Acts 3:25

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 

Acts 10:17

10:17 Now while Peter was puzzling over ⁵  what the vision he had seen could signify, the men sent by Cornelius had learned where Simon’s house was ⁶  and approached ⁷  the gate.

Acts 25:23

Paul Before King Agrippa and Bernice

25:23 So the next day Agrippa ⁸  and Bernice came with great pomp ⁹  and entered the audience hall, ¹⁰  along with the senior military officers ¹¹  and the prominent men of the city. When Festus ¹²  gave the order, ¹³  Paul was brought in.

[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.

[10:17]  ⁵ tn Or “was greatly confused over.” The term means to be perplexed or at a loss (BDAG 235 s.v. διαπορέω).

[10:17]  ⁶ tn Grk “having learned.” The participle διερωτήσαντες (dierwthsante") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[10:17]  ⁷ tn BDAG 418 s.v. ἐφίστημι 1 has “ἐπί τι approach or stand by someth. (Sir 41:24) Ac 10:17.”

[25:23]  ⁹ sn See the note on King Agrippa in 25:13.

[25:23]  ¹⁰ tn Or “great pageantry” (BDAG 1049 s.v. φαντασία; the term is a NT hapax legomenon).

[25:23]  ¹¹ tn Or “auditorium.” “Auditorium” may suggest to the modern English reader a theater where performances are held. Here it is the large hall where a king or governor would hold audiences. Paul once spoke of himself as a “spectacle” to the world (1 Cor 4:8-13).

[25:23]  ¹² tn Grk “the chiliarchs” (officers in command of a thousand soldiers). In Greek the term χιλίαρχος (ciliarco") literally described the “commander of a thousand,” but it was used as the standard translation for the Latin tribunus militum or tribunus militare, the military tribune who commanded a cohort of 600 men.

[25:23]  ¹³ sn See the note on Porcius Festus in 24:27.

[25:23]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “and Festus ordering, Paul was brought in.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was begun in the translation, and καί (kai) has not been translated. The participle κελεύσαντος (keleusanto") has been taken temporally.