2 Samuel 5:1

David Is Anointed King Over Israel

5:1 All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron saying, “Look, we are your very flesh and blood! ¹ 

Genesis 2:23

2:23 Then the man said,

“This one at last ²  is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

this one will be called ³  ‘woman,’

for she was taken out of ⁴  man.” ⁵ 

Jude 1:2

1:2 May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! ⁶ 

Ephesians 5:30

5:30 for we are members of his body. ⁷ 

[5:1]  ¹ tn Heb “look we are your bone and your flesh.”

[2:23]  ² tn The Hebrew term הַפַּעַם (happa’am) means “the [this] time, this place,” or “now, finally, at last.” The expression conveys the futility of the man while naming the animals and finding no one who corresponded to him.

[2:23]  ³ tn The Hebrew text is very precise, stating: “of this one it will be said, ‘woman’.” The text is not necessarily saying that the man named his wife – that comes after the fall (Gen 3:20).

[2:23]  ⁴ tn Or “from” (but see v. 22).

[2:23]  ⁵ sn This poetic section expresses the correspondence between the man and the woman. She is bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh. Note the wordplay (paronomasia) between “woman” (אִשָּׁה, ’ishah) and “man” (אִישׁ, ’ish). On the surface it appears that the word for woman is the feminine form of the word for man. But the two words are not etymologically related. The sound and the sense give that impression, however, and make for a more effective wordplay.

[1:2]  ⁶ tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”

[5:30]  ⁷ tc Most Western witnesses, as well as the majority of Byzantine mss and a few others (א² D F G Ψ 0278 0285^vid Ï lat), add the following words to the end of the verse: ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ (ek th" sarko" autou kai ek twn ostewn autou, “of his body and of his bones”). This is a (slightly modified) quotation from Gen 2:23a (LXX). The Alexandrian text is solidly behind the shorter reading (Ì⁴⁶ א* A B 048 33 81 1739* 1881 pc). Although it is possible that an early scribe’s eye skipped over the final αὐτοῦ, there is a much greater likelihood that a scribe added the Genesis quotation in order to fill out and make explicit the author’s incomplete reference to Gen 2:23. Further, on intrinsic grounds, it seems unlikely that the author would refer to the physical nature of creation when speaking of the “body of Christ” which is spiritual or mystical. Hence, as is often the case with OT quotations, the scribal clarification missed the point the author was making; the shorter reading stands as original.