2 Kings 4:29

4:29 Elisha ¹  told Gehazi, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take my staff, ²  and go! Don’t stop to exchange greetings with anyone! ³  Place my staff on the child’s face.”

2 Kings 9:1

Jehu Becomes King

9:1 Now Elisha the prophet summoned a member of the prophetic guild ⁴  and told him, “Tuck your robes into your belt, take this container ⁵  of olive oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth Gilead.

Job 38:3

38:3 Get ready for a difficult task ⁶  like a man;

I will question you

and you will inform me!

Jeremiah 1:17

1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, ⁷  get yourself ready! ⁸  Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. ⁹ 

Ephesians 6:14

6:14 Stand firm therefore, by fastening ¹⁰  the belt of truth around your waist, ¹¹  by putting on the breastplate of righteousness,

Ephesians 6:1

6:1 Children, ¹²  obey your parents in the Lord ¹³  for this is right.

Ephesians 1:13

1:13 And when ¹⁴  you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ ¹⁵  – you were marked with the seal ¹⁶  of the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁷ 

[4:29]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Elisha) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:29]  ² tn Heb “take my staff in your hand.”

[4:29]  ³ tn Heb “If you meet a man, do not greet him with a blessing; if a man greets you with a blessing, do not answer.”

[9:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “one of the sons of the prophets.”

[9:1]  ⁵ tn Or “flask.”

[38:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “Gird up your loins.” This idiom basically describes taking the hem of the long garment or robe and pulling it up between the legs and tucking it into the front of the belt, allowing easier and freer movement of the legs. “Girding the loins” meant the preparation for some difficult task (Jer 1:17), or for battle (Isa 5:27), or for running (1 Kgs 18:46). C. Gordon suggests that it includes belt-wrestling, a form of hand-to-hand mortal combat (“Belt-wrestling in the Bible World,” HUCA 23 [1950/51]: 136).

[1:17]  ⁷ tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the Lord’s promise noted in the next verse. The emphasis in the Hebrew text is marked by the presence of the subject pronouns at the beginning of each of the two verses.

[1:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.

[1:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.

[6:14]  ¹⁰ sn The four participles fastening… putting on…fitting…taking up… indicate the means by which believers can take their stand against the devil and his schemes. The imperative take in v. 17 communicates another means by which to accomplish the standing, i.e., by the word of God.

[6:14]  ¹¹ tn Grk “girding your waist with truth.” In this entire section the author is painting a metaphor for his readers based on the attire of a Roman soldier prepared for battle and its similarity to the Christian prepared to do battle against spiritually evil forces. Behind the expression “with truth” is probably the genitive idea “belt of truth.” Since this is an appositional genitive (i.e., belt which is truth), the author simply left unsaid the idea of the belt and mentioned only his real focus, namely, the truth. (The analogy would have been completely understandable to his 1st century readers.) The idea of the belt is supplied in the translation to clarify the sense in English.

[6:1]  ¹² tn The use of the article τά (ta) with τέκνα (tekna) functions in a generic way to distinguish this group from husbands, wives, fathers and slaves and is left, therefore, untranslated. The generic article is used with γύναῖκες (gunaikes) in 5:22, ἄνδρες (andres) in 5:25, δοῦλοι (douloi) in 6:5, and κύριοι (kurioi) in 6:9.

[6:1]  ¹³ tc B D* F G as well as a few versional and patristic representatives lack “in the Lord” (ἐν κυρίῳ, en kuriw), while the phrase is well represented in Ì⁴⁶ א A D¹ I^vid Ψ 0278 0285 33 1739 1881 Ï sy co. Scribes may have thought that the phrase could be regarded a qualifier on the kind of parents a child should obey (viz., only Christian parents), and would thus be tempted to delete the phrase to counter such an interpretation. It is unlikely that the phrase would have been added, since the form used to express such sentiment in this Haustafel is ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ/Χριστῷ (Jw" tw kuriw/Cristw, “as to the Lord/Christ”; see 5:22; 6:5). Even though the witnesses for the omission are impressive, it is more likely that the phrase was deleted than added by scribal activity.

[1:13]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “in whom you also, when…” (continuing the sentence from v. 12).

[1:13]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “in whom also having believed.” The relative pronoun “whom” has been replaced in the translation with its antecedent (“Christ”) to improve the clarity.

[1:13]  ¹⁶ tn Or “you were sealed.”

[1:13]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “the Holy Spirit of promise.” Here ἐπαγγελίας (epangelias, “of promise”) has been translated as an attributive genitive.