Ezekiel 28:2

28:2 “Son of man, say to the prince ¹  of Tyre, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Your heart is proud ²  and you said, “I am a god; ³ 

I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –

yet you are a man and not a god,

though you think you are godlike. ⁴ 

Ezekiel 29:3

29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against ⁵  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

the great monster ⁶  lying in the midst of its waterways,

who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ⁷ 

Ezekiel 38:11

38:11 You will say, “I will invade ⁸  a land of unwalled towns; I will advance against ⁹  those living quietly in security – all of them living without walls and barred gates –

Psalms 50:21

50:21 When you did these things, I was silent, ¹⁰ 

so you thought I was exactly like you. ¹¹ 

But now I will condemn ¹²  you

and state my case against you! ¹³ 

Isaiah 28:15

28:15 For you say,

“We have made a treaty with death,

with Sheol ¹⁴  we have made an agreement. ¹⁵ 

When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by ¹⁶ 

it will not reach us.

For we have made a lie our refuge,

we have hidden ourselves in a deceitful word.” ¹⁷ 

Malachi 3:13-14

Resistance to the Lord through Self-sufficiency

3:13 “You have criticized me sharply,” ¹⁸  says the Lord, “but you ask, ‘How have we criticized you?’ 3:14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped ¹⁹  by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? ²⁰ 

Mark 3:22-30

3:22 The experts in the law ²¹  who came down from Jerusalem ²²  said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” ²³  and, “By the ruler ²⁴  of demons he casts out demons.” 3:23 So ²⁵  he called them and spoke to them in parables: ²⁶  “How can Satan cast out Satan? 3:24 If ²⁷  a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom will not be able to stand. 3:25 If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 3:26 And if Satan rises against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand and his end has come. 3:27 But no one is able to enter a strong man’s ²⁸  house and steal his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can thoroughly plunder his house. ²⁹  3:28 I tell you the truth, ³⁰  people will be forgiven for all sins, even all the blasphemies they utter. ³¹  3:29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin” ³²  3:30 (because they said, “He has an unclean spirit” ³³ ).

James 3:6

3:6 And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents ³⁴  the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It ³⁵  pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell. ³⁶ 

[28:2]  ¹ tn Or “ruler” (NIV, NCV).

[28:2]  ² tn Heb “lifted up.”

[28:2]  ³ tn Or “I am divine.”

[28:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you made your heart (mind) like the heart (mind) of gods.”

[29:3]  ⁵ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[29:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew mss read correctly “the serpent.” The Hebrew term appears to refer to a serpent in Exod 7:9-10, 12; Deut 32:33; and Ps 91:13. It also refers to large creatures that inhabit the sea (Gen 1:21; Ps 148:7). In several passages it is associated with the sea or with the multiheaded sea monster Leviathan (Job 7:12; Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9). Because of the Egyptian setting of this prophecy and the reference to the creature’s scales (v. 4), many understand a crocodile to be the referent here (e.g., NCV “a great crocodile”; TEV “you monster crocodile”; CEV “a giant crocodile”).

[29:3]  ⁷ sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.

[38:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “go up against.”

[38:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “come (to).”

[50:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “these things you did and I was silent.” Some interpret the second clause (“and I was silent”) as a rhetorical question expecting a negative answer, “[When you do these things], should I keep silent?” (cf. NEB). See GKC 335 §112.cc.

[50:21]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew infinitive construct (הֱיוֹת, heyot) appears to function like the infinitive absolute here, adding emphasis to the following finite verbal form (אֶהְיֶה, ’ehyeh). See GKC 339-40 §113.a. Some prefer to emend הֱיוֹת (heyot) to the infinitive absolute form הָיוֹ (hayo).

[50:21]  ¹² tn Or “rebuke” (see v. 8).

[50:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “and I will set in order [my case against you] to your eyes.” The cohortative form expresses the Lord’s resolve to accuse and judge the wicked.

[28:15]  ¹⁴ sn Sheol is the underworld, land of the dead, according to the OT world view.

[28:15]  ¹⁵ tn Elsewhere the noun חֹזֶה (khozeh) refers to a prophet who sees visions. In v. 18 the related term חָזוּת (khazut, “vision”) is used. The parallelism in both verses (note “treaty”) seems to demand a meaning “agreement” for both nouns. Perhaps חֹזֶה and חזוּת are used in a metonymic sense in vv. 15 and 18. Another option is to propose a homonymic root. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:514, and HALOT 301 s.v. II חֹזֶה.

[28:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the overwhelming scourge, when it passes by” (NRSV similar).

[28:15]  ¹⁷ sn “Lie” and “deceitful word” would not be the terms used by the people. They would likely use the words “promise” and “reliable word,” but the prophet substitutes “lie” and “deceitful word” to emphasize that this treaty with death will really prove to be disappointing.

[3:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “your words are hard [or “strong”] against me”; cf. NIV “said harsh things against me”; TEV, NLT “said terrible things about me.”

[3:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “What [is the] profit”; NIV “What did we gain.”

[3:14]  ²⁰ sn The people’s public display of self-effacing piety has gone unrewarded by the Lord. The reason, of course, is that it was blatantly hypocritical.

[3:22]  ²¹ tn Or “The scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.

[3:22]  ²² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:22]  ²³ tn Grk “He has Beelzebul.”

[3:22]  ²⁴ tn Or “prince.”

[3:23]  ²⁵ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.

[3:23]  ²⁶ sn Jesus spoke two parables to demonstrate the absurdity of the thinking of the religious leaders who maintained that he was in league with Satan and that he actually derived his power from the devil. The first parable (vv. 23-26) teaches that if Jesus cast out demons by the ruler of the demons, then in reality Satan is fighting against himself, with the result that his kingdom has come to an end. The second parable (v. 28) about tying up a strong man proves that Jesus does not need to align himself with the devil because Jesus is more powerful. Jesus defeated Satan at his temptation (1:12-13) and by his exorcisms he clearly demonstrated himself to be stronger than the devil. The passage reveals the desperate condition of the religious leaders, who in their hatred for Jesus end up attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan (a position for which they will be held accountable, 3:29-30). For an explanation of what a parable is, see the note on parables in 4:2.

[3:24]  ²⁷ sn The three conditional statements in vv. 24-26 express the logical result of the assumption that Jesus heals by Satan’s power, expressed by the religious leaders. The point is clear: If the leaders are correct, then Satan’s kingdom will not stand, so the suggestion makes no sense. Satan would not seek to heal.

[3:27]  ²⁸ sn The strong man here pictures Satan.

[3:27]  ²⁹ sn Some see the imagery here as similar to Eph 4:7-10, although no opponents are explicitly named in that passage. Jesus has the victory over Satan. Jesus’ acts of healing mean that the war is being won and the kingdom is coming.

[3:28]  ³⁰ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[3:28]  ³¹ tn Grk “all the sins and blasphemies they may speak will be forgiven the sons of men.”

[3:29]  ³² sn Is guilty of an eternal sin. This passage has troubled many people, who have wondered whether or not they have committed this eternal sin. Three things must be kept in mind: (1) the nature of the sin is to ascribe what is the obvious work of the Holy Spirit (e.g., releasing people from Satan’s power) to Satan himself; (2) it is not simply a momentary doubt or sinful attitude, but is indeed a settled condition which opposes the Spirit’s work, as typified by the religious leaders who opposed Jesus; and (3) a person who is concerned about it has probably never committed this sin, for those who commit it here (i.e., the religious leaders) are not in the least concerned about Jesus’ warning. On this last point see W. W. Wessel, “Mark,” EBC 8:645-46.

[3:30]  ³³ sn Unclean spirit refers to an evil spirit.

[3:6]  ³⁴ tn Grk “makes itself,” “is made.”

[3:6]  ³⁵ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[3:6]  ³⁶ sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36).