Deuteronomy 28:48

28:48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty ¹  you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. They ²  will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you.

Isaiah 47:6

47:6 I was angry at my people;

I defiled my special possession

and handed them over to you.

You showed them no mercy; ³ 

you even placed a very heavy burden on old people. ⁴ 

Isaiah 58:6

58:6 No, this is the kind of fast I want. ⁵ 

I want you ⁶  to remove the sinful chains,

to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke,

to set free the oppressed, ⁷ 

and to break every burdensome yoke.

Matthew 11:9

11:9 What did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more ⁸  than a prophet.

Matthew 11:30

11:30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”

Acts 15:10

15:10 So now why are you putting God to the test ⁹  by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke ¹⁰  that neither our ancestors ¹¹  nor we have been able to bear?

Acts 15:1

The Jerusalem Council

15:1 Now some men came down from Judea ¹²  and began to teach the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised ¹³  according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Colossians 1:21-22

Paul’s Goal in Ministry

1:21 And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your ¹⁴  minds ¹⁵  as expressed through ¹⁶  your evil deeds, 1:22 but now he has reconciled you ¹⁷  by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him –

Galatians 5:1

Freedom of the Believer

5:1 For freedom ¹⁸  Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke ¹⁹  of slavery.

[28:48]  ¹ tn Heb “lack of everything.”

[28:48]  ² tn Heb “he” (also later in this verse). The pronoun is a collective singular referring to the enemies (cf. CEV, NLT). Many translations understand the singular pronoun to refer to the Lord (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV).

[47:6]  ³ tn Or “compassion.”

[47:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “on the old you made very heavy your yoke.”

[58:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “Is this not a fast I choose?” “No” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[58:6]  ⁶ tn The words “I want you” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[58:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “crushed.”

[11:9]  ⁸ tn John the Baptist is “more” because he introduces the one (Jesus) who brings the new era. The term is neuter, but may be understood as masculine in this context (BDAG 806 s.v. περισσότερος b).

[15:10]  ⁹ tn According to BDAG 793 s.v. πειράζω 2.c, “In Ac 15:10 the πειράζειν τὸν θεόν consists in the fact that after God’s will has been clearly made known through granting of the Spirit to the Gentiles (v. 8), some doubt and make trial to see whether God’s will really becomes operative.” All testing of God in Luke is negative: Luke 4:2; 11:16.

[15:10]  ¹⁰ sn A yoke is a wooden bar or frame that joins two animals like oxen or horses so that they can pull a wagon, plow, etc. together. Here it is used figuratively of the restriction that some in the early church wanted to place on Gentile converts to Christianity of observing the law of Moses and having males circumcised. The yoke is a decidedly negative image: Matt 23:4, but cf. Matt 11:29-30.

[15:10]  ¹¹ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[15:1]  ¹² sn That is, they came down from Judea to Antioch in Syria.

[15:1]  ¹³ tc Codex Bezae (D) and a few other witnesses have “and walk” here (i.e., instead of τῷ ἔθει τῷ Μωϋσέως [tw eqei tw Mwu>sew"] they read καὶ τῷ ἔθει τῷ Μωϋσέως περιπατῆτε [kai tw eqei tw Mwu>sew" peripathte]). This is a decidedly stronger focus on obedience to the Law. As well, D expands vv. 1-5 in various places with the overall effect of being “more sympathetic to the local tradition of the church at Jerusalem” while the Alexandrian witnesses are more sympathetic to Paul (TCGNT 377). Codex D is well known for having a significantly longer text in Acts, but modern scholarship is generally of the opinion that the text of D expands on the original wording of Acts, with a theological viewpoint that especially puts Peter in a more authoritarian light. The expansion in these five verses is in keeping with that motif even though Peter is not explicitly in view.

[1:21]  ¹⁴ tn The article τῇ (th) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[1:21]  ¹⁵ tn Although διανοία (dianoia) is singular in Greek, the previous plural noun ἐχθρούς (ecqrous) indicates that all those from Colossae are in view here.

[1:21]  ¹⁶ tn The dative ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς (en toi" ergoi" toi" ponhroi") is taken as means, indicating the avenue through which hostility in the mind is revealed and made known.

[1:22]  ¹⁷ tc Some of the better representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts have a passive verb here instead of the active ἀποκατήλλαξεν (apokathllaxen, “he has reconciled”): ἀποκατηλλάγητε (apokathllaghte) in (Ì⁴⁶) B, ἀποκατήλλακται [sic] (apokathllaktai) in 33, and ἀποκαταλλαγέντες (apokatallagente") in D* F G. Yet the active verb is strongly supported by א A C D² Ψ 048 075 [0278] 1739 1881 Ï lat sy. Internally, the passive creates an anacoluthon in that it looks back to the accusative ὑμᾶς (Juma", “you”) of v. 21 and leaves the following παραστῆσαι (parasthsai) dangling (“you were reconciled…to present you”). The passive reading is certainly the harder reading. As such, it may well explain the rise of the other readings. At the same time, it is possible that the passive was produced by scribes who wanted some symmetry between the ποτε (pote, “at one time”) of v. 21 and the νυνὶ δέ (nuni de, “but now”) of v. 22: Since a passive periphrastic participle is used in v. 21, there may have a temptation to produce a corresponding passive form in v. 22, handling the ὑμᾶς of v. 21 by way of constructio ad sensum. Since παραστῆσαι occurs ten words later, it may not have been considered in this scribal modification. Further, the Western reading (ἀποκαταλλαγέντες) hardly seems to have arisen from ἀποκατηλλάγητε (contra TCGNT 555). As difficult as this decision is, the preferred reading is the active form because it is superior externally and seems to explain the rise of all forms of the passive readings.

[5:1]  ¹⁸ tn Translating the dative as “For freedom” shows the purpose for Christ setting us free; however, it is also possible to take the phrase in the sense of means or instrument (“with [or by] freedom”), referring to the freedom mentioned in 4:31 and implied throughout the letter.

[5:1]  ¹⁹ sn Here the yoke figuratively represents the burdensome nature of slavery.