Acts 7:30

7:30 “After ¹  forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert ²  of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. ³ 

Acts 7:35

7:35 This same ⁴  Moses they had rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ ⁵  God sent as both ruler and deliverer ⁶  through the hand of the angel ⁷  who appeared to him in the bush.

Acts 7:53

7:53 You ⁸  received the law by decrees given by angels, ⁹  but you did not obey ¹⁰  it.” ¹¹ 

Isaiah 63:9

63:9 Through all that they suffered, he suffered too. ¹² 

The messenger sent from his very presence ¹³  delivered them.

In his love and mercy he protected ¹⁴  them;

he lifted them up and carried them throughout ancient times. ¹⁵ 

Galatians 3:19

3:19 Why then was the law given? ¹⁶  It was added ¹⁷  because of transgressions, ¹⁸  until the arrival of the descendant ¹⁹  to whom the promise had been made. It was administered ²⁰  through angels by an intermediary. ²¹ 

Hebrews 2:2

2:2 For if the message spoken through angels ²²  proved to be so firm that every violation ²³  or disobedience received its just penalty,

[7:30]  ¹ tn Grk “And after.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and contemporary English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:30]  ² tn Or “wilderness.”

[7:30]  ³ sn An allusion to Exod 3:2.

[7:35]  ⁴ sn This same. The reference to “this one” occurs five times in this speech. It is the way the other speeches in Acts refer to Jesus (e.g., Acts 2:23).

[7:35]  ⁵ sn A quotation from Exod 2:14 (see Acts 7:27). God saw Moses very differently than the people of the nation did. The reference to a ruler and a judge suggests that Stephen set up a comparison between Moses and Jesus, but he never finished his speech to make the point. The reader of Acts, however, knowing the other sermons in the book, recognizes that the rejection of Jesus is the counterpoint.

[7:35]  ⁶ tn Or “liberator.” The meaning “liberator” for λυτρωτήν (lutrwthn) is given in L&N 37.129: “a person who liberates or releases others.”

[7:35]  ⁷ tn Or simply “through the angel.” Here the “hand” could be understood as a figure for the person or the power of the angel himself. The remark about the angel appearing fits the first century Jewish view that God appears to no one (John 1:14-18; Gal 3:19; Deut 33:2 LXX).

[7:53]  ⁸ tn Grk “whose betrayers and murderers you have now become, who received the law” The two consecutive relative clauses make for awkward English style, so the second was begun as a new sentence with the pronoun “You” supplied in place of the Greek relative pronoun to make a complete sentence in English.

[7:53]  ⁹ tn Traditionally, “as ordained by angels,” but εἰς (eis) with the accusative here should be understood as instrumental (a substitute for ἐν [en]); so BDAG 291 s.v. εἰς 9, BDF §206. Thus the phrase literally means “received the law by the decrees [orders] of angels” with the genitive understood as a subjective genitive, that is, the angels gave the decrees.

[7:53]  ¹⁰ tn The Greek word φυλάσσω (fulassw, traditionally translated “keep”) in this context connotes preservation of and devotion to an object as well as obedience.

[7:53]  ¹¹ tn Or “did not obey it.”

[63:9]  ¹² tn Heb “in all their distress, there was distress to him” (reading לוֹ [lo] with the margin/Qere).

[63:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “the messenger [or “angel”] of his face”; NIV “the angel of his presence.”

[63:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “redeemed” (KJV, NAB, NIV), or “delivered.”

[63:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “all the days of antiquity”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “days of old.”

[3:19]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “Why then the law?”

[3:19]  ¹⁷ tc For προσετέθη (proseteqh) several Western mss have ἐτέθη (eteqh, “it was established”; so D* F G it Ir^lat Ambst Spec). The net effect of this reading, in conjunction with the largely Western reading of πράξεων (praxewn) for παραβάσεων (parabasewn), seems to be a very positive assessment of the law. But there are compelling reasons for rejecting this reading: (1) externally, it is provincial and relatively late; (2) internally: (a) transcriptionally, there seems to be a much higher transcriptional probability that a scribe would try to smooth over Paul’s harsh saying here about the law than vice versa; (b) intrinsically: [1] Paul has already argued that the law came after the promise (vv. 15-18), indicating, more than likely, its temporary nature; [2] the verb “was added” in v. 19 (προσετέθη) is different from the verb in v. 15 (ἐπιδιατάσσεται, epidiatassetai); virtually all exegetes recognize this as an intentional linguistic shift on Paul’s part in order not to contradict his statement in v. 15; [3] the temper of 3:1–4:7 is decidedly against a positive statement about the Torah’s role in Heilsgeschichte.

[3:19]  ¹⁸ tc παραδόσεων (paradosewn; “traditions, commandments”) is read by D*, while the vast majority of witnesses read παραβάσεων (parabasewn, “transgressions”). D’s reading makes little sense in this context. πράξεων (praxewn, “of deeds”) replaces παραβάσεων in Ì⁴⁶ F G it Ir^lat Ambst Spec. The wording is best taken as going with νόμος (nomo"; “Why then the law of deeds?”), as is evident by the consistent punctuation in the later witnesses. But such an expression is unpauline and superfluous; it was almost certainly added by some early scribe(s) to soften the blow of Paul’s statement.

[3:19]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “the seed.” See the note on the first occurrence of the word “descendant” in 3:16.

[3:19]  ²⁰ tn Or “was ordered.” L&N 31.22 has “was put into effect” here.

[3:19]  ²¹ tn Many modern translations (NASB, NIV, NRSV) render this word (μεσίτης, mesith"; here and in v. 20) as “mediator,” but this conveys a wrong impression in contemporary English. If this is referring to Moses, he certainly did not “mediate” between God and Israel but was an intermediary on God’s behalf. Moses was not a mediator, for example, who worked for compromise between opposing parties. He instead was God’s representative to his people who enabled them to have a relationship, but entirely on God’s terms.

[2:2]  ²² sn The message spoken through angels refers to the OT law, which according to Jewish tradition was mediated to Moses through angels (cf. Deut 33:2; Ps 68:17-18; Acts 7:38, 53; Gal 3:19; and Jub. 1:27, 29; Josephus, Ant. 15.5.3 [15.136]).

[2:2]  ²³ tn Grk “through angels became valid and every violation.”