Acts 12:3

12:3 When he saw that this pleased the Jews, ¹  he proceeded to arrest Peter too. (This took place during the feast of Unleavened Bread.) ² 

Exodus 12:14-15

12:14 This day will become ³  a memorial ⁴  for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival ⁵  to the Lord – you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. ⁶  12:15 For seven days ⁷  you must eat ⁸  bread made without yeast. ⁹  Surely ¹⁰  on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast ¹¹  from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off ¹²  from Israel.

Exodus 12:18-20

12:18 In the first month, ¹³  from the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat bread made without yeast until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening. 12:19 For seven days ¹⁴  yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast – that person ¹⁵  will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a foreigner ¹⁶  or one born in the land. 12:20 You will not eat anything made with yeast; in all the places where you live you must eat bread made without yeast.’”

Exodus 13:6-7

13:6 For seven days ¹⁷  you must eat ¹⁸  bread made without yeast, and on the seventh day there is to be ¹⁹  a festival to the Lord. 13:7 Bread made without yeast must be eaten ²⁰  for seven days; ²¹  no bread made with yeast shall be seen ²²  among you, and you must have no yeast among you within any of your borders.

Exodus 23:15

23:15 You are to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; seven days ²³  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time of the month of Abib, for at that time ²⁴  you came out of Egypt. No one may appear before ²⁵  me empty-handed.

Exodus 34:18

34:18 “You must keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days ²⁶  you must eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you; do this ²⁷  at the appointed time of the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out of Egypt.

Exodus 34:1

The New Tablets of the Covenant

34:1 ²⁸ The Lord said to Moses, “Cut out ²⁹  two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write ³⁰  on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you smashed.

Colossians 1:7-8

1:7 You learned the gospel ³¹  from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave ³²  – a ³³  faithful minister of Christ on our ³⁴  behalf – 1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

[12:3]  ¹ tn This could be a reference to the Jewish people (so CEV) or to the Jewish leaders (so NLT). The statement in v. 4 that Herod intended to bring Peter “out to the people” (i.e., for a public trial) may suggest the former is somewhat more likely.

[12:3]  ² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[12:14]  ³ tn Heb “and this day will be.”

[12:14]  ⁴ tn The expression “will be for a memorial” means “will become a memorial.”

[12:14]  ⁵ tn The verb וְחַגֹּתֶם (vÿkhaggotem), a perfect tense with the vav (ו) consecutive to continue the instruction, is followed by the cognate accusative חַג (khag), for emphasis. As the wording implies and the later legislation required, this would involve a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Yahweh.

[12:14]  ⁶ tn Two expressions show that this celebration was to be kept perpetually: the line has “for your generations, [as] a statute forever.” “Generations” means successive generations (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 94). עוֹלָם (’olam) means “ever, forever, perpetual” – no end in sight.

[12:15]  ⁷ tn This expression is an adverbial accusative of time. The feast was to last from the 15th to the 21st of the month.

[12:15]  ⁸ tn Or “you will eat.” The statement stresses their obligation – they must eat unleavened bread and avoid all leaven.

[12:15]  ⁹ tn The etymology of מַצּוֹת (matsot, “unleavened bread,” i.e., “bread made without yeast”) is uncertain. Suggested connections to known verbs include “to squeeze, press,” “to depart, go out,” “to ransom,” or to an Egyptian word “food, cake, evening meal.” For a more detailed study of “unleavened bread” and related matters such as “yeast” or “leaven,” see A. P. Ross, NIDOTTE 4:448-53.

[12:15]  ¹⁰ tn The particle serves to emphasize, not restrict here (B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 183, n. 15).

[12:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “every eater of leavened bread.” The participial phrase stands at the beginning of the clause as a casus pendens, that is, it stands grammatically separate from the sentence. It names a condition, the contingent occurrences of which involve a further consequence (GKC 361 §116.w).

[12:15]  ¹² tn The verb וְנִכְרְתָה (vÿnikhrÿtah) is the Niphal perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive; it is a common formula in the Law for divine punishment. Here, in sequence to the idea that someone might eat bread made with yeast, the result would be that “that soul [the verb is feminine] will be cut off.” The verb is the equivalent of the imperfect tense due to the consecutive; a translation with a nuance of the imperfect of possibility (“may be cut off”) fits better perhaps than a specific future. There is the real danger of being cut off, for while the punishment might include excommunication from the community, the greater danger was in the possibility of divine intervention to root out the evildoer (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 94). Gesenius lists this as the use of a perfect with a vav consecutive after a participle (a casus pendens) to introduce the apodosis (GKC 337 §112.mm).

[12:18]  ¹³ tn “month” has been supplied.

[12:19]  ¹⁴ tn “Seven days” is an adverbial accusative of time (see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 12, §56).

[12:19]  ¹⁵ tn The term is נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), often translated “soul.” It refers to the whole person, the soul within the body. The noun is feminine, agreeing with the feminine verb “be cut off.”

[12:19]  ¹⁶ tn Or “alien”; or “stranger.”

[13:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Seven days.”

[13:6]  ¹⁸ tn The imperfect tense functions with the nuance of instruction or injunction. It could also be given an obligatory nuance: “you must eat” or “you are to eat.” Some versions have simply made it an imperative.

[13:6]  ¹⁹ tn The phrase “there is to be” has been supplied.

[13:7]  ²⁰ tn The imperfect has the nuance of instruction or injunction again, but it could also be given an obligatory nuance.

[13:7]  ²¹ tn The construction is an adverbial accusative of time, answering how long the routine should be followed (see GKC 374 §118.k).

[13:7]  ²² tn Or “visible to you” (B. Jacob, Exodus, 366).

[23:15]  ²³ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[23:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in it.”

[23:15]  ²⁵ tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; the nuance of permission works well here – no one is permitted to appear before God empty (Heb “and they will not appear before me empty”).

[34:18]  ²⁶ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[34:18]  ²⁷ tn The words “do this” have been supplied.

[34:1]  ²⁸ sn The restoration of the faltering community continues in this chapter. First, Moses is instructed to make new tablets and take them to the mountain (1-4). Then, through the promised theophany God proclaims his moral character (5-8). Moses responds with the reiteration of the intercession (8), and God responds with the renewal of the covenant (10-28). To put these into expository form, as principles, the chapter would run as follows: I. God provides for spiritual renewal (1-4), II. God reminds people of his moral standard (5-9), III. God renews his covenant promises and stipulations (10-28).

[34:1]  ²⁹ tn The imperative is followed by the preposition with a suffix expressing the ethical dative; it strengthens the instruction for Moses. Interestingly, the verb “cut out, chisel, hew,” is the same verb from which the word for a “graven image” is derived – פָּסַל (pasal).

[34:1]  ³⁰ tn The perfect tense with vav consecutive makes the value of this verb equal to an imperfect tense, probably a simple future here.

[1:7]  ³¹ tn Or “learned it.” The Greek text simply has “you learned” without the reference to “the gospel,” but “the gospel” is supplied to clarify the sense of the clause. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[1:7]  ³² tn The Greek word translated “fellow slave” is σύνδουλος (sundoulo"); the σύν- prefix here denotes association. Though δοῦλος is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:7]  ³³ tn The Greek text has “who (ὅς, Jos) is a faithful minister.” The above translation conveys the antecedent of the relative pronoun quite well and avoids the redundancy with the following substantival participle of v. 8, namely, “who told” (ὁ δηλώσας, Jo dhlwsa").

[1:7]  ³⁴ tc ‡ Judging by the superior witnesses for the first person pronoun ἡμῶν (Jhmwn, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א* A B D* F G 326* 1505 al) vs. the second person pronoun ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “you”; found in א² C D¹ Ψ 075 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co), ἡμῶν should be regarded as original. Although it is possible that ἡμῶν was an early alteration of ὑμῶν (either unintentionally, as dittography, since it comes seventeen letters after the previous ἡμῶν; or intentionally, to conform to the surrounding first person pronouns), this supposition is difficult to maintain in light of the varied and valuable witnesses for this reading. Further, the second person is both embedded in the verb ἐμάθετε (emaqete) and is explicit in v. 8 (ὑμῶν). Hence, the motivation to change to the first person pronoun is counterbalanced by such evidence. The second person pronoun may have been introduced unintentionally via homoioarcton with the ὑπέρ (Juper) that immediately precedes it. As well, the second person reading is somewhat harder for it seems to address Epaphras’ role only in relation to Paul and his colleagues, rather than in relation to the Colossians. Nevertheless, the decision must be based ultimately on external evidence (because the internal evidence can be variously interpreted), and this strongly supports ἡμῶν.