2 Kings 1:9-15

1:9 The king ¹  sent a captain and his fifty soldiers ²  to retrieve Elijah. ³  The captain ⁴  went up to him, while he was sitting on the top of a hill. ⁵  He told him, “Prophet, ⁶  the king says, ‘Come down!’” 1:10 Elijah replied to the captain, ⁷  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire then came down ⁸  from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

1:11 The king ⁹  sent another captain and his fifty soldiers to retrieve Elijah. He went up and told him, ¹⁰  “Prophet, this is what the king says, ‘Come down at once!’” ¹¹  1:12 Elijah replied to them, ¹²  “If I am indeed a prophet, may fire come down from the sky and consume you and your fifty soldiers!” Fire from God ¹³  came down from the sky and consumed him and his fifty soldiers.

1:13 The king ¹⁴  sent a third captain and his fifty soldiers. This third captain went up and fell ¹⁵  on his knees before Elijah. He begged for mercy, “Prophet, please have respect for my life and for the lives of these fifty servants of yours. 1:14 Indeed, ¹⁶  fire came down from the sky and consumed the two captains who came before me, along with their men. ¹⁷  So now, please have respect for my life.” 1:15 The Lord’s angelic messenger said to Elijah, “Go down with him. Don’t be afraid of him.” So he got up and went down ¹⁸  with him to the king.

Psalms 27:2

27:2 When evil men attack me ¹⁹ 

to devour my flesh, ²⁰ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ²¹ 

they stumble and fall. ²² 

Psalms 40:14

40:14 May those who are trying to snatch away my life

be totally embarrassed and ashamed! ²³ 

May those who want to harm me

be turned back and ashamed! ²⁴ 

Psalms 70:2-3

70:2 May those who are trying to take my life

be embarrassed and ashamed! ²⁵ 

May those who want to harm me

be turned back and ashamed! ²⁶ 

70:3 May those who say, “Aha! Aha!”

be driven back ²⁷  and disgraced! ²⁸ 

Psalms 129:5

129:5 May all who hate Zion

be humiliated and turned back!

Luke 9:54-56

9:54 Now when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to call fire to come down from heaven and consume ²⁹  them?” ³⁰  9:55 But Jesus ³¹  turned and rebuked them, ³²  9:56 and they went on to another village.

Acts 4:29-30

4:29 And now, Lord, pay attention to ³³  their threats, and grant ³⁴  to your servants ³⁵  to speak your message ³⁶  with great courage, ³⁷  4:30 while you extend your hand to heal, and to bring about miraculous signs ³⁸  and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

[1:9]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ² tn Heb “officer of fifty and his fifty.”

[1:9]  ³ tn Heb “to him.”

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the captain) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ⁵ sn The prophet Elijah’s position on the top of the hill symbolizes his superiority to the king and his messengers.

[1:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “man of God” (also in vv. 10, 11, 12, 13).

[1:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “answered and said to the officer of fifty.”

[1:10]  ⁸ tn Wordplay contributes to the irony here. The king tells Elijah to “come down” (Hebrew יָרַד, yarad), but Elijah calls fire down (יָרַד) on the arrogant king’s officer.

[1:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:11]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads, “he answered and said to him.” The verb “he answered” (וַיַּעַן, vayya’an) is probably a corruption of “he went up” (וַיַּעַל, vayya’al). See v. 9.

[1:11]  ¹¹ sn In this second panel of the three-paneled narrative, the king and his captain are more arrogant than before. The captain uses a more official sounding introduction (“this is what the king says”) and the king adds “at once” to the command.

[1:12]  ¹² tc Two medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta have the singular “to him.”

[1:12]  ¹³ tn Or “intense fire.” The divine name may be used idiomatically to emphasize the intensity of the fire. Whether one translates אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) here as a proper name or idiomatically, this addition to the narrative (the name is omitted in the first panel, v. 10b) emphasizes the severity of the judgment and is appropriate given the more intense command delivered by the king to the prophet in this panel.

[1:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “went up and approached and kneeled.”

[1:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “look.”

[1:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “their fifty.”

[1:15]  ¹⁸ sn In this third panel the verb “come down” (יָרַד, yarad) occurs again, this time describing Elijah’s descent from the hill at the Lord’s command. The moral of the story seems clear: Those who act as if they have authority over God and his servants just may pay for their arrogance with their lives; those who, like the third commander, humble themselves and show the proper respect for God’s authority and for his servants will be spared and find God quite cooperative.

[27:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ²⁰ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ²² tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

[40:14]  ²³ tn Heb “may they be embarrassed and ashamed together, the ones seeking my life to snatch it away.”

[40:14]  ²⁴ tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse (“may those…be…embarrassed and ashamed…may those…be turned back and ashamed”) are understood as jussives. The psalmist is calling judgment down on his enemies.

[70:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “may they be embarrassed and ashamed, the ones seeking my life.” Ps 40:14 has “together” after “ashamed,” and “to snatch it away” after “my life.”

[70:2]  ²⁶ tn The four prefixed verbal forms in this verse are understood as jussives. The psalmist is calling judgment down on his enemies.

[70:3]  ²⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive in this imprecation.

[70:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “May they be turned back according to their shame, those who say, ‘Aha! Aha!’” Ps 40:15 has the verb “humiliated” instead of “turned back” and adds “to me” after “say.”

[9:54]  ²⁹ tn Or “destroy.”

[9:54]  ³⁰ tc Most mss, especially the later ones (A C D W Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï it), read here “as also Elijah did,” making the allusion to 2 Kgs 1:10, 12, 14 more explicit. The shorter reading has better and earlier support (Ì^45,75 א B L Ξ 579 700* 1241 pc lat sa). It is difficult to explain how the shorter reading could have arisen from the longer, especially since it is well represented early on. However, the longer reading looks to have been a marginal note originally, incorporated into the text of Luke by early scribes.

[9:55]  ³¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:55]  ³² tc Many mss ([D] K Γ Θ Ë^1,13 [579] 700 2542 pm it) have at the end of the verse (with slight variations) “and he said, ‘You do not know what sort of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s lives, but to save [them].’” This variant is clearly secondary, as it gives some content to the rebuke. Further, it is difficult to explain how such rich material would have been omitted by the rest of the witnesses, including the earliest and best mss.

[4:29]  ³³ tn Or “Lord, take notice of.”

[4:29]  ³⁴ sn Grant to your servants to speak your message with great courage. The request is not for a stop to persecution or revenge on the opponents, but for boldness (great courage) to carry out the mission of proclaiming the message of what God is doing through Jesus.

[4:29]  ³⁵ tn Grk “slaves.” See the note on the word “servants” in 2:18.

[4:29]  ³⁶ tn Grk “word.”

[4:29]  ³⁷ tn Or “with all boldness.”

[4:30]  ³⁸ tn The miraculous nature of these signs is implied in the context.