Acts 3:25-26

3:25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, ¹  saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants ²  all the nations ³  of the earth will be blessed.’ ⁴  3:26 God raised up ⁵  his servant and sent him first to you, to bless you by turning ⁶  each one of you from your iniquities.” ⁷ 

Genesis 17:7-8

17:7 I will confirm ⁸  my covenant as a perpetual ⁹  covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ¹⁰  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ¹¹  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ¹²  possession. I will be their God.”

Psalms 115:14-15

115:14 May he increase your numbers,

yours and your children’s! ¹³ 

115:15 May you be blessed by the Lord,

the creator ¹⁴  of heaven and earth!

Jeremiah 32:39-40

32:39 I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for ¹⁵  their own good and the good of the children who descend from them. 32:40 I will make a lasting covenant ¹⁶  with them that I will never stop doing good to them. ¹⁷  I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that ¹⁸  they will never again turn ¹⁹  away from me.

Ezekiel 37:25

37:25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your fathers lived; they will live in it – they and their children and their grandchildren forever. David my servant will be prince over them forever.

Joel 2:28

An Outpouring of the Spirit

2:28 (3:1) ²⁰  After all of this ²¹ 

I will pour out my Spirit ²²  on all kinds of people. ²³ 

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your elderly will have revelatory dreams; ²⁴ 

your young men will see prophetic visions.

Romans 11:16-17

11:16 If the first portion ²⁵  of the dough offered is holy, then the whole batch is holy, and if the root is holy, so too are the branches. ²⁶ 

11:17 Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and participated in ²⁷  the richness of the olive root,

Romans 11:1

Israel’s Rejection not Complete nor Final

11:1 So I ask, God has not rejected his people, has he? Absolutely not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

Colossians 1:14

1:14 in whom we have redemption, ²⁸  the forgiveness of sins.

[3:25]  ¹ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[3:25]  ² tn Or “in your offspring”; Grk “in your seed.”

[3:25]  ³ tn Or “families.” The Greek word πατριά (patria) can indicate persons of succeeding generations who are related by birth (“lineage,” “family”) but it can also indicate a relatively large unit of people who make up a sociopolitical group and who share a presumed biological descent. In many contexts πατριά is very similar to ἔθνος (eqnos) and λαός (laos). In light of the context of the OT quotation, it is better to translate πατριά as “nations” here.

[3:25]  ⁴ sn A quotation from Gen 22:18.

[3:26]  ⁵ tn Grk “God raising up his servant, sent him.” The participle ἀναστήσας (anasthsa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. Some translations (e.g., NIV, NRSV) render this participle as temporal (“when God raised up his servant”).

[3:26]  ⁶ sn The picture of turning is again seen as the appropriate response to the message. See v. 19 above. In v. 19 it was “turning to,” here it is “turning away from.” The direction of the two metaphors is important.

[3:26]  ⁷ tn For the translation of plural πονηρία (ponhria) as “iniquities,” see G. Harder, TDNT 6:565. The plural is important, since for Luke turning to Jesus means turning away from sins, not just the sin of rejecting Jesus.

[17:7]  ⁸ tn The verb קוּם (qum, “to arise, to stand up”) in the Hiphil verbal stem means “to confirm, to give effect to, to carry out” (i.e., a covenant or oath; see BDB 878-79 s.v. קוּם).

[17:7]  ⁹ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[17:8]  ¹¹ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

[17:8]  ¹² tn Or “as an eternal.”

[115:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “may he add to you, to you and your sons.” The prefixed verbal form is jussive, indicating this is a prayer.

[115:15]  ¹⁴ tn Or “maker.”

[32:39]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I will give to them one heart and one way to [= in order that they may] fear me all the days for good to them.” The phrase “one heart” refers both to unanimity of will and accord (cf. 1 Chr 12:38 [12:39 HT]; 2 Chr 30:12) and to singleness of purpose or intent (cf. Ezek 11:19 and see BDB 525 s.v. ֵלב 4 where reference is made to “inclinations, resolutions, and determinations of the will”). The phrase “one way” refers to one way of life or conduct (cf. BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a where reference is made to moral action and character), a way of life that is further qualified by the goal of showing “fear, reverence, respect” for the Lord. The Hebrew sentence has been broken up to avoid a long complex sentence in English which is contrary to contemporary English style. However, an attempt has been made to preserve all the connections of the original.

[32:40]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “an everlasting covenant.” For the rationale for the rendering “agreement” and the nature of the biblical covenants see the study note on 11:2.

[32:40]  ¹⁷ tn Or “stop being gracious to them” or “stop blessing them with good”; Heb “turn back from them to do good to them.”

[32:40]  ¹⁸ tn Or “I will make them want to fear and respect me so much that”; Heb “I will put the fear of me in their hearts.” However, as has been noted several times, “heart” in Hebrew is more the center of the volition (and intellect) than the center of emotions as it is in English. Both translations are intended to reflect the difference in psychology.

[32:40]  ¹⁹ tn The words “never again” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied not only by this translation but by a number of others.

[2:28]  ²⁰ sn Beginning with 2:28, the verse numbers through 3:21 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 2:28 ET = 3:1 HT, 2:29 ET = 3:2 HT, 2:30 ET = 3:3 HT, 2:31 ET = 3:4 HT, 2:32 ET = 3:5 HT, 3:1 ET = 4:1 HT, etc., through 3:21 ET = 4:21 HT. Thus Joel in the Hebrew Bible has 4 chapters, the 5 verses of ch. 3 being included at the end of ch. 2 in the English Bible.

[2:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “Now it will be after this.”

[2:28]  ²² sn This passage plays a key role in the apostolic explanation of the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2:17-21. Peter introduces his quotation of this passage with “this is that spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16; cf. the similar pesher formula used at Qumran). The New Testament experience at Pentecost is thus seen in some sense as a fulfillment of this Old Testament passage, even though that experience did not exhaustively fulfill Joel’s words. Some portions of Joel’s prophecy have no precise counterpart in that experience. For example, there is nothing in the experience recorded in Acts 2 that exactly corresponds to the earthly and heavenly signs described in Joel 3:3-4. But inasmuch as the messianic age had already begun and the “last days” had already commenced with the coming of the Messiah (cf. Heb 1:1-2), Peter was able to point to Joel 3:1-5 as a text that was relevant to the advent of Jesus and the bestowal of the Spirit. The equative language that Peter employs (“this is that”) stresses an incipient fulfillment of the Joel passage without precluding or minimizing a yet future and more exhaustive fulfillment in events associated with the return of Christ.

[2:28]  ²³ tn Heb “all flesh.” As a term for humanity, “flesh” suggests the weakness and fragility of human beings as opposed to God who is “spirit.” The word “all” refers not to all human beings without exception (cf. NAB, NASB “all mankind”; NLT “all people”), but to all classes of human beings without distinction (cf. NCV).

[2:28]  ²⁴ tn Heb “your old men will dream dreams.”

[11:16]  ²⁵ tn Grk “firstfruits,” a term for the first part of something that has been set aside and offered to God before the remainder can be used.

[11:16]  ²⁶ sn Most interpreters see Paul as making use of a long-standing metaphor of the olive tree (the root…the branches) as a symbol for Israel. See, in this regard, Jer 11:16, 19. A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology, 121-24, cites rabbinic use of the figure of the olive tree, and goes so far as to argue that Rom 11:17-24 is a midrash on Jer 11:16-19.

[11:17]  ²⁷ tn Grk “became a participant of.”

[1:14]  ²⁸ tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464 al) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: {א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 Ï latt co as well as several other versions and fathers}. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.