note above), the point may be that when the Lord shows himself to be holy as he has done in 10:1-2, this results in him being honored (i.e., reverenced, feared, treated with respect) among the people. This suggests the passive rendering. It is possible, however, that one should use the reflexive rendering here as in the previous clause. If so, the passage means that the Lord showed both his holiness and his glory in one outbreak against Nadab and Abihu.

[10:1]  ¹³ tn Although it has been used elsewhere in this translation as an English variation from the ubiquitous use of vav in Hebrew, in this instance “then” as a rendering for vav is intended to show that the Nadab and Abihu catastrophe took place on the inauguration day described in Lev 9. The tragic incident in Lev 10 happened in close temporal connection to the Lord’s fire that consumed the offerings at the end of Lev 9. Thus, for example, the “sin offering” male goat referred to in Lev 10:16-19 is the very one referred to in Lev 9:15.

[10:1]  ¹⁴ tn The expression “strange fire” (אֵשׁ זָרָה, ’esh zarah) seems imprecise (cf. NAB “profane fire”; NIV “unauthorized fire”; NRSV “unholy fire”; NLT “a different kind of fire”) and has been interpreted numerous ways (see the helpful summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 132-33). The infraction may have involved any of the following or a combination thereof: (1) using coals from someplace other than the burnt offering altar (i.e., “unauthorized coals” according to J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:598; cf. Lev 16:12 and cf. “unauthorized person” אִישׁ זָר (’ish zar) in Num 16:40 [17:5 HT], NASB “layman”), (2) using the wrong kind of incense (cf. the Exod 30:9 regulation against “strange incense” קְטֹרֶת זָרָה (qÿtoreh zarah) on the incense altar and the possible connection to Exod 30:34-38), (3) performing an incense offering at an unprescribed time (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 59), or (4) entering the Holy of Holies at an inappropriate time (Lev 16:1-2).

[1:1]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:1]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[4:18]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “the greeting by my hand, of Paul.”

[4:18]  ¹⁸ tn Or “my imprisonment.”

[4:18]  ¹⁹ tc Most witnesses, including a few important ones (א² D Ψ 075 0278 Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, the external evidence for the omission is quite compelling (א* A B C F G 048 6 33 81 1739* 1881 sa). The strongly preferred reading is therefore the omission of ἀμήν.